Review: East n’ Spice

They say spice is the variety of life. But if that’s the case then how come Indian takeaways, in the main, have become so painfully generic.

Once the sole harbingers of exotic flavours in our island’s grey culinary past, the ubiquitous curry house has become so run-of-the-mill - and East n’ Spice in Garstang is certainly no exception.

Like so many others, there is little on the menu apart from the usual glut of Anglicised curries - bhunas, kormas, vindaloos and the rest.

The problem, in my experience, is that many curry houses now prepare everything from one or two standard pastes, adding a little extra garlic to one, a little more chillies to another.

I don’t know if that’s the case at East n’ Spice but all the dishes did end up tasting strangely reminiscent of one another.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing offensive about the takeaway. The problem is that it’s just a little boring - things need spicing up!

The chicken bhuna was, well, okay, slightly more tomatoey than the lamb madras, which in turn was a bit spicier than the chicken jalfrezi.

Blindfolded I wouldn’t be able to tell anything apart.

On the plus side, the staff were friendly and the prices reasonable - but reasonable isn’t the adjective you really want when describing a cuisine famed around the world for its interesting and exotic flavours.

It would be great to see something a little different on the menu, some regional specialities maybe or some family-style recipes to differentiate it from the next curry house on the high street. As it is, it is totally forgettable.

Star rating: 5