James Kilner visits an Indian restaurant in York's Fishergate which has recently come under new ownership.

INITIAL impressions were favourable. Though the outer decor of The Spice Room was not exactly predisposing, the interior seemed an improvement on the last time that I had walked through the door.

Last year, I reviewed this restaurant in its previous incarnation - a run-of-the-mill curry house, with a startlingly green exterior, called Gandhi.

Sliding into a chair by the window, I was struck by the warm, deep red of the revamped interior, while the pleasant strains of traditional Asian music drifted around the room.

It was 9pm on a Friday and The Spice Room had the air of being relatively busy - though the restaurant was not inundated with diners. Indeed, the dimensions of The Spice Room are modest.

A bevy of white-shirted staff hovered around us, thrusting into our hands rather scruffy menus, more suited to the takeaway side of the business than the restaurant.

While making inroads into a small bottle of Indian Cobra beer (not cheap at £2.50), my eyes began to scan the restaurant in more detail and the alarm bells began to sound.

On closer inspection, the refurbishment was not quite the success that I had thought - tell-tale cracks of white peeped through the outer coating, suggesting a rushed job.

And despite the warm red of the new decor, I was beginning to feel rather cold - most unusual in an Indian restaurant. Perhaps this was due to the fact that we were perched right next to the window, or maybe there was a problem with the heating.

Leaving dining companions Tim, John and Christina for a moment, I wandered through the restaurant to the toilets.

Though I can't testify to the quality of the ladies' room, the gentlemen's was desperately uninviting - a general lack of cleanliness was compounded by a disturbing odour. Not to dwell on the subject, one really wouldn't want to spend much longer in there than was absolutely necessary.

On returning to the table, I found that rather forlorn-looking poppadoms had arrived. They were bordering on stale and were accompanied by uninspiring sauces.

For a starter, we had ordered three classic Indian dishes - an onion bhaji (£2), a chicken pakora (£2.25) and a king prawn pakora (£2.95).

The onion bhaji, though hardly a revelation, was polished off fairly smartly by Tim. The pakoras, however, were less appetising, with the batter exterior described by my companions as "sickly sweet".

It was the main courses, though, that were the real low points of our visit to The Spice Room.

We ordered a lamb balti (£3.75), a lamb bhuna (£3.50) and a king prawn jalfrezi (£4.25). We also plumped for one of the restaurant's Tandoori specialities, a lamb dish (£4.25) which, we were told, had been cooked in a specially-designed clay oven.

Though we had been led to expect that the latter dish would be a profusion of different ingredients and flavours, John simply could not pick them out. Bland, sadly, was the verdict, as it was from each of us.

The meat was equally disappointing, with the lamb as tough as I had ever experienced. Tim half-jokingly likened it to rhino meat in its sheer chewiness.

Presentation of the food was also flawed, with the lamb bhuna sauce, for example, strangely dark in colour and, utterly unappetising. My suspicions were confirmed on tasting the dish - the sauce turned out to be a drab and listless affair, making the chewy meat even more of a misery to eat.

Though the rice was pleasantly light and fresh, this could not make up for other deficiencies and I managed to struggle through four mouthfuls before abandoning my meal altogether. My companions progressed little further with theirs.

Astonished by the paucity of quality on offer, we asked another diner for his thoughts. Though hardly enthused by the experience, this gentleman was certainly not dissatisfied. This surprised us greatly.

And since our visit, a colleague has written favourably of The Spice Room's takeaway food in these very pages.

Perhaps the chef was having an off-night, but there was no denying the sub-standard nature of our experience.

Unable to face desserts, I informed the waiting staff of our feelings regarding the food that we had been offered and requested a bill.

Suddenly, The Spice Room came into its own. Each member of the waiting staff made a point of apologising profusely for the meal and we were even offered free drinks.

I declined this offer, but, nonetheless, free drinks arrived on a rather spanking tray and we obliged by seeing them off.

At this stage, one couldn't help but feel slightly guilty and we made a point of saying that it was not the service with which we were disappointed. The waiting staff were consistently affable, attentive and efficient.

But, as we emerged from the restaurant into the night, it was the poor food that made us want to put as much distance between ourselves and The Spice Room as possible.

The bill came to £55.60 for four people, including drinks. But all notions of value disappear out of the window when the food is simply not worth paying for.

The Evening Press invited The Spice Room to comment on this review, but the restaurant has not taken up our offer.

James visited The Spice Room on Friday, October 29, 2004.

Fact file:

The Spice Room, 26 Fishergate, York (01904) 654616.

Food: poor

Service: efficient

Value: negligible

Ambience: forgettable

Disabled access: No

Updated: 16:23 Friday, November 12, 2004