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Lalbagh is one of my all-time favourite restaurants. I have been visiting for over a decade, yet I have never been able to find a single fault. In fact, I listed Lalbagh in my top 5 Cambridgeshire curry houses for Velvet Magazine last year. We even had our 18th Cambridge Curry Community event back here in 2014.

As you can imagine, I am a big fan who has a long history with the restaurant (check out my last visit here). So, I was delighted to pop back and make sure everything was to its usual high standard and explore their menu further.

One of my favourite things about Lalbagh is the interior. The restaurant had a spacious feel and enough seating for any number of people. This makes it good for birthdays, special occasions, and even small events. It is also the sort of place you would want to celebrate these occasions too, as it is immaculately presented in a healthy mix of traditional and modern stylings.

Which leads me to the bar, that is beautifully presented with a waterfall backdrop and THREE types of Indian beer on tap. I was disappointed to learn that Mongoose has gone out of business since my last visit but the team at Lalbagh have replaced it with Bombay Bicycle, an IPA. Thinking about it, it never made much sense to have three lagers on tap as they were all very similar but with an IPA available this improves the selection available.

It was my first time drinking Bombay Bicycle, as it is not very common in my area, but I was very impressed with it. Being an IPA, it has a much bolder flavour and significantly more depth than the other Indian lager beers on tap (like Kingfisher and Cobra). My first thought was that light and crisp lager would be the best way to go with Indian/Bangladeshi food but this IPA worked really well. I was particularly fond of its grapefruit finish. This could be a new favourite of mine.

I started with some papadums that were accompanied by four side sauces; onion salad (which was a perfectly chopped selection of onion, cucumber, and tomato), a deliciously thick yogurt with a bold flavour and a fairly decent mango chutney and pickle dish. Portions were about right for me but these pots would have struggled with two people.

My starter was something called Prawns Dynamite. These are deep fried king prawns in a spicy sauce with spring onions and coriander. This was beautifully presented in a large white bowl and was the highlight of my evening. This may very well be one of my new favourite dishes. The prawns are large, juicy, and had a wonderful texture that was accompanied with a fiery kick. It is everything I want from a starter and will be my new first choice coming to the Lalbagh. I highly recommend this dish!

Next was their signature Lalbagh Fried Rice. This consisted of saffron rice, fried, with pineapple, lychees, onion and green pepper. Portions were nothing special but by no means offensive. I thoroughly enjoyed the pineapple chunks which gave the rice a pleasantly unusual twist.

The rice came accompanied with an absolutely stunning lamb dish called Kala Ghust. This is an authentic Bangladeshi dish from the Chittagong region. It consists of slow cooked lamb shoulder on the bone ‘cooked until the spices blacken’. This was beautifully presented on a sizzling hot plate with pink petals that added a vivid pop. This was sublime and the lamb fell to pieces on my fork.

Naturally, you can’t visit Lalbagh without having their rhubarb seabass. I listed this incredible dish in one of my top Indian/Bangladeshi dishes worth seeking in Cambridge posts a while back and I still stand by this today. The presentation has changed slightly since last time but now has a much more striking appearance. The pan fried seabass is served in two fillets which are tempered in garlic and served in a sweet and sour rhubarb puree. Even if you aren’t a big fan of fish, this is worth a try and is actually my wife’s favourite dish.

After all that food I was given a few orange slices and a hot towel to freshen up.

The staff here are excellent and couldn’t do enough for me tonight. The moment my drink was finished, they were there to top it up. They were chatty, engaging, and loved talking about their food. One thing I have always liked about Lalbagh is their high ratio of staff. Heading towards the door to enter and leave there was always somewhere there to open it for me. It’s these little details that set Lalbagh apart from other Indian restaurants.

I look forward to swinging by again in the future. Next time, I won’t leave it for so long.

Thanks for reading.