Lahore Kebab House, 2 Umberston Street, Whitechapel, E1 1PY, 020 7488 2551,
Mirch Masala, 111-113 Commercial Road, Whitechapel, E1 1RD, 020 7377 0155,
Tayyabs, 83-89 Fieldgate Street, Whitechapel, E1 1JU

For some time I've been on a bit of a quest for the best tandoori lamb chops in London, juicy, spicy and slightly charred without being at all chewy. Usually from incredibly cheap Pakistani grill houses and as you see above mostly in the vicinity of each other in the East End and a long way better than anything on Brick Lane. That's not to say I've restricted my search to E1, there's a decent enough Pakistani grill house on Drummond Street and another in Tooting, but the above three are by far and away the winners.

Anyone care to suggest any others I should try?

These restaurants are all BYO as they are all Muslim run, but not offended by people bringing drinks in. For us this means you can drink a decent bottle without breaking the bank, or of course good old lager. That said, a rather worrying trend at all of these restaurants seems to be large tables of students who view a large bottle of whisky or brandy as the appropriate food match. Perhaps I should try it...

At Mirch Masala the service is somewhat overwhelming, with staff desperate for you to insist their food is the best you've ever eaten. But unlike the other two, the décor is modern and there are rarely any queues as its slightly less well known. There are times when over involved service is better than none at all and at least all the staff do seem to genuinely care about you having a good experience.

I had the lamb chops and butter chicken, both listed as starters. I was asked how spicy I wanted my food and opted for medium, which turned out to be pretty good, but I think I'd go for hot next time. The covering of spices on the lamb had crisped perfectly though and along with the slight charr marks gave the chops a great outside texture. Inside however they weren't quite as juicy and tasty as they can be but were nonetheless a very good effort.

The butter chicken is another of my favourite dishes and here was perfect, not swimming in sauce and technically a dry dish, but I hesitate to use the word as the chicken was so juicy and tasty. I have had better tandoori chicken once, but that was in Tamarind in Mayfair, where costs are a fair bit higher than here!

To accompany the important dishes I had a garlic nan, which was clearly home made and pretty good, if a touch over done. Sadly I also had a pilao rice which turned out to be the not uncommon “rice with food colouring”, a pity as this place is better than that. I tried a friend's karahi jeera chicken which was also very good.

At the Lahore, almost exactly over the road from Mirch Masala there can sometimes be a queue, but the enormous number of covers means it won't last long. When inside, service is a bit rushed and you won't have difficulty getting attention. Its all a bit rushed and graceless however, and no chance of asking any questions of the under pressure staff. The décor is plain, despite a refurbishment which seems largely to have involved installing a lot of Plasma screen TVs with Bollywood films playing silently and somewhat distractingly.

There was no choice as to how the lamb chops came here, but when they arrived they were perfectly judged, a massive hot kick but not so much as to make them a macho challenge or disguise the other flavours of the spice crust. The chops were still juicy and sweet and were very very good, they could have perhaps been a bit thicker to retain even more juices.

I again also had butter chicken as I knew I would be comparing them. Here it was listed as a main course and was closer to the standard curry house “runny-curry” type of version. A tasty enough dish, but you couldn't really appreciate if the chicken was cooked well. [EDIT: following my trip to northern India, this seems to be the more authentic version, but I still prefer the dryer ones!] I had a peshwari nan, which was again home made, but was a bit lacking in stuffing. I bizarrely prefer the bought in peshwaris you get in most curry places, but thats probably more of an indictment of me than them.

As usual I stole some of a friends dish that had been listed only as 'lamb on the bone curry'. This was a very rich dish that was not very hot an indeed almost French in its flavour profile. Tasty meaty lamb in a thick sauce, my friend loved it and I could see why.

Finally to Tayyabs, or New Tayyabs as it may be called, depending on which guide book/page of their website you read. In any event Tayyabs it says outside and you'll be able to find it anyway by the massive queue. We went as a two, and so managed to get bumped up the queue quite a long way when a two came up and no one else could use it. Other than that the queue did seem to move fairly quickly, but a large group could potentially be in for a long night. The interior was a bit flash with an excess of blue lighting and the tables very close together and the service was brusque, understandably perhaps in the circumstances.

The lamb chops here were very tender and had a strong sweet lamb flavour but they were just not very spicy. These were a disappointment as the quality of the ingredient and the timing of the cooking were spot on, but the spice crust on top didn't really enhance the dish. As a main course I had karahi chicken which was very good, sweet and sour with the vinegar hit and just the right amount of chilli heat.

The breads here was really superb, and I had a great nan and a roti. They were clearly homemade and in this case were better for it, especially the sweet flaky roti. I tried a friends seekh kebab, which was quite middle eastern in its flavour and was very good, then okra karahi, which managed to keep the okra crunchy but tasting great.

So which is the best? The lamb chops in Tayyab lack the spice hit but ignoring the title of the post, the rest of the food is really superb so if you're not on a lamb chop quest it probably depends entirely on whether you can be bothered to queue. Focussing on the lamb chop alone, Lahore was the winner on the day, but in all probability on a different day it could have been Mirch Massala. It really depends then on whether you really want a lamb chop, and then simply deciding whether you want excessive service or brusque service!

A sudden yearning for some simply prepared fish led us to this restaurant in Stockwell's “Little Portugal” on a Sunday night. Charles Campion jokes that there must be a rule that the first thing every Portuguese restaurateur has to buy is a TV, but in this place it was no joke. There were several TVs on the wall showing several different football matches at the same time. That's fine in the cheaper cafe-bar Portuguese places, didn't really seem right here, as this is a restaurant with linen, good tableware, a fairly large fish menu and prices to match. I really felt this place was charging a bit too much for that sports bar feel, but that said it would have been a bargain for fish in London if the quality had been spot on.

The restaurant was worryingly empty when we arrived at 8.30, but at 9 o'clock it instantly filled up, suggesting the locals keep to the eating pattern of their old country. On the table was good bread and spicy olives for which I was happy to pay the cover charge. However, also on the table was two types of “fish pate” referred to rather favourably in the Timeout review of O Moinho. We were disappointed to find these were commercially made and prepacked in tiny packets. This needn't be the end of the world of course, but these were actively unpleasant and smelt very bad. It would have been much better just not to have them.

We ordered a vino verde which was unavailable, but the manager suggested a replacement for the same price, £15. I'm afraid I didn't take the name down, which is a pity as this was a lovely wine, simple and refreshing with decent acidity, perfect with seafood.

The intention was to have a simple, sensibly priced meal but as we reviewed the menu it was clear that it was going to be a little more than we intended, whatever we ordered. With that in mind we ordered fish platter for two coming in at a potentially very reasonable £40. After a short wait, a large tray arrived, piled with tempting looking seafood.

Around the sides of the tray were a lot of perfectly cooked clams and mussels which were exactly the sort of thing we'd been hoping for. There was also a decent sized half lobster which I hadn't expected for this price. I think it could have used a little less time in the pan but was not excessively overcooked, there was plenty of tail meat to be had, alongside the messy fun of getting the delicious meat from the claw.

So far, so good but in the centre of the platter was a crab shell (don't ask me why) filled with a premix/frozen seafood salad. This contained more mussels, but rather less tasty than the fresh, alongside tiny prawns and elastic-band squid rings. It wasn't awful as it had been heated in a simple butter garlic and parsley sauce. Its just the textures of the seafood itself was so rubbery and the flavours so muted that I just couldn't see the point.

The real killer though was a substantial amount of prawns. These provided the bulk of the eating, and alongside the nice mussels and clams, and ok lobster would have made the seafood salad easy to forgive. Or they would have if they hadn't been completely overcooked. Every single prawn had been cooked to lose all hint of sweetness and leave barely any flavour. They were so overcooked that they not only had a rubbery texture but tasted actually dry. Whatever the challenges of doing a seafood platter at these prices, no competent chef could possibly have thought they were fit to go to customers. I should have complained, but I didn't fancy the hassle, besides whoever sent those out must have known those prawns were ruined and clearly didn't care.

On other tables, we saw fish being delivered on huge kebab stands, and these did look pretty good, but there is no reason to assume the cooking of those to be any more careful. As some of the food we had was good or ok, it probably is possible to eat well here if you get lucky. But if the kitchen either don't know or don't care ( I can't decide which is worse) when they ruin food, then eating here is hard to recommend.

For dessert I had crème caramel, called 'Pudding' on the menu. A big wedge that was clearly home made arrived and the light custard was just set and was really very good. But in what I took as another indicator of the lack of precision and concern in the kitchen, the caramel had been just overcooked so as to make it bitter and burned tasting.

If a little more care was taken, this place would be great value. I might go back and try them again if I lived nearby, however, I wouldn't make any effort to get there and the prices are not so low as to make giving them a second chance worthwhile. I should say the meat was unsurprisingly cheaper than the fish options, but we'd gone there specifically as we fancied simply done fish at reasonable prices and it had sounded like a good bet. Sadly it just didn't live up to other reviews.