Sahara

39 Hereford Road
London W2 4AB

020 7792 0770

I've been here a few times and enjoyed the tagines; and you really don't need to order a first course here. You get harissa, olives, olive oil and good Moroccan bread before you start all thrown in.

We order lamb mechoui with roasted butternut squash, potatoes, sultanas, french beans with slow baked boneless shoulder of lamb with Moroccan spice (for two) £29.95.

Its around 8pm on a Friday night and the restaurant is very empty; there is only one other group of three. The lamb is full of spicy Moroccan flavour and flaky slow cooked but it just isn't hot enough. It also doesn't seem to me all that authentically Moroccan with the potatoes which bothers me less. What worries me, with so few people in the restaurant, is how they manage to do this, this one off dish which takes a long time to produce when there are so few customers. Is it straight from the freezer? I have my suspicions and that it is not properly heated is worrying, puts me off. I'm saddened by this, feel everything has gone off here a bit. Things are not helped by the fact that Hereford Road is all pulled up with major road works (water?), metal fences obscuring the restaurants and other businesses and making access difficult.

L.O. and I enjoy nevertheless a bottle of heavy Domaine de Larroque Moroccan wine, a merlot/syrah blend, £25.50.