I visited Saffron Desi a few weeks ago while on holiday and have to say it was without doubt the worst Indian Resteraunt I have ever been in. We ordered a madras, special makhani a tikka masala and another i cant remember the name of. for mains and starters of tikka, poppadoms and pakora. The starters were very good, tasty and well presented. The mains were a different story. To start with two of the mains ordered with lamb were served with chicken. We pointed this out and they were taken away to be returned two minutes later containing lamb. None of the meals were very warm. The madras was so so, the special makhani was disgusting it tasted of carnation milk, the tikka masala was not as nice as tescos and the other was bland. As disappointing as the meals were it was the service that was the biggest let down, very poor waiting staff, dirty glasses, a jug of warn water with no ice, stained plates, indifferent response from the management when we pointed out some of these things. To top it off their knives could not be places on the plates without falling into the food due to their funny shape. I can presume they were having an off day as the experience was my worst ever by far in any kind of eaterie.

Apologies if this has been posted before but stumbling across this http://www.splendidtable.org/story/8-ways-to-extract-unique-flavors-from-whole-spices short video struck a chord with me. The chef explains that a good cook should be able to get the same whole spice to taste of eight different flavours depending on preparation. This is something I have been experimenting with a lot recently, particularly with cloves, cumin, cinnamon ,coriander, pepper and brown cardamon seeds (removed from husk). I have tried using different methods of preparing small amount of these spices and adding them to my curries. I have tried a few different combinations of roasting, frying, boiling and grinding. An example would be lightly toasting a mix, grinding then adding the spice mix during the initial reduction of the first ladle of base. Contrast this with only using the whole spices or frying then grinding. The results are very different. So far the results have been very tasty. I next intend to try boiling the spices in tinned tomatoes, I suspect the acid from the tomatoes will change the nature of the spice flavours. I have not hit on a BIR flavour yet but I think I am getting closer and the curries are certainly different from the taste I usually end up with. I know it sounds just like garam masala but the different preparation techniques really do change the end result a lot, it's not like just adding a bit of pre made GM, the tastes come out very different and distinctive.
Anyone else tried this route?

Do you mean, why do ta's pre-cook chicken in sauce instead of just cooking chicken by frying, roasting  or boiling?
If that is the question then the answer will almost certainly vary by region.
Some places will do it for taste, texture, colour or even to save on the gas bill as its simple to cook the meat in the base sauce. It is also much less likely to over or undercook the meat, especially with lamb that varies so much in tenderness.
My local experimented with slicing its chicken thinly and cooking it fresh to order a few years back but the result was rubbery chicken slices so they went back to their old ways.

It was that site I saw it on. The site has grown a wee bit since I last saw it though. I wonder who owns/runs it? Is it someone we know from here?

Visited this place today for the first time in over ten years.
Has its own car park which is a bonus. Initial impression is that it has not changed one bit since my last visit. This is a good thing for me. Flock wallpaper, dull lighting, pink velour seats. Its a stereotype, but I like it. Staff were all very pleasant,  the place was very busy but the staff all had a smile and someone passed by at least every minute responding to our requests. So service and atmosphere gets a thumbs up.
The food however was a mixed bag. Started with mixed pakora that was a mix of veg, cauliflower, chicken, mushroom and one piece of fish. Accompanied by two dips, one radioactive red the other mucky brown. The cauliflower was superb, the veg was too small and dry, the chicken like all chicken pakora- tasteless-, they had managed to find the worlds smallest mushrooms to batter but they were ok. I did'nt try the fish but my wife thought it was ok. The dips were tasty enough but not memorable.
My group ordered four main meals. Chicken bhunna, chicken chasni, chicken korma and lamb rezala. To me they were all disappointing. They were all clearly based on a base very close to bb1's glasgow base sauce. While I do like this base and expect its quality from takaways I do expect better from a place positioning itself as a good quality sit-in. The bhunna had so much dried fenugreek it was bitter, the chasni was sickly sweet to my taste, the rezala was better but the lamb had been cooked so long it was beginning to break up and needed some fresh green chilli to lift it, the korma I would'nt like to comment on because its a dish I never like. Overall lacking in bir taste and a bit too greasy. We also ordered rice, garlic nan and chapati. The rice and chapati were spot on but the nan was the garliciest thing I have ever tasted, the cooks had dumped about a chefs spoon of raw blended garlic on a nan and spread it about, it was revolting.
This may sound very negative but I must just be a fussy customer as everyone else in the place seemed extremely happy with their orders. I also cannot fault the cost, we went for their express lunch and the bill for four was thirty five quid including two drinks (not each). Overall, good service, average takaway quality food, very reasonable price.
Overall 3 out of 5