'Christ, have you seen the prices in here?" gasped Ali, scanning the menu in disbelief. Now, anyone who has eaten out in London recently will have said much the same thing - it's hard to find a half-decent three-course meal for two with a bottle of wine for less than £75 - but this was different. Ali and I weren't dining at some high-concept and higher priced gaff in the city centre where the cost of even the cheapest first course makes you wonder if you'll have enough left to meet next month's rent. We were at New Tayyabs, a Pakistani diner on one of those depressingly desolate back streets that east London does so well and where you'd be pushed to shell out more than 20 quid.
How's this for starters: seekh kebab at 70p a pop. Yes, really. What's more, it's the best seekh you're likely to come across this side of Lahore: impeccably lamby, aggressively spiced (of which more later) and, above all, freshly made. At a time when high-street curry houses charge upwards of £3 for a pair of limp, lifeless sticks of minced lamb that resemble nothing so much as day-old cat turds, how Tayyabs makes them this tasty and at this price is beyond me. In fact, they were so good we ordered another plateful - well, it seemed churlish not to.
Those kebabs alone would explain why hordes descend on Tayyabs every night. It recently had an overhaul, more or less doubling the number of covers and putting in new lavs (the previous incarnations really didn't bear thinking about), but the refit hasn't made a blind bit of difference to the ritual of getting a table. Pitch up on any night, and you'll have to wait your turn just inside the entrance. And don't think making a reservation will help: you'll end up hanging around the doorway like everyone else - Tayyabs has, let's say, a relaxed attitude to bookings.
But no one really minds. This is one of those places that thrives on word of mouth, rather than reviews in the press - not that many critics venture this far east for a curry, preferring the sanitised, Michelin-star-chasing fare on offer in chichi West End emporia such as Rasoi Vineet Bhatia and Benares. More to the point, Mohammed Tayyab's restaurant, while by no means a temple of refined cooking, has been going since 1974, a longevity most poncy palaces up west can only dream of.
Before the kebabs, we'd made short work of a plate of mixed poppadoms accompanied by raw onion, tomato and cucumber and two chutneys, one of tomato and red chilli, the other mint and yogurt. Like all the food here, no concessions are made to timid western taste-buds, so it pays to tread carefully. Overdosing on even these delectable dips might lead to your meal, er, repeating on you next day.
That's one of two reasons Tayyabs does such a brisk trade in lassi: first, this yogurt-based potion really does keep your digestive system on its best behaviour; and second, Tayyabs' lassis are simply gorgeous - the salted one flavoured with cumin is an acquired taste, sure, but the mango version is sunshine in a glass. Like most eateries in the area, excepting the tourist traps on Brick Lane, Tayyabs doesn't sell alcohol, but if you need something stronger to help dinner go down, they've no objection to you bringing a bottle or three - and they don't charge corkage, either.
With our mountain of kebabs, Ali and I shared lamb chops and masala fish - the imperious chops made even more succulent by the spiced yogurt in which they'd been doused before hitting the tandoor, and the fish's dry exterior crust, dyed red from its marinade, belying the moist, perfectly cooked, white flakes beneath. Next up, we tucked into dry meat curry and keema chicken - as you'll have noticed by now, Tayyabs' menu goes heavy on the protein. The former was so called because it's cooked so long and slow that the onion-heavy, ghee-rich sauce reduces to such an extent that almost all of it is absorbed by the meat, leaving only an unctuous vestige of delectable, blackish-brown glop clinging to cubes of meltingly tender lamb. The chicken dish, meanwhile, was like a children's curry for grown-ups - finely shredded, rather than minced, chicken braised with fiery green chilli, making it a curious mix of comfort food and endurance test.
Alongside, we had a naan and a roti apiece, as well as a portion of rice. The naan, in particular, was a revelation: delectably soft, fluffy and smothered in ghee post-baking, eating it was like tucking into a finger-licking duvet. The rice was the only bum note: insipid and half-hearted, as if the chefs couldn't be bothered. Then again, Pakistanis are primarily wheat eaters, not rice eaters - and anyway, it meant we had room for another of those glorious naans instead.
That extra naan helped us break the tenner a head barrier - but only by a pound or so. If you can find anywhere in London that's better value, I'll eat my hat. And if you get the guys at Tayyabs to cook it, I'll eat yours, too.