The Indian Ocean, Histon, Cambridgeshire

 I have had a visit to Histon before and I ate at the Indian Ocean then. It was a nice meal but frustratingly when the waiter asked "do you want starters" - one person in our party shouted "No!" without asking anyone and I was on the fringes of the group and didn't want to point out her rudeness in front of everyone (and I was really hungry too). So on my first visit, I was samosaless!

I fixed things today though and we went for the full popadoms / pickle tray / starter / main / sundries experience - at my insistence (rude to the other guests I fear but I was hungry again). 

We are in the middle of a pandemic and many people are a little too relaxed about procedures of late I think. The Indian Ocean are on top of things though and we were treated to a temperature check on arrival and much hand washing and careful seating. Good to see and a good start. 

The pickle tray was a little sparse which meant the popadoms were a bit dull, so I was ready for the starters when they arrived. The vegetable samosas were £5.50 which is pricey where I come from, but probably not for Cambridge (where a pint is £5.50 and the bill has an additional 10% service charge - for a PINT AT A BAR!!)  Nevertheless for £5.50 I was expecting good things. 

It wasn't brilliant though. The samosas were about as good as the photographs that follow. 

The pastry was odd - like a British shortcrust pie pastry. Not something you typically associate with a samosa - and I think for good reason. Given it is quite hard stuff to work with in small quantities, it ended up being quite thick - and this on tiny samosas, so the ratio between filling and pastry was way too heavy in favour of the pastry. The pastry texture was grainy and it just didn't work well, it was a distraction from the filling rather than a vehicle for the filling. 

The filling itself was pretty tasty, a little too salty and just about enough spice. In a larger samosa it would have been good I think, the size and pastry really let them down though. 

The samosas came with a tolerable red , but anonymous, chutney. They were sitting on a much more interesting tamarind sauce though. The yogurt sauce (also supplied with the boring popadom pickle tray) was overly sweet and not really spiced at all, it was like a green sweet lassi. 

These weren't desperately bad and I forgave the restaurant fairly quickly a our onion bhaji were very good and my main course (a veg jalfrezi) was really excellent. The bill was quite steep at £35 each (with 3 beers a piece) but we had a very nice evening with attentive staff keeping us safe and happy. 

Overall, a 6.0 

The Indian Ocean

Unit 4 High St, Histon, Cambridge CB24 9JE

01223 232466

www.theindianocean.co.uk