The car park of a retail estate populated by Peacocks and Poundland doesn't make the most promising starting point for a good meal, but I'm always prepared to be surprised.
Some of the best food I've eaten this year has been in the unlikeliest locations: in the shadow of IKEA at Lily's, tacked on to an MOT garage at That's Thai, and now, to Market Street in Droylsden, over the road from the town's shopping centre.
The Tameside town isn't somewhere I've been back to much since my in-laws moved away from the area years ago, but a few places have put it back on my radar recently.
There was the admirable but sadly now closed H M Pasties project, which trained ex-offenders to bake, the excellent new craft beer, real ale and cider bar The Silly Country - and now Mumbai to London.
The café was opened in April by Mumbai-born chef Vinod Singh, who worked in five star hotels in India before moving to the UK and working as a development chef for highly-regarded restaurant group Dishoom in London.
He went on to open his own small restaurant, Saka Maka, in Brockley, before moving to Manchester in search of a more peaceful pace of life.
Based in the former Masala Mix unit, it's not much bigger than a takeaway (they offer that too), with enough tables to seat about 30 diners squeezed in between its brick effect-papered walls.
There's a small bar at the back and a little library of paperbacks, should you wish to read a Maeve Binchy novel while you wait.
The menu is a mix of street snacks, curries and grills that dares to stray from the usual high street curry house terrain.
Chana corn (£3.50) arrives in a sundae glass like a knickerbocker glory.
A cone of poppadom is curled inside, filled with a sweet, sour dice of tomato, red onion and parsley, pelleted with black chickpeas and scattered with sev.
Eating it is a precarious sport.
We go at it horizontally, delicately, trying not to dislodge everything, like a game of Kerplunk.
Eventually we admit defeat, tip it out on a plate and smash it up. It's one satisfying mess.
A portion of Nepalese-style vegetable momos (£3.90) are bursting at the seams, their silky, steamed dumpling casings overspilling with minced garlic, onion and carrot and threaded through with green chilli.
They're served with a spicy tomato relish laced with a deep, nutty, sesame sweetness.
I guard the little pot with my life when the empty plates are cleared.
A bowl of daal Bukhara (£4.90) is a rich, oaky brown, with so much butter and cream added to the mix it's thickened to a magma-like consistency.
It's a sniffle-busting bowl of comfort, cooked long and slow until even creamier than its heavy equivalent at Dishoom (and a couple of quid cheaper too).
It also has a playful habit of solidifying every time the spoon stops moving through it, like it's playing a game of musical statues.
There's just a handful of curries on the menu, including a saag murgh (£6.70), a swampy green stew of softly-spiced spinach hiding huge hunks of tender, grilled chicken.
A scattering of matchstick potatoes over the top adds an irresistible salty crunch.
Doing it for the vegetarians is, as usual, a few cubes of paneer popped into a vibrant orange sauce.
The mutter paneer (£5) still excites even though it's nothing revolutionary, the sauce packed with sweetness and spice while the cheese keeps a bit of bounce.
We dive into both with torn strips of thepla (£1.60), a flaky, fried paratha-like flatbread flavoured with fenugreek and cumin.
The only dish that disappoints is a portion of ajwani fish tikka (£6.20).
It's supposed to be marinated with carom seeds and garlic, but doesn't seem to have been introduced to either for long enough for them to have made much of an impression.
A spritz of lemon over the top, and a tingle of mint through the accompanying coconut slaw, give it a bit of a lift, but it needs more seasoning.
It's cooked beautifully though, with a lingering, smoky char from the tandoor through its buttery flakes.
Service is friendly and fun. We're given complimentary, colourful crisps while we wait a little longer than staff would like for our food (though it comes out quickly enough for us), and at the end we’re presented with a wooden die in a copper pot.
Roll a six and you get 50% off on Mondays and Wednesdays, we’re told.
Ours doesn't land on the lucky number but it’s hard to believe it’s not half price when the bill arrives, totting up to just over £33 for a feast that leaves us with leftovers piled in three takeaway boxes.
As we leave, we clock the bell by the door.
A hand-scrawled sign next to it reads: 'If you are happy and satisfied, please ring the bell.'
We give it an enthusiastic jangle on the way out and the staff cheer.
It's hard to imagine anyone leaving without doing the same.
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