Pubali Takeway (or-leave- it-away)

Last Saturday night (1st May) my wife and I decided we would try the Pubali take-away in Allesley Park. I had noticed it when I had previously visited the already reviewed and recommended Allesley House Chinese Takeaway which is situated right next door to Pubali in the Westmede Centre and thought we would have to give it a try.

Funny thing was on a previous visit to the Allesley House I had heard a fellow patron say that the Allesley House was always full whilst the 'Indian' [Pubali] was always empty, I was about to find out why.....

First impressions upon entering were mixed, the greeting was friendly enough but the rest was not good, I almost turned around and left before I had been noticed by the guy behind the counter but once I had been spotted a hasty retreat was difficult, besides that I was very hungry and didn't want to have to travel a couple of miles to another takeaway. The decor was very dated, the place really needs a bit of money spending on it desperately in order to make it look clean and tidy if nothing else, the wallpaper was old and damaged, the seats although appearing generally clean had seen better days as had the counter, and the door that led from the front of house to the kitchen had to be continually closed too after someone had been through it as it didn't close on its own very well, this gave me a clear view into the kitchens on occasion, something I wish I hadn't seen when I caught a glimpse of it.

The kitchen appeared to have about 10 people in it, many of which were sitting around a table or counter in the middle eating and chatting, I hoped that they were not eating as they were cooking, but it looked to me like they were, hardly very hygienic I thought.

But by this time I had ordered and was waiting for the food to be brought out, I was in there about 10 minutes, having ordered at the counter on arrival. During my visit there were several people in an out collecting phone orders and there were a couple of delivery orders, which I think not enough takeaways in Coventry offer, after all it actually achieves a 2 fold effect, it increases your customer base as there may be people who do not want to venture out especially on dark nights and it also increases your geographic coverage. There is a real gap in the market for a quality takeaway to provide a similar quality delivery service, and people wouldn't mind paying a token fee if the food was delivered in a reasonable time and was still hot. You need to take your lead from the pizza guys.

Anyway on getting the food home I realised 2 things, the first was that they had got the order wrong and given me an additional Pilau rice, I asked for one and got two, I thought at the time it seemed more expensive than I had envisaged but didn't do the maths. The second thing I realised was that I wouldn't be going back. For me there is one absolute sin that cannot be forgiven from any kind of restaurant or takeaway however good the food may be and that is the unnecessary over use of food colouring. The food was bright red and orange, not just a bit red and Orange but blood red and brick orange, no way this could have been achieved naturally and it put me off straight away. Their takeaway menu says "We pride ourselves on our friendly service, quality, generous portions and the flavour of our home made sauces". Well let me tell you guys that the friendly service was just about friendly, the quality was not great, the generous portions were reasonably generous, the flavour was poor - even bland and the home made sauces were full of food colouring.

In Summary the owners really need to get back to basics, smarten the place up, review the menu, stop using food colouring, use quality ingredients from a quality source. I won't be going back in a hurry.

So the scores are as follows:

Service 3/5
Speed 3.5/5
Food 1.5/5
Price/Value 2/5
Front of house appearance 1/5
Accessibility 4/5

Overall: 15/30

So if you want to check them out you can find them at:

7 Westmede Centre,
Winsford Avenue
Allesley Park,
Coventry,
CV5 9AF

Tel: 024 76 677637

Web: www.pubali-indiantakeaway.co.uk