Culter Curry House: School Road, Peterculter

FRIENDLY service at Culter Curry House – as well as its tasty menu – makes it stand out in a crowded market.

The channat chatt (£2.50) was a delicious starter with soft balls of creamy chickpeas balanced by a hot and lemony tomato sauce.

Meanwhile, the onion bhajis (£1.80) were generously proportioned, if oddly flattened, and could have been heavier on the onion for my taste.

We picked from a selection of a dozen of the chef's specials for our mains, taking pot luck with exotically-named dishes instead of the curryhouse standards.

A king prawn qandari (£9.50) was a winner, with satsuma-sized spirals of prawns sitting in a tangy tomato-based curry, heavily scented with cumin and delivering a medium chili kick.

The second, a chicken tikka dilbahar (£6.80) was a sweet surprise as a honey-based sauce luxuriously coated enormous chunks of succulent chicken breast.

Brightly-coloured pilau rice (£1.80) was pleasing to the eye and complemented by pillowy naan breads, one a tooth-achingly sweet almond peshwari (£2.95) and another tastily flavoured with garlic (£2.50) – so extra mouthwash before bed!

Our total bill came to £32.25.