| rev:text
| - So I am indeed a fan of Adrak but be warned at the outset that this review is served with a large helping of bitter herbs.
Adrak (the word for ginger in a number of Indian languages) gets it very very right, when it gets it right.
Velvety Kham Khatai galouti kebabs slow dance with your tongue. An okra appetizer, dusted with masala for bite, is a delicious tango; a tart vinaigrette cutting across the crunch of its deep-fried provenance. The aloo tikki trio is really the humble potato in a menage a quatre, spicing up its mundane existence, by getting into the same plate with spinach, lentils and paneer. It's good clean fun.
The prawn dum biryani is a perfectly arranged marriage between long-grained basmati and seafood. They were made for each other everyone will say wisely. It arrives, as all good marriages do, in a balloon of heat and appetite. Prawn and rice have been cavorting wantonly in each other's liquids behind the purdah of the naan that seals the dish in which they are cooked. The waiter cuts this open at the table. Fragrant steam rises into your face shamelessly when the veil is lifted. It is quite the sexpot of a dish. The lamb version of the same dish didn't please me in quite the same way - I found the lamb a touch too dense, the cubes too large - I prefer my lamb to melt upon sight of me. On my to-review list: the lamb shank biryani.
Speaking of lamb, I must dwell for a moment on the Chaamp Taajdaar - frenched, fenugreeked (See that? That's multiculti wordplay friends) lamb chops that keep every promise the menu made about them.
So why the caveat at the outset? Why three stars? Let's say I was hit hard by a low-flying duck. Admittedly duck is tricky. But the tandoori marinated duck breast sounded delicious. So I ordered it. A big mistake. The waiter came back around 10 minutes later to say it would take 15 minutes longer than everyone else's order. We had time. Which eventually, after a fair bit of waiting, ran out. The duck arrived. It was not a perfect, succulent, springy duck breast but a small drumstick, a large wing, and the breast. It was short on salt. It was charred more than tandoori should be. And boy, it was tough. Tough like a weightlifting 70 year old lady in a leopard-skin body suit. I took a bite of the drumstick, and stopped. Good Indian boy that I am, I wasn't going to waste any food. I had them pack it up.
I took it home and pressure cooked (yes! pressure cooked!) that bird into submission. I will add some mayo to it and create my own curried duck salad. It's a shame, but the only thing that stopped Adrak from getting a whole-hearted four stars from me was that bit of fowl play. Now you know.
|
![[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)