A Saucy Joint

It's Tuesday night, and you've booked a restaurant table for 7:30 p.m., only to be left standing in a queue until 8 p.m. When you're finally seated, the staff are surly throughout your meal, and try to cajole you into leaving before you've finished. Tayyabs — a Pakistani diner in London's gritty Whitechapel district — is that kind of place.

So why do hordes of Londoners crowd into the eatery every night of the week? Because Tayyabs dishes up the most sublime — and possibly the cheapest — subcontinental cooking in the Big Smoke. Start with a plate of spicy, sizzling lamb chops (a mouth-watering $7.50 for four) and a succulent seekh kebab, a grilled sausage of marinated lamb and herbs (just $1.30), and you'll soon be weeping — and sweating — with delight.

For the main course, match up a fiery karahi curry (a close relation of the spicy balti, served in a metal pot and loaded with chilies) with a cooler chana gosht, a stew of lamb and chickpeas (both around $8), and mop it all up with ghee-soaked nan bread. You'll leave Tayyabs with your stomach, and wallet, beautifully full. Just don't expect them to hold the door open for you on the way out. tel: (44-20) 7247 9543; www.tayyabs.co.uk