Halal Chai and Desserts for Eastcote

This is the one page where we would talk you out of the tube. Eastcote is on the Metropolitan line, and so is Northwood Hills, but they are on different branches of it. Eastcote sits on the Uxbridge branch, which leaves the main line at Harrow-on-the-Hill, so a rail journey means travelling in one direction and then back out in another. Nobody does that for a cup of chai. By road it is a short run, and there is free and pay-and-display parking on Joel Street and the side roads around the parade. The H11 and the 282 both stop on Joel Street right outside the shop, so the bus is a real option depending on where in Eastcote you start, and the TfL app will confirm what is running better than a web page written months ago. When you arrive, the shop faces Northwood Hills station, which makes it easy to spot even in the dark.

The kitchen serves until eleven at night from Sunday to Thursday and until midnight on Friday and Saturday, which is the whole reason this trip exists for a lot of people from Eastcote. The Strawberry Kunafa Cup is £7.95 and is the one people photograph. A Dubai kunafa donut is £2.95 and the Dubai kunafa chocolate is £3.50, which is a small order and a real one at half eleven at night. If you want something hot instead, brownies with ice cream are £6.95, apple crumble with custard is £6.95, cookie dough is £5.95 with ice cream for £1.50 more, and the Nutella wrap is £3.95 and travels well in a car. Gelato is £2.50 for one scoop, £4.50 for two and £6.00 for three, with a waffle cone for £1.00 more, or loaded with Oreo, Lotus or Kinder for £3.50 and kunafa for £4.50.

The shakes are a separate reason to come. The Karak Chai Shake is £4.50 and the Pink Chai Shake is £4.50, both of which take the two house chais and turn them cold, and neither is something you will find on most high streets. The Cha Cha Chai Special is £5.95, gelato shakes are £5.95 blended from any of the gelato flavours, and the standard milkshakes at £4.95 run through vanilla, flake, Oreo, strawberry, Kinder Bueno, Lotus Biscoff, Ferrero Rocher, Snickers and Millions bubblegum. Nimbu pani is £3.00 in lemon and lime, lemon and strawberry or lemon and raspberry, and it is the order for a warm evening rather than a cold one. Mango lassi is £3.00. Everything here is halal and no alcohol is served, so a late drink out means exactly this and nothing else, which is precisely the point for a lot of the people who make the trip.

A good share of the Eastcote traffic is collection: park on Joel Street, walk in, walk out with a box. Donuts are prepared fresh in store, £1.95 for one, £7.95 for a variety box of five and £14.95 for a box of twelve. Milkcakes are £6.95 in pistachio, Lotus Biscoff or Oreo, or £7.50 for kunafa. Samosas are £3.95 for two, meat or veg, and spring rolls are £3.95 for three. The menu is also listed on Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats. We are not going to tell you those apps deliver to your road, because the delivery radius belongs to the platforms and it moves: open one of them, enter your postcode and it will answer in a second. What is fixed is the shop itself, open from nine in the morning, seven days a week, at 56 Joel Street.