Far Pavilion

The review is written from the perspective of 4 of us eating out early evening on a Saturday.

LOCATION...

The restaurant is located on Durham Road which is a main road in Low Fell, and relatively close to Newcastle City Centre. Because it is on a main road, there is very little in the way of car parking close by, although we did manage to park quite safely in a narrow backstreet at the side of the restaurant.

THE RESTAURANT...

The restaurant looks pretty uninspiring and as one of our party commented, the dark sign on a dark unlit background helps nobody find it. The entrance is a narrow door and then we went straight into a functional corridor with stairs leading to the restaurant and immediately ahead of us the gents' toilets (the ladies' are up the stairs).

Once we got into the main restaurant my impression of the place improved considerably. We found ourselves in a large and airy room with stripped floors, tables dotted around the room complete with crisp white table cloths and napkins.

MENUS...

There are several different menus to chose from including a take away menu which seems to feature most if not all of the dishes on the regular menu. There is also a buffet night every Wednesday when you can eat all you want for £8.95 and Thursday and Sunday specials.

It being a Saturday night, we chose from the regular menu. A mwmber of staff took our drinks order and we ordered some poppadoms which came with some rather tasty accompaniments.

One of our party is a vegetarian, and the menu was quite good in that it stated that each dish could be made without meat, so he chose the vegetable Jalfrezi, and another of our party chose the Chicken Jalfrezi. Another of our party chose the chicken Tikka Masala, whilst I chose the chicken Rogan Josh. The dishes came served in metal dishes and with these were our choices of rice- one vegetable pilau, two plain and one mushroom. We also ordered plain naan bread which was a nice large bread and quite flavoursome for it being a plain naan. The rice dishes came in quite small white bowls, certainly not asmuch rice as I have had in Indian restaurants before but once we started eating, the quantity was certainly enough. My main meal was quite tasty and had plenty of tomatoes, but not very full of flavour and not spicy; I certainly wasn't reaching for the water all of the time to cool my mouth. The chicken tikka was also pronounced to be quite bland and to me it looked a bit too orange and so not especially appealing. Not only was this not the most tasty looking dish but when I had a try of the sauce on the Jalfrezi, it tasted just like my own dish. That said and on a positive note, the chicken pieces were plentiful tender and well cooked, and there was a good variety of vegetables in the vegetarian dish.

With poppadoms, 4 main dishes and 4 rice dishes as well as drinks including a couple of glasses of wine and soft drinks, the bill came to about £65, so not excessively expensive for a Saturday night meal.

OPENING HOURS...

Far Pavilion is open Monday to Sunday from 17:00 - 23:00 and Saturday till midnight

CONTACT...

Address: 409 Durham Road, Low Fell NE9 5AN

Telephone: 0191 4475787

VERDICT...

The restaurant is close to us and so was worth a visit as we didn't want to travel into town. It doesn't seem to get a lot of passing trade because of where it is situated but there was a steady stream of diners and the atmosphere was good.

The staff are extremely helpful and left just the right length of time between courses so we didn't feel rushed.
One thing I liked about the menu is the fact that all of the dishes are explained but I think they could have put the heat value on each of the dishes; maybe because a coupleof them tasted very similar there was no need!

Not the best curry I have ever had but certainly not an unpleasant dining experience.

Thanks for reading