Recently Milton Keynes Girl Network were invited to Maaya Indian Kitchen & Bar in the heart of Milton Keynes and had an outstanding festive party experience. Maaya provides the most incredible traditional Indian dishes and all-you-can-eat brunches too! Charlotte and Louise from MK Girl tell us about their experience.

Atmosphere

We were greeted with a beautifully laid out table - with a Christmas cracker at every place setting - and the friendliest, most wholesome team with such energy. It was smiles all round with Jay and his team.

The team had outstanding customer service skills, meeting every single dietary requirement and really making us feel right at home. We had someone who is lactose intolerant and the team at Maaya made sure to carefully show her all of the dishes that were made without dairy and even made some special dishes just for her, including her own personal rice (as their indulgent pilau rice is made with butter!).

The Menu

The menu is a perfect mixed choice of food; there are just as many vegetarian dishes as there are non-vegetarian. Their drinks menu is just as inclusive, a range of mocktails and the bartenders are brilliant at adapting to what you like. The girls had the non-alcoholic Very Berry Christmas and loved it. The prices for their drinks and food are really great value for the experience you get as well as for a delicious meal.

Our Order

Maaya have a special festive drinks menu as well as their festive food menu, such as the white chocolate espresso martini which was dangerously delicious and the ice blue Jack Frost! Half our group weren’t drinking as they had to drive, but the bartender whipped up a festive mocktail which was a special touch.

After the drinks were served, the food started coming. And it kept coming! We started with classic poppadoms and chutneys, swiftly followed by our mixed starters. Between us we shared a selection of murgh malai chicken tikka, spicy lamb chops, aloo tikki and onion pakoras.

The chef also brought us out a Samasa chaat to try - if you haven’t tried this before then you need this dish in your life. The chicken was delicious and left a nice taste of spice, the lamb was flavoursome and cooked well, but our favourites were the aloo tikki and fried potato cakes flavoured with Indian spicing. Like a grown up and much tastier version of frozen potato shapes we had as children!

If you’ve been to Maaya before then you’ll know how spectacular their table naans are. If you haven’t, then get ready to be astounded! After our starters were cleared, the most enormous naan bread was brought out. Bigger than our heads, and about the size of a small child, their naans are a sight to behold. And as the curry dishes started to come to the table we realised why we needed so much naan!

We had at least five different types of curry brought out to us, ranging from the classic butter chicken, spicy garlic chicken tikka masala and lamb karahi, to vegetarian staples of lentil daal and chickpeas. This all came with a bowl of pilau rice and many spoons! Maaya is a great choice for vegetarians as there are so many classic Indian dishes cooked without meat, and the team were prepared to bring us vegetarian specials on request if needed.

It’s a free-for-all when the food arrives, with everyone able to dive straight into whatever they fancy and you get the fun of passing dishes over to each other in order to try a bit of everything. At the end when we were full to bursting, the team gave us some takeaway pots so we were all ready to go again for lunch the next day.

We were offered a dessert menu but all agreed we just needed to roll home after such a generous meal. Satisfied from the food and excellent company, I passed my leftovers to my jealous husband and collapsed on the sofa to digest.

Allergies

At the very start of our meal they clearly stated to let them know of any allergies or intolerances and we had never felt so appreciative of the impeccable service. Jay and the team that brought out the food let us know what was in each dish, what’s vegan and so forth. On their menu it clearly states the spice level and whether it’s vegetarian/vegan too.

City Girl Rating

★★★★★

The City Girl Rating system ranking system ensures that we recommend the best places to eat and drink. We take into account the atmosphere, customer service, value for money/ worth the spend, allergy awareness and of course, the quality of the food and drinks served.

Written By Charlotte Moyle and Louise Mortimor

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Disclaimer: MK Girl Network were invited to try their new Christmas menu and got both Food and Drinks for free, however we were of no obligation to write this full review.

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