We’ve given up going to ITR’s original place in Cheadle. You’re crammed in there and the place is so small that they often can’t honour reservation times because previous customers are still there. No such problems in the much larger gaff in the city centre.
There was a beetroot shami kebab as one of the starters. I had this last time and loved it. It looks like a lamb shami and is spiced like a lamb shami. My partner, who can be a bit of a wimp when it comes to chilli, thought it was overly hot. I had a taste and disagreed. My own starter was one from the south Indian “tiffin” section of the menu. It comes on one of those metal trays, with different sections, like you see in prison movies, where the food is thrown in someone’s face, before the rioting starts. There’s two idly, lovely and soft dumplings and a more crunchy vada. There’s a little bowl of sambar and three chutneys – such as you might usually get with dosas. I thought this was great.
For mains, we both went with lamb. There was a return visit to lamb dalcha. A good kick from chilli here and sauce thickened with long cooked lentils. The other dish, Kashmiri lamb, was milder with a well balanced sauce which had a little background sweetness to it. We shared rice and a naan – both delicious.
