A New Pleasure?

As mentioned here, The White Rose has gone; long live Dhansiri. It's still an Indian restaurant -- thankfully not Yet Another Italian -- and the menu (at first glance) looks broadly similar to the White Rose, but we will have to give it a go and see how it shapes up...

(Dhansiri, 1 Cheam Road, Ewell)

Dragon Den Chinese Restaurant

It was Ma and Pa Bemused who first introduced us to Dragon Den, many years ago, when they lived in this area, and it has been a favourite of ours ever since. Since they introduced an all-you-can-eat menu on Sundays through to Thursdays, we've been even more regular visitors. Then, this week, they have started serving a lunchtime takeaway menu as well...

The food is always freshly cooked and tasty, and the staff friendly (especially the maitre d', Genesis, who is also an accomplished magician).

From the all-you-can-eat menu, we love the deep-fried aubergine, the sea-spicy pork and the tofu in black pepper sauce. If you're ordering from the a la carte menu, give the fillet steak in black pepper sauce a try, or the Dragon Den fish for a special occasion. While the crab in black bean sauce is tasty, it's also a recipe for covering yourself head to foot in black bean sauce -- at least it is if you're as clumsy as we are. The only very slight downcheck is that one tends not to get quite enough pancakes to go with crispy duck, but the staff are always happy to bring more if required.

Dragon Den have occasional special events, too; the last one was a special meal for Chinese New Year back in early February, which featured a lion dance:




The all-you-can-eat meals are (currently: March 2008) £15.90/head for adults or £8.50/head for children in the evenings, and £13.80/head for adults or £6.00. The lunchtime take-away menu, a choice of about ten dishes, is £3.95.

(Dragon Den Chinese Restaurant, 56-58 High St, 8393 3959.)

Indian restaurants

While wandering into Ewell at lunchtime on Friday, I noticed that the White Rose Indian restaurant was "closed for refurbishment." How true this is I wouldn't like to guess, but it has been my impression that it was struggling at least for the last few months; starting to close one day a week, running increasingly-desperate-sounding promotions, and so on.

I'm not really surprised. I've been into the White Rose -- though not especially recently -- and we just weren't very impressed; the food was adequate, but really nothing special. There was certainly better food to be had from some of the local take-aways, and more recently also from Paprika, just across the road. I find Paprika's food a lot more interesting than what was on offer at the White Rose. Paprika is also a nicer environment; the White Rose is -- or, perhaps, was -- an Indian restaurant of the "old school", with velvet-covered benches and flock wallpaper, whereas Paprika is brighter and with more modern decor.

We shall see if the White Rose reopens under this management, new management, or as something else altogether -- although, please, not another Italian restaurant! I think four of them in a village the size of Ewell is plenty.

(White Rose, 1 Cheam Road, Ewell; Paprika, 52 High St, Ewell)