Surprisingly bad, given apparent popularity

I went there for dinner with my girlfriend a couple Saturdays ago. I have to say the whole experience was degrading. One thing that was not uniformly bad was the service, which was mixed (one waiter was more pleasant than the other, and offered us free water when he saw us swigging from bottles. Hey, we'd also ordered a glass of house red and a mixer drink so it wasn't like we were cheaping out!).

We didn't order starters (to the incredulity of "the other" waiter) but were given that bright green cucumber and garlic paste with the little sticks to dip. It tasted all right but the green colour was so bright and unnatural, it made us think that there must have been a lot of food colouring in it.

Food. We had two lamb dishes. One was a sag (spinach) lamb dish with green spinach sauce, and the other was lamb with a brown sauce. Unfortunately I can't remember the exact names. The meat was... strange, almost like they'd boiled it instead of grilling or frying it, so it was limp beyond tender, and sort of slimy. To be fair I don't think it was raw, just very fatty, limp and slimy. I stomached it because I don't like to waste food, but my girlfriend couldn't finish hers. Eating it made us feel more than a little ill. Both curry sauces were far too salty.

The rice was OK (what do you expect?). The frontier naan was not heinously bad, if somewhat different from the description on the menu (sprinkled on it were a couple of those bright green pickled cherry things, described in the menu, rather disingenuously I might add, as "raisin paste"). House red wine was adequate.

We would have complained about the food if the waiters had asked us about our meal, but they did not seem to be concerned as to whether or not we enjoyed the food.

I would not recommend this restaurant to anyone and would urge people not to go. I will not be going back unless I start hearing very good things from people who have changed their minds, like us not having liked the food originally (I say this because, incredibly, many people swear by this restaurant as it is now). I would appreciate real, sustained efforts to improve their repertoire, which is what it would have to take to make the experience at Mirch Masala even acceptable.