Dishoom

I must confess to being a relative newcomer to Indian food.  Somehow my mother’s Bengali food didn’t quite suit my English palate, it being largely fried and with lots of bitter mustard seeds.  There were a lot of Indian influences in the house though from muri made with rice krispies to Indian sweets bought from local Midlands sweet shops.  I find most Indian desserts to be sickly sweet although I do like mangoes.  We didn’t frequent the local curry house and almost my only direct exposure to Indian food was an M&S curry.

Sue and I have made our way to a number of recommended Indian cafes and restaurants from Bombay Brasserie, to Porte des Indes, to Masala Zone and Roti Chai.  Now Dishoom was high on our to-do list.  I now think my palate has now been Indianised and I can tolerate relatively chilli hot food.

Dishoom seems to have got its marketing act together and we had been getting many references to it on Twitter and other media.  Attempting to get a table at lunchtime a couple of weeks ago as a walk-in we found there was a 40 minute wait and we baulked at waiting, deciding instead to head to a nearby Masala Zone.

This time we made no mistake by booking a table - but even then we could only get a table outside normal lunch hours. On Upper St Martins Lane next to a number of other restaurants including Jamie’s Kitchen and Cantina Laredo Dishoom was rather crowded as we arrived  a little early for our reservation.  Nevertheless we were able to sit down almost immediately - at a booth rather than a table.

The furnishings and fittings were intended to mimic a traditional Bombay cafe.  Not having been to

Bombay for a while I had no frame of reference - at face value they seemed to have succeeded, complete with photos and old Indian adverts framed on the wall.  To a cynic though it might seem slightly contrived and over-designed - including a list 'Rules of the Cafe' on a blackboard near the entrance ['No combing hair' but 'All castes welcome'].  It is open all day serving bacon naan rolls for breakfast.

The food menu has a strong focus on starters or street food, with grilled meats and vegetables and frankies – naan parcels – and roomalis – thin stuffed rolls.  There are limited traditional curries.  We ordered lamb samosas and calamari as starters.  For mains murgh malai – grilled chicken – with daal, a paneer roll, a salad, and rice together with lassis.  Our waitress was very polished, friendly, efficient and informative, making sure we were aware that the chicken is cooked pink and is dry. The food arrived quickly: the lamb samosas had a good pastry, almost crisp, with a slightly hot filling.  The calamari were well cooked but lacking in any overt spicing, rather bland.  Of the mains the chicken was as described with the meat pink in the middle.  The pastry on the paneer roll or roomali was light and tasty, with a substantial filling.  Desserts were mango and malai kulfies rather simply presented.

With a total bill of £56, and no alcohol, I felt the experience was disappointing for rather basic food.  It was adequate but there was little subtlety in the food.  Maybe my problem was that I expected restaurant type food and this is a cafe. I would have wanted more curries, and not so many grills.  Sue wanted to be more upbeat about the place than me - for example they had Thums Up and Limca - a throwback to 80s India.  Plus water in stainless steel cups, chai in a glass.  Authentic stuff.  Sue' s main criticism about the food was that the house dhal seasoning was not quite there and tasted a bit like Heinz tomato soup.  I actually thought the dhal was quite good.

I can imagine the same branding or styling being rolled out across a chain of Dishooms in an attempt to standardise and commodify the imagined atmosphere of the old-style Bombay cafe it is trying to emulate.   For myself, however, I would describe the food at Masala Zone and my favourite Giftos in Southall as a cut above.

www.dishoom.com

Carom at Meza

As we walked around Wardour Street near Carom we noticed many new restaurants and shops from Wahaca - somewhere we had previously frequented - to new cake shops, to gelato shops, to Imli, yet another Indian tapas-style restaurant. Wardour Street seems to have had a mini-revival and it’s somewhere we shall be visiting more often in future.

Carom hadn’t appeared on my radar until I read about it in The Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago.  It was suggested as being an up and coming relatively good value Indian restaurant in the middle of Soho.  Carom is housed in the former Mezzo restaurant owned by Sir Terence Conran’s group.

Carom is named after the Indian spice known as ajwain but is also an Indian game played at home or in cafes, and might best be described as the poor man’s snooker or billiards.  It consists of a small board with pockets on each corner and counters – like draughts pieces – are flicked using one’s fingers.  I’ve seen the game played in relatives’ homes in Calcutta but am still shaky about the rules.

I got a warm welcome from the reception staff but there was some inconsistency in statements from staff of kitchen opening hours. I was a little surprised that it wasn’t an all-day restaurant but closed after lunch until about 5pm. We sat on the comfortable sofas in the bar area with a drink until staff ushered us to a table for an early dinner. 


The decor is fairly simple with no real indication one is in an Indian restaurant apart from a few travel prints on the wall. The tables are mostly set up for two people – which perhaps suggests their target market – with some banquette tables against the wall. The lighting is very mellow with a number of candelabras.

As with many similar restaurants Carom has a set menu – Travellers at £10, and First Class at £15 – but we focused on the a la carte.  We were quite pleased to see numerous vegetarian dishes on the menu. Our starters were poppadoms and chilli squid – we have quite an addiction to these – with the addition of an Indian spice mix.  The mains were a Chennai Chicken Curry and a Keralan Prawn Curry.  The chicken curry was a little too spicy for Sue, but the prawn curry was mild.  With the rice, we had to order another portion, an Indian spiced salad, and a raita that was a complete and filling meal.

We thought the food to be of high quality and with a great deal of subtlety in the spicing.  The presentation had been well thought out and executed.  My only reservation was a relative lack of attentiveness in terms of service particularly as we had informed staff that we had a time constraint.  But that may be because we were the only diners for sometime.  In conclusion, we were highly impressed with the combination of the location, and the quality of the food when our bill was about £42 excluding drinks.  It comes close to fitting my description of the ideal Indian restaurant being a combination of Giftos (link here) in Southall, together with a Central London location, but without paying Tamarind or Benares prices.

www.caromsoho.com

100 Wardour Street

Soho

London W1F 0TN

020 7314 4002

Diwali in Trafalgar Square

Diwali arrived in London last Sunday – a week too early according to Susen’s cousin in Kolkata where the celebrations take place on 3 November.  But, as Susen said, we can be flexible.  There are many paths and many ways to celebrate.

We decided to experience the celebrations in Trafalgar Square via lunch at Masala Zone in Covent Garden.  Masala Zone was busy – lots of Indian families there as well, which was good to see. As a restaurant, it is growing on me.  I wasn’t sure at first, or at least just got an ‘OK’ from me – but it fills the existing gap for a mid-market Indian contemporary restaurant offering reliable quality.  Their lunchtime thali is good value for money - £10 for the grand thali, if choosing either a vegetable or chicken main curry.  I did get a little over-confident with my chilli experiments, ordering the masala chilli paneer – only to find the sauce burnt my mouth and I just couldn’t eat it.  To their credit, the manager swapped it for a chicken korma dish without additional charge or fuss.

Trafalgar Square was packed.  As we approached the crowd, a lone bagpiper across the road competed for attention against the Bollywood beat on stage.  It was great to see so many people on an overcast autumn afternoon, but it did remind me why outdoor festivals, particularly urban ones in London can be hard work.  The set up was conventional, with a central stage and screen for the live performances, with various food and other stalls around the edges.  But so many people means lots of queuing and trying to squeeze past people to view the performance.  I am probably just getting old.

It was great to see such a mix of people though and a feeling that it wasn’t just an Indian Hindu event, but something in which everyone could join in.  White women were walking round dressed in saris which almost seemed normal until a woman with Doc Marten boots and jeans on underneath her sari did make me wonder whether I had missed some new fusion fashion statement.  We then discovered the ‘Saree Experience’ stand where women were queuing to be dressed in a saree (over their clothes) which explained the new fashion.  One Indian street food stall was staffed entirely by white English people – which Susen seemed to think was strange, though the ethnic mix had not struck me as anything unusual at all.

Bastions of the British Empire watched over proceedings from their immortalised positions in the square.  I have no idea what Sir Charles James Napier (General of the British Empire and the British Army’s Commander in Chief in India – notable for conquering the Sindh province [now in Pakistan]) and Sir Henry Havelock (British General who oversaw the recapture of Cawnpore during the mutiny of 1857) would have made of the festivities, but I like to think they would be tapping their feet along to the Bollywood beat while the statue of Lord Ganesh looked back at them.  They might even have been smiling at the quirkiness of the big blue cockerel currently installed on the fourth plinth.

It would have been good to have stayed for Anoushka Shankar’s expected performance later on, and I also imagined how good thousands of lights and candles might have looked against the autumn darkness.  But it was time to leave.

We crossed the road, past Uganda House – the country who had unceremoniously expelled all Asians in Uganda in 1972, making the UK the beneficiary of so many skills, talents and hard work brought with the new immigrants who sought refuge here.  As we waited for the bus, the sound of Hare Krishna chanting could be heard, the bagpiper having finished his solo.

I felt like London had come of age, a place where, at its best, you are free to be whoever you want to be.  I’m still pondering the sari with jeans and Doc Marten’s though, but you never know.

Masala Zone – Restaurant Home Cooked Indian Food

Like Roti Chai this is one of those places we have been meaning to try for a few months now and so a quiet Sunday recently saw us taking the bus to the Covent Garden branch just behind the Royal Opera House for lunch. We had also been recommended Masala Zone by one of Asma Khan’s Bengali friends so it was somewhere we had to experience.

Masala Zone has a strong restaurant pedigree with others in its London stable including Amaya, Chutney Mary and Veeraswamy. It has a number of locations in the capital. The restaurant suggests that the best food in India is not found in restaurants but in the home and in the form of street food. The thali, a complete meal on a tray, is the centre piece of its menu and intended to replicate the combination of the home and the street. Furthermore, it suggests that its food is a far cry from that of the average curry house in the UK.

The restaurant has clean, modern lines, and the furnishings are simple but adequate. Unlike Wagamama’s or Busaba Eathai the tables are separate. In the Covent Garden branch Rajasthani puppets are suspended from the ceiling which gives the restaurant plenty of India related atmosphere, character, and colour.

On that Sunday afternoon the restaurant was quiet and we received an immediate warm welcome. There was quite an international clientele with Arab women and Indian families from India, who perhaps were taking economical options after the fall of the rupee.

The menu consists of street food, individual curries, and thalis which are small quantities of each dish presented in small bowls on a large stainless steel tray. The restaurant did have a number of special offers which rather confused us but we stuck to the main menu. Sue chose the Pre-theatre Thali with the Chicken Mangalore and I the Grand Thali with Goan Prawn. Otherwise our thalis were identical. Our thalis comprised rice, chapatti, dhal, cauliflower curry, potato curry, onion bhaji, raita, a small salad and coriander chutney. Immediately we felt the quantity of rice would be inadequate so we ordered more.

We found the thali worked well with well-judged combinations and quantities, rice apart. I found the cauliflower and potato curries to be very good and I could have eaten a lot more in theory. However, my Goan Prawn curry was rather bland and disappointing. But Sue’s Mangalore Chicken was very tasty, judging by the small bite I had. I’m not generally a great fan of chapatis but these were well-cooked and prepared. The thalis were surprisingly filling and we both struggled to finish ours, and weren’t able to tackle any desserts.

I would concur with Masala Zone’s marketing in suggesting that the food is better than that of the average curry house. The service was swift and professional. Apart from my bland Goan Prawn curry my only criticism would be that the breadth of the menu andd special offers might be confusing, particularly if trying to introduce people to a relatively new way of presenting Indian food in restaurants.

Our bill was £42 including service which included two rounds of mango lassis each. We thought it good value in terms of the quality of the food, good service and the location. I would rate it 6-7 / 10, and would suggest it would be ideal for a quick lunch or dinner but perhaps not worth a special trip. However, the chain is exactly what the capital needs to rival Wagamama’s or Busaba Eathai for quality and consistent Eastern food.

Masala Zone, 48 Floral Street, London WC2E 9DA  Tel: 020 7379 0101

www.masalazone.com

Street Food - Roti Chai style

Roti Chai has been on our ‘to do’ list ever since it opened in 2011. Last Sunday lunchtime we finally got round to trying it out. I had voted for one of the Drummond Street Indian vegetarian buffets. Chutneys @ £6.95 / person would have fitted the bill – I think I was nostalgic for my early 20s and student days – but I was voted down. Or rather (as the voting was 1-1), persuaded down.

Roti Chai was started by Rohit Chugh, an ex-Goldman Sachs equities trader. This had actually put me off going for quite a while as I cynically thought it was just an investment venture, a commercial enterprise rather than being run for the love of good food (the two obviously not being mutually exclusive). Chugh, had, however, worked for the Cinnamon Club after leaving the City and then helped set up the Cinnamon Kitchen before starting Roti Chai – so he did come with some kind of food pedigree background. His father apparently is from Amritsar which helped to seal the authenticity of the venture.

The menu is divided into a street food menu and a more expensive dining room menu. We went for the street food, although I am not sure the dining room part was open on a Sunday.  The décor is simple, deliberately basic café-style seating with kitsch Indian adverts decorating the walls.  I know what Chugh was trying to achieve – a modern take on an Indian café theme, though it did feel slightly contrived, slightly too stylised. Reminiscent perhaps of Haldiram’s in India.  It was good to see quite a few Indian diners there.

The menu is short and fairly simple. For starters, we had the bhel puri and papri chat. Both were good and well presented – though nothing particularly out of the ordinary. I can probably get the equivalent for at least half the price at the stall in the Quality Foods supermarket in Hounslow. A few more fresh ingredients: onion, cucumber and fresh coriander might have been nice in the bhel puri.

For mains, I had the idli sambar - always keen to branch out from the usual North Indian food on offer. Susen had the chicken Manchurian – chosen because of its Bengali roots (of course!) Again, good food but nothing special. A thought did come into my mind, whilst eating my sambar, that it reminded me of a slightly spicy version of tinned Heinz lentil and vegetable casserole pureed baby food I used to eat well into my toddler years as I liked it so much. That thought didn’t help too much with the appreciation of any subtle sophisticated grown-up spicing that might have been going on in the dish.

Our meal was washed down with Mongoose beer – which is trying to rival Cobra in the Indian food market. Mongoose looked convincingly Indian in origin, until we saw that it was brewed in Bedford which didn’t have quite the same ring to it.

One good point is its location – tucked away behind Oxford Street, close to Marble Arch. Good, therefore for lunch or dinner away from the Oxford Street crowds - though why anyone actually wants to actually go shopping in Oxford Street is beyond me.

Our lunch came to £46.00 for the 2 of us (including 4 beers between us). You could probably get the same or better in Southall for quite a bit less – or any number of other urban Indian eateries in every major town. Probably around 6/10 rating overall.

Roti Chai – 3 Portman Mews South, London W1H 6HS

www.rotichai.com

Quilon

I have had my head in books the last few weeks (even more so than usual), doing more exams. At my age! Thankfully they are now over and I can look once more beyond the revision and computer screen. As interesting as my studies were (and are), it’s so nice to have some time to catch up on everything else that has been put on hold. Like re-doing the plumbing under the sink where it was leaking, mending the bed frame that had broken and now thinking of tackling the overgrown garden. Yes my life is that exciting.

Still, to celebrate Susen took me out to lunch at Quilon near St James’s Park. The place is very much in Indian territory being in the Taj Group owned Crowne Plaza and presumably meant to appeal to the many Indian businessmen and women who stay at the hotel. The outside was suitably understated (just my style), although once inside I did feel slightly under-dressed in my jeans compared to most of the other be-suited lunchtime diners. The receptionist did look us up and down as if to ask, "Are you sure you're in the right place?", but once we were through that hurdle the service was high quality. As a complete aside, I do envy the modern Indian woman who has the choice of Western jeans and T-shirt / top, salwar kameez, kurta top and jeans / leggings or, if you really push the boat out, a sari. No such choice for us UK women.

Quilon is a cut (or three) above your average up-market Indian restaurant. It serves South West Indian cuisine and is Michelin starred. The head chef Sriram Aylur apparently gave up his law studies to pursue his ‘first love’ of food (boy, how I can relate!). He was ranked one of the top five Chefs in India in 1997.

We had the set lunch menu (£24.00 for 3 courses and coffee – which actually felt like quite a bargain). For starters, I had the lotus stem and colocasia chop with mango and mint sauce. Susen had the coconut cream chicken. Asked if we wanted to share them – which we did – they arrived half and half on each of our plates, a first for us. Both starters were delicious, although possibly the chop was slightly lacking in flavour. Mini popadums and five different types of home-made chutney were complimentary, making a welcome change from the standard sized popadums and bought pickles usually served.

We then were given another complimentary ‘amuse bouche’ of a spicy tomato and lentil broth, served hot in a glass. For the main course, Susen had the Quilon fish curry made with beautifully cooked and spiced halibut. I had the vegetarian sampler – four different types of vegetables with lemon rice and paratha. Dishes on mine included crispy fried okra, a mildly spiced chick pea curry, mango curry and lightly spiced yoghurt dish which I think was like a pachadi.

For dessert Susen had the caramelised banana pudding with rum and raisin ice cream. I had bibinca with vanilla ice cream – a Goan speciality a bit like pancakes piled on top of each other with dark chocolate sauce, accompanied by South Indian coffee.
All dishes were excellent, service was attentive but discrete. Highly recommended.



Quilon, 41 Buckingham Gate, London SW1E 6AF.

Tel: 020 7821 1899

http://www.quilon.co.uk

 

Masterclass at La Porte des Indes

We don’t frequent the top-end Indian restaurants in central London very often but occasionally we’ll allow ourselves an extravagant meal. La Porte des Indes, just by Marble Arch station, is one of our favourites, particularly for its Sunday buffet lunch, along with Tamarind and Bombay Brasserie.
From the outside one might remark how ordinary the restaurant looks but the doors open up to a remarkable vista. It’s set on two floors with a waterfall along one of the stairwells. The walls are adorned by original (we were told by the executive head chef) Mughal paintings from the owner’s personal collections. The interiors are full of marble and stone brought from India.

Sue and I had signed up to the monthly Masterclass which essentially comprised an hour and a half spent in the company of the head chef, demonstrating cooking a three course meal, wine pairings, a tour of the kitchens and afterwards a three course meal. After arriving and a welcome drink executive head chef Mehermosh Mody took us initially around the kitchens. This tour was around 15-20 minutes, and the highlights were a look at the 3 tandoori ovens, with another chef making a variety of breads (we tasted some of those fresh out of the oven), the large pans bubbling away with curries, and the stone spice grinders, imported from India. At that point there weren’t meals being prepared for lunch so the kitchens were fairly quiet. We were both impressed with the sense of order although this wasn’t in the midst of service, and it was probably quite cool for that reason. What struck me was the small size of the kitchen and how so many chefs would be able to work in such a confined space making food of the highest order.
After the kitchen tour we sat down in one of main rooms downstairs opposite a makeshift demonstration kitchen. We had to wait a few minutes while another group went on their kitchen tour.

Soon the executive head chef returned and began the cooking demonstration with the help of an assistant.

The three dishes this month were:
PARSEE FISH - Fillets of sole encased in a mint and coriander chutney and lightly steamed in banana leaves.
SAAG KHUMB - Leaf spinach and field mushrooms sautéed with chillies, ginger and fenugreek.
ROSE PHIRNEE - A delicious pudding with rose petal conserve, crushed basmati rice and cream.

These dishes were fairly simple to demonstrate, and delicious for us to taste. What most participants benefited from was the tips that Mehermosh gave out such as the right oils to use, and how to use spices most effectively. He also told us that it was important to try local ingredients with Indian spices – for example by using local lemon sole rather than imported pomfret for fish dishes. Spices were passed around to enable us to take in the aromas.
Before the completed dishes were passed around for us to taste the wine expert talked a little about each wine and wines generally before offering a sample with the prepared dishes. With the Parsee fish a Constantia Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa was chosen. For Sue and myself New World Sauvignon Blanc is a favourite, and the Constantia was a solid compliment to the fish, while the finish was perhaps not as intense as other Sauvignons. The wine expert chose a rose from the Rioja region of Spain to accompany the khumb saag. This wine was quite fruity and again complimented the dish well. We did not get to sample the prepared rice pudding.

After the demonstration we went upstairs for lunch. The service was perhaps not as impressive as during Sunday lunch as we seemed to have been forgotten a couple of times. Lunch was best described as a tasting menu with crab, lamb sheekh kebab, and dahl puri as starters. For mains it was a fish curry, chicken curry, and a vegetable stir fry, together with rice, raita, and naan. The desserts were a selection including chocolate mousse and the rice pudding we had seen prepared earlier. Having heard Mehermosh and the wine expert expounding the qualities of Indian wine we, slightly experimentally, chose an Indian Sauvignon Blanc to accompany our meal, but in retrospect selecting a New World wine might have been wiser.

Overall the Masterclass was a very enjoyable experience but perhaps it should not be billed as a “Masterclass”; “An Introduction to.....” might be better billing. Sue and I are not novices at cooking and Indian cooking in particular and we learnt relatively little about the principles of Indian cooking, spices and herbs. We felt most of the other participants were looking for an introduction, and did not cook Indian food at home. Unfortunately a couple of the participants kept asking rather simple, facile questions spoiling it for us - clearly not the restaurant’s fault. [I hope this doesn’t sound mean, but it really is an eye-opener how people living in a city like London can still exist in such a separate world. To almost every unfamiliar spice or ingredient came the question, ‘Can you get it in Selfridges?’ and Southall seemed somewhere they had never ever heard of].
I would rather have spent the £55 per person (which included lunch and Mehermosh Mody's cookbook) cost on Sunday buffet lunch. If you are looking for good value cooking courses I would recommend Jamie Oliver’s Recipease (www.jamieoliver.com/recipease) which has a range of cooking classes aimed at different levels and perfect for introducing oneself to new cuisines. Despite this experience I am sure we will be returning for Sunday buffet lunch at La Porte des Indes on many occasions in the future.

La Porte des Indes - 32 Bryanston Street, London W1H 7EG. Tel: 020 7224 0055

Gifto's - Southall

Before I met Sue I had perhaps been to Southall 10 times in total. It was almost an object of fascination to be in an environment full of Asian people. You can tell I’ve led a sheltered life. Sue would also take me to her local Tesco where almost for the first time I saw many Indian couples behaving as most couples do - ie. actually talking to each other.

But back to Southall. Sue liked to see another world as I did, and to take a look at clothes, materials, Bollywood DVDs and CDs, and to pick up important herbs and spices; last and not least to buy some forbidden Indian sweets. In truth, the sweets available in Punjabi Southall were better than in Bangladeshi Brick Lane despite my parents proclaiming that Bengalis made the best Indian sweets.

Our trips to Southall invariably coincided with mealtimes and one weekend afternoon we stepped into Gifto's on spec.  Inside it’s rather basic, a bit like an American diner, simply furnished with long tables in the middle and booths seating 4-6 people along one side. Along the other side there is the kitchen with the chefs visibly sweating behind a glass partition. Chefs could be seen working at the grill or the tandoori ovens. We’re generally greeted quickly by one of the waiting staff and assigned to a table. On perhaps 5-6 visits we’ve never had to wait more than 5-10 minutes despite the restaurant being full.

A quick scan of the restaurant shows that Sue is usually the only white person in the room. I have on occasion seen other white people but usually as part of an Asian group. Diners are local couples with young children and buggies and larger families comprising three generations.  The language of the restaurant is not English but Hindi / Urdu. It would be surprising if many had traveled 25 minutes by car as we do.

Generally we’ve not been too adventurous ordering off the menu which is more extensive than the average curry house. Sue’s favourites are the pani puri as a starter (although we have had to return the wafers for being too thin and crumbly).  Mine is the lamb sheesh kebab, and for mains saag paneer and chicken tikka masala (yes, I am predictable).  On one occasion we’ve splashed out on king prawn tandoori. Together with naan and rice those dishes are plentiful for 2 people and we’ve often had to take home a doggy bag. The freshly made juices and lassis are invariably good.  We don’t usually have any desserts as we pass numerous sweet shops on the walk back to our car.

The food is a cut above the average curry house. Gifto's is a safe choice for locals wanting good quality North Indian / Pakistani halal food without the presence of alcohol. Our food has been well-spiced and cooked and I would have no hesitation in recommending it. The downsides are the lack of alcohol, although I understand there would be no objection to bringing one’s own, and the service, which while eager lacks professionalism. In addition, the food may be spicier than than requested - despite asking the food to be 'mild', Sue often ended up struggling with the overall heat of the food. Our total bill for 2 people excluding service has not exceeded £30-35, and Gifto's represents very good value for money.