Restaurant review: Shampan

Shampan is a little Indian restaurant on the main high street in Cowbridge. I'd never heard of it as I never have any reason to go to Cowbridge,  but myself and Neil were invited there for food for his friend's birthday last weekend. I'm now busy wondering why I'd never heard of this place before!

The restaurant was easy to find (a 20 minute drive from Penarth), and there was plenty of parking available opposite the restaurant. We were 15 minutes early but were still seated at our table within five minutes of our arrival. The restaurant had a lovely homely atmosphere and decor. It managed to effectively combine rustic with modern and had some really unusual features like colourful patterned umbrellas hanging upside down from the ceiling... it sounds weird, but it worked.

The table was booked for 15 people, so as the restaurant is quite narrow they split our group up into 3 tables at the back of the restaurant. As soon as we sat down, we saw the leaflets which described the amazing 'Sunday Banquet'. Poppadum, dips, starter, main course, veg side, rice and naan bread for £8.50 per person. Surely it was too good to be true?

We thought there must surely be some restrictions on what starters and main courses we could order... there had to be a catch somewhere. We double checked with the waitress when she came to take our order, and she confirmed that we could order any starter, any main course and any veg side! Considering that some of the main courses are £7.50 by themselves, this is a fantastic deal. You do have to pay an extra 30p if you want a fancy naan bread rather than a plain one, but I'd be very surprised if anyone had any gripes about paying an extra 30p after partaking in such a great deal. I opted for the onion bhaji, vegetable balti, saag aloo, pilau rice and a plain naan bread. 

When all the food arrived, it really did look like a banqueting table. I apologise in advance for the poor quality of some of these photos, I didn't want to use the flash as no one else was photographing their food! Blogger problems...

Poppadum and dips... possibly my favourite part of any Indian meal!

Giant onion bhajis... 

My vegetable balti. My mouth is watering just thinking about this!

Saag Aloo

Very bright pilau rice!

The best naan bread I've ever eaten in my entire life

Midway through my main meal!

You might expect the food to be a bit ropey if you're only paying £8.50 for all those courses. Not at Shampan! Everything was cooked exquisitely and I didn't have the slightest complaint about any of the dishes. I've eaten many onion bhajis in various different places, and I can confirm that these bhajis were among the best I've tasted along with the legendary bhajis at Red Hot World Buffet. And they were MASSIVE. Moving on to the main, the vegetable balti was really delicious and unlike any balti I've tasted before. It had a very pleasant kick to it and I was gutted that I couldn't manage to eat the whole lot. It was also packed full of vegetables rather than just throwing in a few peas and half a potato. To top it all off, as I've mentioned above, the naan bread was without a doubt the best one I've ever had. I hate it when naan breads have been overcooked and have hard burnt bits everywhere, so I was very chuffed (do people still use 'chuffed'?) with this one. The Saag Aloo was also lovely, but unfortunately I couldn't eat much of it as I physically couldn't fit any more food in to my stomach. 

We all agreed around the table that the food was scrumptious and that there was actually too much food for most of us. The veg side was probably a bit unnecessary, but we all still felt the need to order one. Even though there were 15 of us and a lot of people in the other areas of the restaurant, we got served very quickly. As Neil said, it was like a conveyor belt of food. My favourite kind of conveyor belt. The staff were accommodating and were very patient while taking our massive food order. They also gave each table a separate bill rather than giving us a massive bill between the 15 of us. This made things slightly less complicated when we tried to work out the cost of everyone's drinks!

Even though I honestly felt as if I was going to burst, I couldn't resist eating the little chocolate which came with the bill. There's always room for chocolate.

Have you ever visited Shampan? Were you also bowled over by the Sunday banquet? I can't wait to go back!