The limpest of protests

Anyone moving into the Kennington area soon realises they have a decision to make that will define their time in the neighbourhood. Yes, the gang colours thing is important, and on behalf of the Oval Souljas I'd like to issue a polite warning to the K-Town Bludz that I don't want no more displayin' in my front yard. But there is a more fundamental choice to make - are you Kennington Tandoori (aka the KT) or Gandhi's?

Operating within a few doors of each other, they have very different styles. Gandhi's is an old-school curry house whereas the KT is more inclined to put your food on an oddly-shaped plate, drizzle unidentifiable red and green sauces around the corners and charge you 25% more for the privilege. The two compete fiercely for the custom of the local politicians and omega-list celebrities. Gandhi's scored a knock-out blow by being chosen by Alistair Darling to feed the late-night deliberations over the October 08 banking bail-out, but the KT seems to have the edge on the random celebs ("the best naan in London" - The Kaiser Chiefs).

In fact, Hot Stuff in Vauxhall is the best local bet by a mile but only has a tiny amount of seats, so my Plan B of choice is a vegetable thali at Gandhi's. I've generally found the service more friendly, the food equivalent in quality and the bill less cheeky. But the KT has been boarded up for weeks undergoing major internal surgery, and as I'd be remiss in my duties as a prominent local fatty if I didn't give the new incarnation a chance the missus and I popped along at the weekend.

The immediate impression is that they've increased the size of the restaurant by 20% and the number of seats by 40%. As before tables hug each side of the narrow space, but now a wobbly line of two-person islands form a thin spine down the middle, leaving two incredibly narrow tracks on either side for customers and waiters to walk down sideways like crabs. Sit as we did in the middle and you'll get a constant parade of crotches passing extremely close to your face as people squeeze past, sucking in their stomachs and apologising.

The food is exactly as competent and overpriced as ever, with the clip joint practice of charging £3 for two papadoms still especially vile. The service is exactly as piss poor as ever. My starter lagged ten minutes behind the missus's, and my desperate attempts to make eye contact with the waiter to hurry things along were complicated by the good old natter he was having on his Blackberry. It took four requests to get some tap water, although a paid-for lager arrived within seconds. The bill was full of fictional beers and after I paid a corrected version the guy wandered off with my credit card still hanging out of the chip and pin.

I paid the tip, of course. I'm English. Rather than take any kind of action at the time and risk causing a fuss I'd rather brood for a couple of days, then set out my complaints in tedious detail on a website the waiter will never read. I'll quietly boycott them in a way that they couldn't possibly notice until some social circumstance lands me back in the middle row, nose to groin with the same waiter as he calculates how to spend the tip he knows I'll give him whatever he does to me or my food because I'm such a completely craven pussy. Yeah, I'll show them good and proper.