| rev:text
| - We had a lovely dinner here when my inlaws got home from the cottage. Their anniversary is coming up, my mother's birthday is coming up, and my husband and I both just had birthdays. And the dining room at home is full of our moving boxes. So we decided to go out.
There were five of us. The grownups drank wine while my husband and I drank beer. Pints on tap are under $7 for imported stuff. Wine starts at $20 for a half litre carafe, which fills about three glasses and a bit. There were a few different house reds and they settled on a Malbec which turned out to be very nice.
On the back of the menu I discovered the group dinner deal -- dinner for four for $89.95. What they call dinner for four involves pappadums and three other set appetizers, our choice of three meat dishes and two veggie dishes, naan and rice, and coffee and tea. We asked the waitress if the five of us could get by on the dinner for four or if we should order more, and she said we'd be fine with the dinner for four as it stands. (The service was great, quick and friendly, and the waitress and I had a rather geeky conversation about beer. Note to self: seek out beer from Double Trouble Brewing.) So here's what we got. All the entrees came in bowls to share.
Bharta (smoked eggplant) studded with bright green peas, very smokey and spicier than I'm used to. Tasty but overwhelmingly flavoured, which is odd for bharta. A bit of a chore to finish.
Chicken tikka masala: bright red, spicy and intense. Big chunks of onion. Really lovely.
Goanese fish and prawns: blew me away. Tingly coconut gravy on big pieces of buttery white fish. Of all the fish I've tried since I started eating meat again, this has got to be the best. Too bad there isn't more of it. I didn't get any of the shrimp but I didn't care.
Lamb in shakuti sauce: mild, creamy coconut sauce and bits of lamb that are very tender and not greasy.
Aloo gobhi masala: just what it says on the tin, spiced potatoes and cauliflower. I'm not a big fan, but then again I've never had a bad aloo gobhi.
I have to specifically mention the tea, for which I chose masala chai. I was slightly saddened that I didn't have room for dessert (the 'dinner for four' was enough to make three seniors and two thirtysomethings walk very slowly afterwards and collapse in food comas at home) but the tea fixed that. It came with the cream added -- or was it condensed milk? -- and tasted like I was drinking a bowl of gulab jamun. You know how in 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' there's gum that makes you think you're eating a meal while you're chewing gum? It was like that.
Overall: the food was intense and luxurious, a sensory experience worthy of being named after that chapter of the Kama Sutra that we in the West obsess about. That said, it probably won't be hot enough for folks who know what real Indian food is like. (This pepperhead white girl was quite pleasantly hopped up on endorphins by the end of dinner.) The decor is comfortably dark and velvety without being uncomfortably pretentious. Can it be? -- there's no step up to get inside, and even the washrooms are on the main floor. This is a classy place with great food, and you can have a luxurious dinner while dressing casually and not spending as much as you'd think. I've had takeout from them before and it didn't prepare me for the experience of eating there. Thumbs up all around.
Note: it was a Thursday after 7 pm and the place was deserted. We were still asked if we had a reservation, which we didn't. I suspect huge crowds on Friday nights.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)