THERE'S nothing better to warm your bones on a cold winter's night than a red hot curry. So with the temperatures struggling to reach freezing, our party of four travelled up the A19 to Thirsk and to the Raj of India Balti and Tandoori Restaurant.

Being a Sunday evening, we thought it would be relatively quiet, so we were surprised to find it quite busy, both with diners and those waiting for takeaways.

We waited in the bar area, read the menus and enjoyed a couple of pints of ice-cold Kingfisher draught lager (£2.50 a pint) and two glasses of house white wine (£1.60 each).

The dining area is pretty dark - it's covered from top to bottom with a wallpaper of dark green leaves. One nice touch is the statue and fountain by the entrance. We could hear soothing running water all night even above the local radio station which was playing in the background. Whatever happened to sitar and drums?

While we made our choices it would have been nice to snack on some Bombay mix, but the bowl was virtually empty and no effort was made to top it up.

The menu, as is the norm at most Indian restaurants, was vast, so vast in fact that by the time we were ushered to our table we still hadn't made up or minds.

The service up to that point hadn't been so bad, although no one had offered to hang up our coats. Instead, we had to lay them on a couple of chairs at a neighbouring table.

I don't know whether our waiter had had a particularly bad day or had something on his mind, but when we were ordering, he seemed like he'd rather be elsewhere.

When I asked whether any of the three kebab starters contained chicken, I got rather a patronising reply that no they didn't.

And when my brother-in-law, Mike, inquired about several of the dishes our waiter turned his head in the opposite direction. He seemed to be taking no interest in our order at all.

Later, when our meals had arrived the same waiter, without asking or issuing an apology, leaned over my wife Jayne and I while we were eating to remove some empty glasses!

And, at the end of the meal, when I asked if I could keep the itemised bill, it was as if I'd asked for the crown jewels.

Anyway, I digress. The food was exceptionally good and on a par with the best Indian restaurants in York and North Yorkshire.

While we waited for my starter (the rest of the gang had opted out of a first course) we tucked into crunchy poppadums (40p each) and pickles (£1.40 a tray).

My starter, chicken chatt (£2.95) - hot curried chicken scooped on to a chapati - was delicious, but very filling.

Simon Ritchie heads north for a curry, but finds the service not too hot.

The choice of main courses was extensive and the prices were impressive too. Many of the curries cost less than £4.

I went for chicken tikka dupiaza (£5.60) - tender pieces of chicken covered with herbs and medium hot spices and cooked with onions. Very tasty.

Jayne was impressed with her creamy vegetable korma (only £3.25), while Mike thought his lamb balti rogan josh (£5.60) - a medium hot curry cooked with tomatoes - was delicious.

My sister, Suzanne, enjoyed her chicken jalfarazi (£5.60) - diced chicken marinated in vinegar and lemon juice, onion and green chillies. It certainly had a kick to it!

Both the mushroom pilau rice and the ordinary pilau were cooked to perfection and the peshwari and garlic naans were exceptional.

We were too full for sweets, although Suzanne did end the meal with a coffee, which cost £1.

The meal, including drinks, came to a tad over £52 - extremely good value considering the quantity and quality of the food. It was just a shame the night was spoiled by the quality of service. Maybe we just struck unlucky! Let's hope so.

The Raj of India, 42 Long Street, Thirsk. Telephone: 01845 526917/526866

Fact file:

Food: very good ****

Service: could do better *

Value: excellent ****

Ambience: dark **

Disabled access: No