Light of India

[gerryh]

I believe the Light of India in Torrox is closed whilst buiding work goes on.
I have heard there is another branch in Lugguna Beach doing a "eat as much as you like menu".
Is this correct, if so exactly where is it?
Cheers
Gerry

[El Cid]

Coming from the east, if you turn off the N340 at the first roundabout after the RUI hotel, and carry on parallel to the N340 it is in a parade of shops just before you get to the next roundabout.

You need to book as they must be the only restaurant in the area that is always full.

They are also now doing a 25% discount on takeaways.

Sid

[peteroldracer]

And from the west? Is it before or after the roundabout on the coast road nearest to Aldi?

[El Cid]

If you mean the Aldi near the roundabout where you come down from the motorway then you have gone too far.

Coming along the coast road from the west, just as you leave El Morche there are two roundabouts. The Light of India is just after the second one under the Laguna Beach apparthotel complex. There is an entry into the slip road on the right just after the second roundabout.

Sid

[frog]

run by a very pleasant irish family,tho the chefs are indian,glad to hear they are doing well,hope their supplying food to other outlets is going ok too

[peteroldracer]

Thanks Sid - we will probably give it a try in the next few days, as we have two young ladies staying who could eat for the Yorkshire team!

[gerryh]

Eight of us went there last night.
It is a "eat as much as you like for €12.95 each " menu.
Open every day 12 noon to 12 midnight.
Only tapas available from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm, the chef has a rest.
You order what you want from a fairly extensive menu and they bring it to you.
Pleasant and friendly staff.
Food very good and good value.
Drinks are pricey, ended up nearer €24 each in total.
Cheers
Gerry

[Lyric]

The original "Light of India" which is reported as closed for building refurbishment seems to be closed permanently as the sign now says "Tony's fish and chip bar" or something distastefully similar. Today at about 16.00.

[gerryh]

That is correct, the owners of Light of India have re opened the original one as a chippie.
Cheers
Gerry

[Laslomas]

Gerry - is it a chippie where they sell take-aways? - (UK style) - queue up and buy, or is it a restaurant?

[peteroldracer]

Well, we went last night: verdict? We would not go again. The starters were excellent, main courses sort of O.K., but there was reluctance to provide side dishes - "you could have two", when there were four of us eating, you could only have rice or naan, not both, and because of the system of 'first starter, then order second starter' the service felt slow, although the waitresses were friendly enough.
The worst problem was the cost of drinks, as already identified by Gerry - not only is 4.30€ for a gin & tonic way excessive, but it was a bit sneaky taking a drinks order before giving out the menus so you could see the prices - I have never asked "how much is that" before ordering a drink in Spain, but wish I had! Small bottles of water at 1.70€, Cokes at 1.50€, and cheapest wine at 8.95€ a bottle.
It does not come up to the standards and value overall of the Taj Mahal in Venta Baja, where the atmosphere is much better too.
Each to their own, but for me, only 6/10.

[frog]

dont think that those drink prices were that high,for a restaurant,sneek a gin in mate in your hip flask and just order a tonic

[peteroldracer]

Three Euro for a gin, when a litre bottle is only three times that in the supermarkets is excessive. What happened to the usual catering mark-up of 150%?
Why don't businesses realise that the only way to survive, let alone succeed in these difficult times is to consistently offer good value?
Talking to a (Spanish) neighbour t'other day who has worked in estate agencies here, he said (with perhaps a degree of exaggeration) that there are many who are content to sell a couple of properties per year at 30% commission, rather than the UK way of 1.5% commission, and twenty sales per month. There is some serious room for a brave entrepeneur to start up an inmobilario here on those terms, and shake up the market!

[frog]

a lot less work,the spanish like that

[julian]

"Three Euro for a gin, when a litre bottle is only three times that in the supermarkets is excessive".....
someone has to pay for the glass, the ice, the tonic,the chefs, the waiters,the cleaners, the taxes, the rent, the electric, the water,the investment and loads of other unseen costs that go with trying to run a restaurant,and then, god forbid, try to have a little profit left after all that for his hard work....if you want to eat in a restaurant you have to expect to pay restaurant prices, otherwise it´s best to go to the supermarket to buy the bottle of gin and drink it on the pavement outside..much cheaper, but not quite the same.
3 euros for gin in a restaurant in europe sounds cheap to me

[Wicksey]

The worst problem was the cost of drinks, as already identified by Gerry - not only is 4.30€ for a gin & tonic way excessive, but it was a bit sneaky taking a drinks order before giving out the menus so you could see the prices - I have never asked "how much is that" before ordering a drink in Spain, but wish I had!

I agree completely Peter. We found exactly the same thing when in a 'cheap' restaurant on the Costa a few months back. We were taken aback to find that the glass of vino tinto my OH had was 2.50€ which is expensive for a menu del dia place in this area. We have cut back on eating out now anyway as, due to the poor exchange rate and the fact that our cash comes from the UK, eating (and drinking!) out seems not to be such good value anymore. I knew the drinks at The Light of India were expensive - they did have a menu hanging up outside the front door last time we were passing Laguna Beach, and as you and Gerry say, it suddenly turns from a good value meal into an expensive one. We enjoyed the 3 course menu del dia we had the other week at Haveli in Nerja which includes a drink for 11.50€ - we simply do not order extra drinks now to keep the cost down!

[peteroldracer]

Either Julian is filthy rich, and doesn't mind paying over £4 - that is Four British Pounds! - for a G&T, or does not live here and exist on money from the UK.
I do not want to buy the waiter or the glass, just rent their use for less than an hour!
The profit margin on the food should contribute enough to cover overheads, and the drinks should provide the profit. In these days when one is lucky to get 5% interest (profit) on one's money, that should be enough to satisfy any business. The key is quantity - there is no substitute for bums on seats, so that many customers pay towards the same staff that are needed to sit around waiting for customers that may or may not turn up. That means offering excellent value for every part of the offering - or it certainly does if they are to get me to drive 80kms round-trip to patronise their establishment!
The Spanish do seem to be the worst at not realising that you cannot just put prices up to compensate for lower turnover, as eventually they will only be catering for millionaires and village mayors, both dying breeds.

[julian]

I´m definitly not "filthy rich", and I wouldn´t dream of living in one country and depending on an income in another currency....and I don´t calculate what 3 euros is an other currencies from around the world..3 euros is 3 euros...

[peteroldracer]

But isn't it putting one's head in the sand to ignore how much those three euro cost you? Our pensions (or strictly speaking my OH's pension, as I have 18 months to go before mine!) come from the UK, as do most ex-pat Brits here, and are converted into Euro en route. Thanks to the general incompetence of the one-eyed Scot, this means that whether one converts Euro in pounds mentally, or takes into account the decreased income in some other way, it is decreased, so businesses here should wake up and get competitive. In the case of this restaurant, I would be amazed if Brits were less than 80% of their customer base, and for an Axarquia eatery with wood-clad walls and hard chairs, and a no-fuss feel, the prices should hardly be the same as they are in a swish Mugbella joint,
I still say that for me, a G&T should cost no more than 2 Euro - even if they ask me to wash up the glass myself, and no-one should charge more than 3 Euro to buy, stock and open a bottle of wine, so something they buy at 3€ should sell, with a glass at 6€. That way they might even sell twice as much, covering their overheads and giving them a profit!

[julian]

I really can´t see why a business in spain should have to watch the fluctuating exchange rates to price its menu...I I doubt the restaurant here does its purchasing in the UK.
I can´t see a restaurant in london moving its prices up and down depending on the value of the dollar, the yen , the euro etc etc
seems to me that some expats here want spain to adapt to them rather than vice versa.
Obviously it´s cheaper to drink gin in one´s own living room, but a restaurant client is paying for a whole combination of things that cost money..not just the cost of the bottle of gin.

[gerryh]

A high proportion of the Light of India clientèle are UK ex-pats, so the waitress told me.
When I was there I would say most seem to be of an age when they are relying on the UK sourced pensions.
Out of the group of eight of us we all enjoyed the food but thought the drinks were pricey.
None of us seemed keen to go there very often.
Reduce the prices of the drinks in line with the food prices and we might be very tempted to go back there.
Cheers
Gerry

[julian]

"You need to book as they must be the only restaurant in the area that is always full"................
if you owned this restaurant would you be reducing the prices ?

[peteroldracer]

Of course a restaurant does not necessarily look at exchange rates, but unless they are totally stupid they do need to look at the economic conditions where they are trading, and pitch their service and prices accordingly. There seem little point in anyone paying out rent, wages, advertising and all the other overheads if they have not got their offer right.
Perhaps I should open a restaurant - a very exclusive one - where there is only one table, seven waiters, a team in the kitchen who produce the most magnificent cuisine, but with a minimum charge for dinner of 350€. There would possibly be one client, once - possibly called julian?
Reality is more prosaic and I do understand the futility of operating at a loss, but turnover is key in catering.
I had a client when I had a printing business - a restaurant in the twee Calls of Leeds, where dinner would set you back at least GBP 50 - and this in the 80s, who would occasionally try to beat me down on prices for work, despite that I gave him top-quality print, often within impossible deadlines. He had to accept two things: that one can have it cheap, one can have it good, or one can have it quickly - but never all three; and that if a person eats in his super establishment or at a road-side burger bar, the food always ends up the same - after being processed through the body!
One can spend a lot of money getting a client through your doors, but the best clients are the ones that come again and again. When we were there, there were empty tables, and there was tumbleweed blowing through the place as we left at 10pm...

[gerryh]

"You need to book as they must be the only restaurant in the area that is always full"................
if you owned this restaurant would you be reducing the prices ?

It certainly wasn't full the night we went. Less than half full I would say. Without our group of eight it would have looked fairly empty.
How full was it the night you went?
Cheers
Gerry

[julian]

never been...wouldn´t go anywhere that charges 4 quid for a gin !

[El Cid]

I cannot understand why anyone would order a G&T in a restaurant - they are ALWAYS overpriced.

As for Peters idea that "corkage" should be a 50% mark up - that's just unrealistic. Most restaurants who do a house wine for €8 buy it for less than €2. The best "deal" in terms of low mark up are the expensive wines but that doesn't make them good value.

I think the deal in the Light of India is now not that good and I am sorry that the old "a la carte" option in the old restaurant has now gone. BUT they may not now be full but I bet they are still doing better than the rest of the hundreds of restaurants in Torrox Costa - particularly if they are getting €24 a head inc.

It will be interesting to see if the Chippie does as well. I shall try it - especially if they do Haddock which seems not to exist in Spain (apart from in Iceland!)

Sid

[frog]

you doddery old ex-pats forget that you are generally getting a triple g and t for your 4 quid

singapore sling yourselves back to reality,if you can remember that far back

[peteroldracer]

It may be a triple G, but it is hardly Bombay Sapphire, just Larios!
Another no-no for this eatery - they allow smoking, inside.

[frog]

well i smoke,dont drink gin(ot even blue stuff) and have never had an indian in my life,never will,was just saying that the owners are nice people

[katy]

It may be a triple G, but it is hardly Bombay Sapphire, just Larios!
Another no-no for this eatery - they allow smoking, inside.

How fast the price of Larios has risen during the past few years it will soon be the same price as Bombay I can never understand the attraction of G&T although I don't like beer either.