Food review: New indian restaurant Jai-Ho offers a great range of dishes (From Bucks Free Press)

Food review: New indian restaurant Jai-Ho offers a great range of dishes

3:20pm Friday 15th February 2013 in Freetime By Rebecca Cain

HEAR the words Jai Ho and I start singing the soundtrack to the 2008 Danny Boyle film, Slumdog Millionaire. But from now on I will instead think of the new Indian restaurant at Hazlemere crossroads.

It reopened under a new name on December 17 with Iqbal at its helm. He said they have been in the trade for 12 years and want to show off the food they have to offer.

Iqbal works with the chef to try and get the perfect dish for customers, he said, as he will ask the chef to adapt each dish if the customer asks for it- for example more or less garlic.

The menu is as you would expect from an Indian restaurant but also has a range of different dishes for example Chicken Olive (£7.95), which is a dish of chicken with olives, fennel and green spices. There is also a Lobster dish, which is cooked in a creamy sauce with cashew nuts, cumin seeds and coriander (£19.95).

For starters I went for the Mixed Starter (£5.50) which is shish kebab, an onion bhaji, chaat and fish pakora. The onion bhaji was brilliant- it was flat and delicately spiced. It was not greasy at all and had thick slices of onion.

The fish pakora is like a fritter and as well as fish had vegetables in it. I couldn't really taste the fish but it was still tasty.

The lamb shish kebab was as you would expect- meaty but not too fatty, and the chaat was really good. It had chicken, with an oniony sauce with pieces of cucumber in it. It was a good selection as it was very varied.

My boyfriend, Tom, went for the Monk Fish Tikka (£4.50), which was mildly spiced and served with salad. The fish tasted fresh and the subtle flavours were accompanied by the selection of sauces, which were Tamarind and a spicy sauce with tomato ketchup as its base.

Then onto the main course. Iqbal was keen for us to try a selection of dishes so we went for four smaller portions.

From the house specials we had Roshni Miric Massala (£8.95) and Sikandori Lamb (£8.95).

The Massala was a bit too spicy for me but Tom loved it. The flavour is all in the chilli- Bangladeshi hot chilli naga pickle. It had an aromatic fragrance in a tomato based sauce.

The Sikandori Lamb is marinated in herbs and spices and cooked with potatoes and massala sauce. The lamb is tender and has quite a strong flavour and it is served in quite big pieces. The sauce was thick and I would say had medium spice with garlicky overtones.

We also had the Green Salmon (£9.95), which is dipped with garlic and red mild chillies and topped with baby spinach. The salmon was served in sizeable chunks and was perfectly cooked as it flaked as you pushed your fork into it and was a welcome alternative to the other meaty dishes.

We also had the classic Chicken Tikka Massala (£7.25) to compare it with others I had eaten. It came up trumps.

The chicken was tender and well cooked and the sauce was mild and deliciously creamy. A real winner.

It was served with pilau rice (£2.25) and a lovely, fluffy Peshwari Naan (£2.25).

The restaurant was very quiet when we went, although it was a Monday night, but there were a few people picking up takeaways.

The food is really good so I hope it starts to pick up for them. The staff are more than happy to adapt dishes to your own taste and are on hand to recommend.

There is a great selection and the house specials really provide something different for curry lovers. For more information go to www.jai-ho.co.uk or call 01494 717351/ 717352.