Having been reminded recently of the merits of Charles Campion's Restaurant Guide I used it for a lunch recommendation when in Ealing for work. It was a solo lunch so I didn't give the menu an extensive workout and so this'll be a fairly brief post.

The menu is slightly odd, listing, I think, special dishes, chefs specials and Nepalese specials. Monty's then are of the opinion that all their dishes are special. I stuck to the Nepalese specials, and given that is in theory a Nepalese restaurant, there weren't that many of them, perhaps 5 or 6, one of which was green chilli chicken so the menu alone isn't sufficiently different to be worth a trip.

I was asked if I wanted a Poppadom, which I didn't really, but for reasons I can't adequately explain I answered yes. This makes me very irritated at myself (I feel like a tool, the person who the question, 'would you like to supersize that?' was invented for). Obviously I recognise its my own fault. The Poppadom was fine, the raita was good, the chutney was green pepper but really quite mild and tasteless. The mango chutney tasted like it was bought-in gloopy stuff with some extra mango chopped up in it to make it look better. All fine, but I've had much better.

The popadom also came with a large plate of salad/crudite, of the type (large barely chopped vegetables) more usually associated with a lebanese. At the best of times I'm not sure what the point of these are. In this case I suspect I had not been the first person to have looked at that particular plate of salad and been unable to see its purpose. The lettuce and cucumber was markedly not fresh looking, the cucumber especially was rubbery and had seen much better days. Very unimpressive.

For my main course I had Gurkhali Dhal chicken. The dal was like a north Indian dhal in style with kidney beans as well as lentils but was much less thick than a Makhani dhal. As a result it managed to be simultaneously both heavy going and to have a fairly watery texture. There wasn't much of a chilli kick to the dish, though there was some. The chicken was not memorable, but there was quite a lot of it. In fact the most memorable thing about the dish was the huge portion, which would easily have served two, as perhaps it should do at over £8.

On top of the huge portion of curry, I had ordered both a Roti and a stuffed Paratha, not because I thought I would need that much, but because Mr Campion had specifically recommended the bread. Well it was fine and again huge, the Roti in particular much larger than it usually is. It was quite good, clearly freshly made and cooked, but a little too charred and not as fluffy as really good Roti. I'm not quite sure what the paratha was stuffed with, but it was fairly bland and again was fine.

My view might have been more charitable if Monty's was cheap, but actually my meal for one with a very small glass of slightly flat diet coke came to £15.60. OK, I ordered more bread than I needed but the waiter never told me that, and I didn't have a starter or dessert. It felt expensive because there was no reduction at lunch and Ealing is hardly the West End. What I ordered left me stuffed and for lunch would probably have served two, which would be a reasonable price, but that's hardly relevant because if your alone there is no option to get a smaller portion, and if you are with friends there's nothing on the menu to indicate that the portions are suitable for two. Its licensed so even in the evening the cost of alcohol could make it surprisingly expensive for the location.

I was very disappointed with Monty's as it gets a great write up both from Mr Campion, (who you will have gathered is generally my favourite critic), and on several online review sites. In my view its definitely not worth any sort of a trip, it might be a good option if in the area in the evening or in a group, but at lunch which is when I'm likely to be in Ealing and alone to boot I won't be going back.