Review of the Review of Bina Tandoori, Caversham

We really do recommend you read the Review here first > http://www.getreading.co.uk/entertainment/food_and_drink/s/2117717_restaurant_review_bina_tandoori#container

Yes, yes, yes we agree with David here - 23 years and still attracting "busy Tuesdays" is admirable and certainly Bina Tandoori "must be doing something right" surely?

Before we even sniff the food, we like to take a look at the place. Does it have an internet presence? Ooo it does, good ... oh ... attention to detail and finishing touches is not one of their stronger points >  http://www.binatandoori.com/news.htm  < when we are asked (increasingly more frequently these days) "what are your weaknesses?" we usually say "grilled blue cheese and pear" or "Rowntrees fruit gums". In Bina Tandoori's case we know exactly what they'd say - "we seem to go off half cocked".

"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim." and on and on. 

This is all simply meaningless place-holder drivel designed to be nonsensical - the text on their website almost alludes to "desiring to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain" although it is adjusted from the classical Cicero to in fact not translate, get the picture? Was all that meaningless twaddle? Well yes it is clearly meant to be. And if you go to their website (you really should as it is quite the saddest thing we have seen for a while) do click on the little (i) icon in the center of their headline image, you will raise your eyebrows to the heavens and "tut".

All this does is serve to blare at full volume "We published our website before it was ready to be published" and "We are good at starting things but just can't finish them off properly". Lets hope, after "23 years" the restaurant and menu is accomplished and completed.

Looking over their menu it is clear Bina are truly headed by "renaissance man" and the menu is crammed to bursting with dozens of dishes, reminiscent of a "catch-all takeaway menu", yet if you taste the Bina food, you'll know this is just not the case and indeed there are just a couple of delightful surprises - the Murgh Korma was entirely reminiscent of The Agra during our student days (late of Duke Street) although with a little less coconut but just as rich, creamy and loaded with chunks of tender chicken breast. Rice is rice at Bina and we'd suggest you only choose their rice if you need to fill yourself up quickly (we're carnivores and proud).

However we know you don't want to hear of our food experiences and we must stick to this being the "Review of the Review .."

Reviewers always insist on putting a little of themselves into their reviews to a greater or lesser extent and David is no exception. David tells us he is a prawn eating "vegetarian" and he has a partner, Simon. He likes popadums yet doesn't seem to have them with an assortment of pickles and relishes - hence we deduce he prefers them dry. David doesn't like it too spicy yet Simon likes it "a little hotter" and neither had much of an appetite that particular Tuesday (too many bacon sarnies from the van outside the office at coffee break we'd wager).

We do hear David as he tells us of his "pet hate" for being abandoned to look over the menu without even a glass of water although we're not about to take that bait as we're sure we talked about that somewhere else a short while ago. There must though be some happy medium between being instantly pestered to get sozzled and being abandoned for fifteen torturous minutes.

We readers don't get to hear what the "house" wines are and on the strength of that, we wouldn't touch them with someone else's barge-pole either, yet we applaud David and Simons decision to sample the Kingfisher - we assume it was cold and within it's sell-by-date (we're not told). If their DomP is really £135 a jug then we'd need to hear how they store it ... for that matter we'd like to see their cellar of £45 bottles of plonk too before we'd even consider tasting one.

Helpfully we readers are enticed with lists of all the usual ingredients and so readers will be relieved to not suffer any awkward surprises when you visit bina (and you must).

We advise you to ignore their website completely as it so obviously not meant to be published and instead concentrate on the food. David has made an interesting effort to review Bina Tandoori and even though his review has many gaps we do think you ought to maybe try it for yourselves. We remain puzzled as to why we needed to know the name of David's partner.

We'd be more positive if they paid more attention to detail and took that "all you can eat" off their menu and threw it off Caversham Bridge.

http://www.getreading.co.uk/entertainment/food_and_drink/s/2117717_restaurant_review_bina_tandoori#container