Ragam

Finally we have discovered an excellent neighbourhood Indian restaurant in central London, and it's next door to the best neighbourhood Arab resto in central London! Ragam is a small, south Indian place where we had some of the loveliest service I have had all year: polite, discreet, attentive and modest. The food was really excellent: we had five vegetable side dishes with a couple of portions of rice, some garlic paratha (should read very garlic paratha on the menu), preceded by some hot and regular poppadoms. The attention to detail in the cooking was made plain with the three chutneys which were a long way off the usual, extremely sweet indstrial dips one gets in curry houses (don't get me wrong, I like those chutneys, but these were yummier). The beetroot and onion chutney was especially good. The vegetable dishes included some fluffy spinach with garlic, a hot/sweet/sour Keralan curry, a very good aubergine dish and a yummy chickpea curry. With glasses of tap water, refilled without asking, the bill with service was about £33. We'll be back.