Akbar's - Manchester

Lovely food and friendly efficient service, nice atmosphere, always busy. read more Lovely food and friendly efficient service, nice atmosphere, always busy.

TL;DR Nice curry and good service, but I've had better. Ever since moving to Manchester I've wanted to try Akbar's everyone seems to say it's the best curry in... read more TL;DR Nice curry and good service, but I've had better. Ever since moving to Manchester I've wanted to try Akbar's everyone seems to say it's the best curry in town and the enormous queues would seem to back that up. Meeting up with a friend for dinner he suggested Akbar's so I finally got chance to give it a go. Upon arrival they'll give you an indication of how long you'll have to wait to be seated (45 minutes in our case) and give you a pager which buzzes and lights up when your table's ready. The waiting area is large, so even when it's busy there's space to spread out, but seating is in short supply. This was also the first place where we felt the place fell short when we bought drinks at the bar there were no beers on tap and the fridge had just been restocked so the beers we bought weren't all that cold. On top of that, they didn't have enough change in the till so we had a long wait. Finally we got to our table and our server was incredibly helpful, polite and courteous. You can't really fault the service. We placed our orders and then... we waited. It took a long time for our starters to come and they were... OK. Nothing wrong with them really, just not out of this world. I had samosas, Mark had pakoras and Tom had chicken tikka. It was a similar story with the main course a long wait and then our curries came which were nice, but nothing out of this world. The naan bread was great though absolutely enormous and just one was more than enough for three of us. The other thing we can't fault the place on is value. At the end of our meal we were a bit surprised by the bill and thought we'd been undercharged, but it was right. So if you come here and are prepared to queue, you'll get good service and a good meal at a decent price. But is it the best curry house in Manchester? I'm not so sure.

Best curry everrrrrrrr!!! I have just come back from Akbars and it was amazing!!!! Having previously gone a couple months back on a works do me and the other ha... read more Best curry everrrrrrrr!!! I have just come back from Akbars and it was amazing!!!! Having previously gone a couple months back on a works do me and the other half fancied trying it properly. The curry was insanely good, we had poppodoms then lamb chops and onion Bajis for starters, then for main had chicken tikka masala, lamb rogan josh, pilau rice and a huge garlic naan! Every part of the meal was so delicious and tasty and all for only £36 including drinks. Also the staff are lovely they were so attentive and we went to order a family garlic naan and our waiter explained the sizes as it would have been too big, which I thought was really nice of him! Will be returning here asap!

Overall good Indian food for the price. Cash only. Sunday evening. Fairly crowded, waited for 5 mins to be seated. Good service, speed of delivery was quick. St... read more Overall good Indian food for the price. Cash only. Sunday evening. Fairly crowded, waited for 5 mins to be seated. Good service, speed of delivery was quick. Starters were ok, do recommend lamb chops! Chicken curry was nicely seasoned , just a bit salty for my personal taste. Naan was great, bigger than a regular human head. Chewy inside and crunchy outside. The dessert was a mix of ice cream/whipped cream with hot soft cake ball... very very sweet.

After much (hardly any persuasion I found myself being dragged a long for a curry one cold night after work. I had a certain level of expectations for Akbar's a... read more After much (hardly any persuasion I found myself being dragged a long for a curry one cold night after work. I had a certain level of expectations for Akbar's and I'm sorry to say that it did not live up to them one iota. We were seated straight away in the busy side of the huge restaurant and it was super loud but smelt great! We were offered drinks and some poppadoms straight away with all the sauces you expect they were delicious. I started with the prawn on puri which was the one highlight of the meal. Served on a fresh roti and with a certain kick it was tasty. For the mains we opted to share a couple of the curries with a side of pilau and a family nan (HUGE! The curries were a complete disappointment with the naan arriving with a sheen of grease and oil on it. The chicken korma was over seasoned with a very strong and sickly coconut flavour being the overbearing taste. The colour was also off putting being what I describe as a fluorescent yellow. The chicken masala wasn't much better arriving with zero sauce and in a bowl of oil again it was lacking all taste... The final curry was ok a balti served with potatoes and of a medium heat that had a good kick to it. The service was good with extra drinks taken in good time, however we didn't finish the majority if the food.