So when Roy Singh says he's happy to take the heat for his staff, he means what he says.

Roy, 28, grew up in Punjab in north-west India and is the man behind the popular Royal Spoon Indian restaurant at Lorn, now open for seven months and going strong.

And the heat he is referring to is from short-fused customers if they are forced to wait for their food.

Don't get him wrong, he wants all his customers to be happy and all his food out promptly - but not if it means taking shortcuts.

"I say to my chefs every day that everything has to be fresh, no excuses," he says.

"When we started here I wanted to give people a taste of what really good Indian food is all about.

"That means two things. It as to be cooked in ghee, rather than vegetable oil. And it has to be fresh. Indian food has to be fresh, not cooked in the morning and served at night.

"And it takes about 10 minutes to make a good curry, cooking the spices before adding the meat. If you've got six or seven people seated at a table it takes time. But that's okay, I want all our dishes cooked from scratch. No shortcuts."

His chefs (he has a head chef and a tandoor chef) are also from Punjab and share his philosophy - good food takes time.

From the number of people coming in for takeaway when I was there, this approach is proving a winner. It wasn't exactly a revolving door, but it was busy all right.

We opted for samosas - we can never pass them up, and these were tasty indeed with the spiced potato and pea filling a real hit - and fish tikka cooked in the tandoor oven. Our mains were goat masala and a chicken vindaloo.

The goat was beautifully tender with genuine depth of flavour. If you're not familiar with goat, this will be good enough to sway you. The chicken a hotter counterpoint - hot yes, but balanced, moist and very moreish. The naan bread a delicious way to finish, as we greedily mopped up the sauces.

This was good Indian, no doubt. So, what are his most popular dishes?

"We have quite a good selection of vegetarian dishes (six entrees and 13 mains) and they do really well," he said. "Good vegetable dishes are hard to cook. They require a lot of ingredients and spices. There's a real skill to them.

"And of course butter chicken. It's always popular."

And is the goat a hard sell? 

"We sell a lot more butter chicken, but you'd expect that," he says. "But yes, the goat sells well."

Royal Spoon is at 17 Belmore Road, Lorn (opposite newsagent), 49344985.