Desi Express

just standard Pakistani, quality could be better, always has a weird smell for some reason, and is normally pretty quiet. been here a few times with friends. normally go for kebabs and masala fish for starters then curries and biryanis for mains, good service nothing special

i was here yesterday with the family, on the whole the food was good. We ordered the Nihari and Seekh Kebab Karai. Food was hot, served within 10-15 minutes. Staff could do with getting a personality, a smile, knowing the menu (Nihari was lamb on the bone). Overall a good experience, may come again. Price was reasonable compared to other restaurants eaten in. Only major negative was the washroom upstairs. Broken toilet seat, dirty toilets, broken hand dryer (fuse socket covered in insulation tape), no hot water and no towels to dry hands, water on the floor making it slippery.

Terrible Service, had to raise my voice quite abit for the waiters to hear, had to ask 3 three times for a few tissues, had to wait 45mins for my parents food to come AFTER MANY REMINDERS. and also we were sitting right opposite the kitchen, so its not as if our table was right at the back, the waiters just did not bother with us bcus we were a small family of four. but mine and my brothers came in half an hour, when it came it wasnt satisfactory ( tiny portion of chicken steak and chips for £5.50?!?!?!) and a little bit of lettuce as a salad? and the chips were just scattered on top of my stake, i had to move them all to one side by hand and pull the peice of steak out :/ and then we had to pay extra just for salad for the actuall meal(and the salad was just shredded lettuce), and we had to ASK for water. the waiter came back with two glasses and a jug of water. and the glasses were both clearly USED AND DIRTY ( which we had to point out) , they had NOT been washed. the waiter did then not apologize, but he just went and got two plastic cups and brought them back to us :/. also we were asking for assistance, but a party of 15 walked in and all the waiters were just ignoring us ( as we are a family of four) and they just all rushed to accomodate the family of 15, while we were sitting at our table for half an hour already, before that family turned up, not happy at all, we spent over £35, and were not happy, we think all customers should be treated equallly not matter how big or small families are! and the waiters the waiters were all miserable, had to give a friendly gesture ( smile) for them to smile back + also the service was appauling.

As I understand it, this place used to be an Italian restaurant operated by Al Faisals (A premier restaurant located nearby) but which proved unsuccessful - probably because the whole area specialises in curries (baltis). So it has had a revamp and serves as the blue collar worker to Al Faisals white collar manager. Or in other words, it's like a cut down version of Al Faisals restaurant - offering many of the same items but at reduced prices. Prices are very good. They offer the more popular items from the Al Faisals menu, hence the 'express' in their restaurant name no doubt. All the usual grilled items (but no lamp tikka for some reason?) are available. The lamb chops uinfortunately are always pretty bad. I always order them whenever I come here (at least once a month) in the hope that one day they might be of a reasonable quality (I love lamb chops and not to order them when they are available on a menu is almost criminal). Sadly my dreams of decent lamb chops have yet to be realised here. That said, everything else from the grill is fairly decent - but without quite being excellent. The curries are not bad, but the lamb always contains too much fat. The toilets are reasonable but could do with cleaning more often. The decor is not bad. The place is clean and they've tried to make it look a bit modern with mixed success. The customer service is fairly reasonable. Command of English is a bit hit & miss but at least they are polite and attentive. This place is probably a rival for Lahore Village and possibly Zam Zam Kebaish in terms of pricing. However, it completely trumps both places in terms of customer service. The food is probably better at Lahore and the prices are probably cheaper at Zam Zam, but they are both inferior overall to Desi Express. This is a place you would come to for cheap & cheerful no nonsense food. You get (slightly more than) what you pay for. Expect to pay around £7 per head.