Food review: The Curry House, Shrewsbury

The Curry House falls into a category called something like 'Ahead of the Chasing Pack', or 'Better Than Average', for it is both of those things.

Located in Shrewsbury's historic Mardol alongside a number of half-decent restaurants, it's stylishly designed, if not a little over-crowded on busy evenings.

Decorated soberly in a wood-panelled room, it's a little austere. The service, in contrast, is anything but. Warm and sociable, the front-of-house team were exceptional. King of Ponytail and Dude in Cap – two of the three people who were eating that evening – were regulars and spoke admiringly about numerous happy dinners, where the chef had created new, non-menu dishes for them. They twisted our arm endlessly, telling us just how good it was. And, to be fair to them, it was decent.

There were enough interesting choices for our party to remain on-piste and eat from the menu.

We started with the obligatory poppadoms, which were a little stale. Bad scenes. Semi-soft pops has never been a good look. They're like beige frisbys. The chutneys and relishes were average.

We shared a seafood platter to start, which was pretty good. Butterflied king prawns were served alongside pan fried fillets of sea bass, tandoori salmon and crunchy balls of crab. They'd thrown a couple of prawn crackers and pieces of seaweed on there too; I've no idea why. It added nothing to the dish. The prawns were luke warm but tasty, the salmon and sea bass really rather good. Our plate was emptied in short time – even the erroneous seaweed and prawn crackers were dispatched.

Mains were fine, fine, fine, rather than great, great, great. A reconstructed vegetarian dish thrilled King of the Ponytail, Dude In Cap didn't look up once as he made short work of his selection.

Queen of Puds – who made up our table of four – ordered a Mohdu minty lamb, which comprised tender chunks of lamb with mango and mint, cooked in a medium hot sauce. The lamb was moist and fell apart, the sauce was well judged.

My chicken passanda was delightfully creamy and mild. A yoghurt-ey, herb-ey sauce covered the tender chicken, which was enjoyed with pilau rice and a cheese-topped naan bread.

And that – alongside a couple of glasses of Cobra and a running supply of water – was that.

It was the sort of the venue about which you might say: 'it sounds alright' – and, yes, it is. But 'alright' isn't 'great'. 'Alright' isn't 'go and eat there now or you'll regret it for the rest of your life'. And our job is to retain a vestige of credibility. We can't go to every restaurant in the county and tell you everything is brilliant, fantastic and sensational – for then what will we do when we find places that really are. We have to be honest, we have to provide you with an opinion that carries some weight.

We should have stuck, rather than twisted. We should have known better than to play games with Punky The Penguin, about whom we'll hear more presently. We ought to have quit while we were ahead. Gah. But the Queen of Puds was with us. What can you do?

Desserts at The Curry House aren't great in my opinion. And this, we imagine, is something that even The Curry House accepts. On the menu page of its website – nice design, guys, good work – they are conspicuous by their absence. While you can read about 14 different types of rice – count 'em, they're all there – the number of featured desserts is somewhere between nought and zero.

And there's probably a reason for that. Because the desserts at The Curry House are awful. Bought-in, mass-produced, frozen and uninspiring, they have the same nutritional value as dust. They have the same artistic value as a finger painting by a drunk three-year-old – for Gawd's sake, keep those three-year-olds away from the gin. Desserts are, in short, woeful.

And yet there we sat: Queen of Puds, King of Pony Tails, Dude in Cap and I, musing over whether we ought to spoil what had been a perfectly decent curry by sullying ourselves with something tawdry. We were like the ought-to-know-better married footballer seduced by the charms of a girl sipping Bacardi Breezers.

"That one comes in a plastic toy," said Queen of Puds, noting an ice cream that was served, somewhat bizarrely, in what looked like a plastic penguin. It had a Mohican. I wanted one. In fact, I wanted two. I wanted one to eat there and then and one to take home and put on the mantlepiece. In the absence of any football trophies or awards for being any good at anything – except for metalwork, and that was 32 years ago – I was in the mood to celebrate my plastic penguin genius by awarding myself a trophy.

The penguin pudding wasn't made of penguins. And we were all very pleased about that. Nobody wants to follow a curry with a dessert of aquatic, flightless birds that feed on krill, fish and squid. We looked elsewhere. There was a dessert masquerading as a pina colada: Dude In Cap ordered it. There were balls of hot, fatty cake served with an unmelting ice cream, a sure sign that something's wrong. Queen Of Puds ordered it. There was a frozen block of Ferrero Rocher ice cream served with a frozen chocolate. Queen of Puds ordered that, too. And there was a mini Vienetta that had been giving a slightly different name, like Venezia. We refused to go there.

By now, the owner of The Curry House has had this thought: 'Why the hell is he banging on about our desserts when we served him and his mates a load of good food?' It's a fair point. And so I'll stop banging on about Punky and reflect on all things curry and we'll complete the circle.

Shropshire has more than its fair share of decent, independent restaurants and The Curry House is a pleasant venue offering delightful service and reasonably priced food.

It ranks 30th in Shrewsbury, which is probably a little unfair: it's worthy of a higher placing. It is affordable and makes more effort to be original than others. The kitchen clearly has ambition and the venue's regular gourmet nights give the chefs an opportunity to showcase their skills.

All they need to do now is work on the dessert menu. And then they'll be pretty much there. It is a better than average restaurant and there's no reason not to spend your money there.

By Andy Richardson