Thumbs up for Indian tapas at Imli restaurant, Soho

I love Soho for many reasons and number of restaurants in this fantastic square mile is definitely up there. Whether you're looking for a quick bite to eat in your lunch break or a three-course monster session that lasts hours, Soho really comes up trumps time and time again.

In my never-ending quest to find the perfect Indian restaurant, I found myself heading to Imli on Wardour Street one frosty afternoon, to sample Imli's innovative Indian tapas menu.

Happily, Imli's interior is stylish, contemporary and devoid of the usual tandoori clichés so many restaurants fall foul of and yet it manages to be inviting at the same time. So after taking my seat, I delved into the menu.

As a vegetarian, I was pleased to see a good selection of dishes on offer, but I had come for one thing; the Curry platter. Priced at a very reasonable £7.95, the Vegetarian Curry Platter comprises of 6 Indian tapas dishes – mater paneer, tarka daal, vegetable of the day, salad, steamed rice, gulab jamun (a delicious milk dumpling) and my favourite dish of the lot, the papdi chaat, described in the menu as 'a taste bud tickling combination of whole wheat crisps and bean sprouts with vermicelli, sweet yoghurt and mint chutney'. They're not wrong.

Service was swift and very helpful with suggestions and recommendations and it wasn't long before I was greeted with a number of good-sized portions of the above and the difficult task of deciding what to sample first!

I started with the most interesting looking dish of the lot, the papdi chaat and very near polished the lot off without touching the rest. It really is as the menu states; 'taste bud tickling', a great palate teaser and cooling dish should you opt for some of the spicier selections on the menu. I found the portions to be more than enough for lunch and perfect even as a dinner choice and with the little gulab jamun to round it off, I would definitely recommend the platter for an evening meal.

The matar paneer was very tasty; not too tough or spicy and very filling. A great meat substitute should you need it. The rest of the dishes were all rather reasonable, but it really was the papdi chaat that hit the mark.

Despite being full, I couldn't leave without trying some of the homemade ice creams, so I picked a selection of three; mango and basil sorbet, chocolate and orange zest ice cream and lastly fig and ginger ice cream. I was pleasantly surprised by the mango and basil sorbet; the mango was both sweet and sharp with just a hint of basil peeking through. The fig and ginger was very nice, creamy and well-balance, but my favourite had to be the chocolate and orange zest ice cream.

I left Imli feeling like I'd just found a soon to be old favourite, go-to restaurant. Somewhere I can head to for a quick bite or spend an evening taking my time and not feel like I'd spent too much.

Imli really is a must for all you curry lovers and budget conscious diners out there and the papdi chaat is worth a trip alone!