We first ate here on its opening night and there have been meals fairly regularly since then, although not since February. Short menus are usually a good sign in my book but, in truth, we’d eaten out way through it and it had started to feel a bit samey. The break has done us good and we can look at things with a sort of fresh eye. In brief, service remains excellent and the food coming out of the kitchen remains excellent.
There were mini pappads, topped with onion and tomato, to nibble on while we looked through the menu. There’s a selection of chutneys to drizzle on them.
Sev puri was one starter – single bite sized discs of puri, topped with chaat salad and chutney and finished off with a sprinkle of crunchy sev. It’s excellent. As is the seekh kebab – one of the few things we’d not previously ordered. It’s a good version – moist, tasty meat, well spiced, with just enough chilli to give it a kick.
Chicken Malvani originates from the Mumbai region, as do many of the dishes on the menu. It’s not too wet and the sauce is well balanced – there’s certainly heat but it’s balanced by coconut. Lamb bhuna is one of only a couple of dishes that you’d recognise from a menu of a high street curry house. But the quality is a world apart. Care has been taken to give a long cooking to the meat and there’s equal care taken to ensure that there’s nothing aggressive in the spicing, although it was hotter than the chicken, it was not overdone. For carbs, there was really good lemon rice – light and fluffy – and a chilli & onion kulcha, similarish to a naan but flatter, with the onion baked into the dough. It’s really good.
(July visit)