We are from Atlanta Ga, spending Christmas in London. Our whole family thought it was the best Indian Restaurant we’d ever been too. Friendly service and great food.

As the well-travelled and increasingly better-informed diners of London beseech the market for authenticity, it's interesting to see how the mid-market 'Indian' restaurant gets on. Where I come from, not a single Indian restaurant is run by a person who's ever been to India (the family behind the Taj Mahal are from Karachi, and the man who promises a Taste of India hails from Chittagong).

But in the City of London and in countless suburbs that sustain it, we have come to accept, embrace and repeatedly demand the decades-old dining experience of poppadoms, pickle, 660ml Kingfishers, curry, rice and naan. Often in surroundings redolent of a 1970s airport lounge.

The familiarity and interchangeability of the experience is partly what guarantees its enduring popularity. "Let's go for a curry" instantly connotes likeable sensations of mild intoxication, civil and frivolous conversation, and feeling very full with tasty meat and fat. And there's always that lovely moment when they give you a laminated menu of pre-frozen desserts served in a plastic penguin, which you would have declined even if you weren't too full, because it's a disturbing image.

Not having revived this experience for a while, a mate and I plotted to meet up after work on a weeknight and "have a curry". Sripur is near my office, Zomato informed me, so I led us over there via a pre-curry Doombar in the Cheshire Cheese.

And yes, in the age of Dishoom, food trucks and Michelin-starred curry chefs, the mid-market City curry house is alive and well.

I say mid-market because for two of us, with a poppadoms, a tandoori mixed grill each, sag, chana, roti and naan, plus two large Kingfishers each, the bill came to £60.

But it was great. Not spectacular, but the mixed grill was precisely what you want at that price point in those circumstances. The keema was substantial, the murgh tender. The naans were a little thin and crispy for my personal taste, but the sag and channa were both tasty accompaniments. And Kingfisher is Kingfisher - a sine qua non of a good (British) curry experience.

As for Sripur as a place - service is friendly enough, efficient, and uninvasive. It's mainly populated by a few men in suits. Not the loud obnoxious kind, but a smattering of slightly past-their-best grey-behind-the-ears chaps with loosened ties and the prospect of a £40 cab home in front of them.

Could have had another curry for that.