The Sharju Indian Restaurant in Church Street, Adlington

The atmosphere is one of luxury, as evidenced by the Hindu statues and pictures, giving the impression of Eastern opulence.

This is no curry stop for the late night vindaloo after eight pints and a nightclub.

The former church is tastefully converted and is now an established feature on the Adlington landscape, just opposite the police station.

The welcome is genuine and warm from the efficient and polite staff and four of us had visited to celebrate my girlfriend's brother's 24th birthday. We had gone on a recommendation - and certainly word of mouth is often the best way to make a choice of restaurant.

It was in this case.

A birthday treat needs to be in a special place, or at least somewhere you can count on.

We were seated in the small waiting area, the place with the highest concentration of statues.

It was not long before a waiter came to take our order.

I personally like the way you can choose your food before you are seated.

It makes me feel less rushed and more relaxed - and I don't feel I have to sit their waiting to catch the waiter's eye when I have eventually chosen. We all tucked into the Bombay mix as we waited to be seated in the restaurant proper - not altogether wise if you want to preserve a keen appetite.

But we did not wait long and were taken to our table.

The menu is wide and there are plenty of Indian dishes to chose from.

There are descriptions of the dishes including brief ingredients and, most important, details of their hotness.

Our starters were lamb sheek kebab at (£2.95), king prawn puri (£4.50), stuffed mushroom (£2.95) and aloo chat (£2.75), which is a kind of potato with spices but not hot.

I enjoyed my lamb kebab, spicy lamb with a mint sauce provided on the table.

My girlfriend's dish looked particularly nice, a lovely rich dish.

For the main course, I chose the chicken madras (£5.50) as my favourite and always bankable dish.

I was not disappointed and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was not too hot but was definitely on the spicy side.

The meat was well cooked and, with the pilau rice, had a rich flavour.

My girlfriend had chicken tikka massala (£7.25), which she let me try. It was extremely tasty with barbecued chicken and a spicy sauce.

The other two in our party had chicken korma (£5.50) and prawn bhuna (£5.95) - all ate with gusto.

We also ordered two nan breads.

The food was plentiful and more than enough for us all.

For afters, the two girls had icecreams at £3.50 each.

Not always the best in Indian restaurants where puddings aren't the tradition, these were given 10 out of 10 as praise was heaped on them by the females.

There is no doubt the Sharju make their's as good as any Italian restaurant.

At the end of the meal, fate played a cruel joke on my girlfriend's brother.

The Asian music drifting out of the restaurant speakers suddenly stopped. The sounds of "Happy Birthday To You" were heard and a cake came out of the kitchen.

My girlfriend's brother thought we had played a surprise on him - until the cake headed for another table.

To make up for his disappointment, we got them to play Happy Birthday again, but the waiter said they had run out of birthday cake.

The Sharju is certainly a very pleasant Indian with a tasteful and slightly up-market atmosphere.

Even so the prices were very reasonable and there is a special take away menu available.

There is plenty of parking at the front of the building.

Wheelchair diners or those who find stairs difficult may be disappointed in not being able to take advantage of an upstairs area.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.