DAVID MARTIN visits a popular fixture on the York curry circuit.

SOMETIMES, reviewing a restaurant can seem a bit, well, unnecessary.

Take The Viceroy Of India. It is so well-known as a popular fixture on York's curry circuit that I can't recall anyone ever having a bad thing to say about it.

Maybe it's the spacious, comfortable feel, and those "reassuringly expensive" prices which have always given it an air of reliable quality.

As it was a Saturday evening, we thought we'd take the precaution of going early and booking ahead.

We were glad we had, as when we arrived at 7pm, dripping from a seasonal downpour, many of the tables were already full, mostly with families and couples - it's clearly not a restaurant reliant on the late-night beer monster trade.

My partner, Vix, and I were greeted and swiftly shown to a table, where we ordered a pint of lager each as we waited for our curry connoisseur friends, Sam and Emily, to join us.

You can tell a lot about the Viceroy from the yellowed tinge to the well-thumbed menu - it suggests this is a restaurant where it certainly ain't broke and so they don't plan on fixing it.

Said menu highlights a decent range of enthusiastically-described chef's specials, mostly in the £7-£8 bracket, as well as the usual baltis, rogans and kormas for a few pounds cheaper.

There's a better-than-average veggie selection - our dining companion Sam is of the herbivorous persuasion.

Our friends having rolled in from the rain, we ordered our meals and set about the poppadums and pickles (£3.50).

The starters arrived swiftly, and proved a mixed bag.

My chicken tikka (£2.50), was good, the meat tender if a little bland, and the accompanying minty yoghurt very tasty. Vix and Sam's vegetable samosas (£2.50) were pronounced okay, with a greasy exterior letting down the contents. Emily, however was bemused by her king prawn butterfly (£3.75), which did, to be brutally honest, resemble a genetic experiment involving a stingray and a Findus Crispy Pancake. While the prawn inside was good, she ruled the breadcrumb coating "nasty".

Meanwhile, a steady stream of people kept flowing into the Viceroy foyer, but the staff seemed to manage it expertly - at no point did the restaurant feel crowded, or the service rushed or panicked.

Our main meals arrived with perfect timing, steaming on a trolley.

Not in the mood for stodginess, I'd opted for the Akhini Chicken (£6.95), a mild dish with pineapple, almonds and sultanas.

Like a biryani, the meat arrives combined with the rice, and the sauce comes separately. It was very good, the sweet fruit and nut and chicken flavours working nicely together, and the slow-burning sauce packing just enough heat to offset the sweetness of the dish.

However, despite being a lighter dish, it was still rich and plentiful, and the going did get heavy.

Vix was pleased with her chicken passanda (£7.95) ruling it one of the best she's had, with a strong coconut flavour, though by the end, it was proving too sugary even for her sweet tooth.

Emily chose the Nawabi Khana (£8.95) - the menu goes into rhapsodies about it being crafted from 21 individually-roasted ingredients. While it would be a tall order to live up to the hype, it proved to be a subtle, well-rounded savoury curry with a small kick, and she was also very pleased with her cucumber raita side dish (£1).

Sam's vegetable thali (£7.95) comprised four small individual vegetable dishes, which scored a fifty per cent hit rate - the dall and the spicy mushroom dish impressed, while the veg passanda and something that appeared to be curried cabbage didn't.

The food is nothing if not rich and, even in the interests of rigorous journalism, no one could be persuaded to try a dessert. We were stuffed.

The final bill came to £79.40 for four people, or about £20 a head, for two courses and a couple of pints each - at the top end of the price range for a York curry house.

The food on this occasion may not have always matched up to the premium prices, (though to give the kitchen their due, it was a busy Saturday night in a large restaurant), but all of us had had a pleasant evening, due in no small part to the flawless, unobtrusive service and comfortable atmosphere.

But, just maybe, it's time the Viceroy thought the unthinkable and contemplated a bit of a shake-up of its menu to avoid the fate of getting complacent.

The Viceroy Of India, 26 Monkgate, York. Tel: 01904 622370 or 01904 671855

Food: good, with a few glitches

Service: flawless

Value: pricey

Ambience: comfortable

Disabled facilities: No

David Martin visited The Viceroy Of India on Saturday, April 3, 2004.

Restaurant reviewers aim to be fair and accurate.

Any comments on this review should be addressed to Chris Titley, Features Content Editor, Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York, YO1 9YN or e-mail features@ycp.co.uk

Updated: 08:34 Saturday, April 10, 2004