Papadoms / Mango, Brick Lane, London

Let's give you a preview as to how this dinner went, by relaying the conversation that we had as we were coming out of the restaurant, talking to the guy (presumably one of the owners or waiters) who asked us in there in the first place.

(With one hand shaking my friend's hand) 'How was it! How was it!' in a loud, friendly, booming voice.

'Well mate, honestly, not so good.'

'I know, I know,' patting my friend on the back, in a not so loud, booming voice. Said man then proceeds to give my friend his business card, and promises a discount the next time we go back there.

I'd rather eat dry cereal, to be honest.

So, now that you have a flavour of the story, let's begin, shall we?

(If this didn't get me blogging again, I don't know what did).



Last week, our friends asked us to go with them to Brick Lane for the curry festival that was going on there. Now, having been to Brick Lane a few times (though not to eat), and having seen the countless banners proclaiming wins or nominations at almost every restaurant of some curry award or another, we obviously felt quite suspicious of most of them. Which one do we choose? With nothing to guide us around, we decided on choosing the one with the most people, yet not that many people that would make us have to wait more than 5 minutes.



With that in mind, Papadoms fit the bill, and with the guy at the front telling us that we'd be given first drinks free, and 20% of the food bill, we thought, why not?
(More on why not coming right up.)

Having amused ourselves chatting for about 20 mins, we slowly ran out of conversation topics and began focusing on why it was taking them so long to get us a table. The guy at the door obviously sensed this, and so ushered us out of the original restaurant, and into one a few doors down, which he called his 'other branch'. Alternatively also called Mango, to the discerning public.

So, to summarise the story so far, this is where we should have been eating at, when we made the choice to go into Papadoms.

This is where we actually ate at, when the manager / marketing guy / person doing the business pulling decided to take us to hi ‘other branch’ instead.

Now, the first thing to note here is that I ALWAYS look at other people’s food on the way to my table. This is pretty much so that I can see what’s good, what’s not, and how pleasing the portion sizes are. What I saw on the way to the table this time were lots of little dishes, with bland-looking watery curry in them.

(Should have walked out, huh.)

Sat down, ordered, and asked for a jug of tap water. We got the first round of drinks free, as part of the curry festival customer-pulling deal, so we figured, why not make the most of that, and then make do with tap water after. Thing is, Mr Waiter Guy must have had something else on his agenda, as it took us 5 tries before some water finally came our way.

With some soap bubbles added for good measure.

Obviously, you can see from the picture that the soap was on the outside of the glass, and Mr Waiter Guy also vehemently stressed this fact to us, as though we were being unreasonable, because, hey, the soap is on the outside, not on the inside, no probs!

Nada, my friend. Probs. You don’t serve water in soapy glasses.

Anyhow, moving on to the food, when it came. Almost at the same time when our food arrived at our table, I overheard the lady at the table across from us say loudly to the waiter that her food had no flavour at all and that she didn’t order what she was served. The waiter then said that he’d give her another complimentary dish, and that it would be one of the nicer ones there. When the said dish arrived, the thank you was said, the waiter walked away, and I overheard her saying that the new dish wasn’t up to scratch either.

Thing is, even with all that, we approached our food with open minds. Wanting to make the most of the meal, and wanting to enjoy the rest of our night out, we waited for the food to arrive. When it did, let’s just say, the plates were much bigger than the amount of food actually in them (with the exception of the side dish, in which the biggest thing in there was the spoon).

Note: No prices stated here as I didn’t note them down, but the curry dishes were about £8-ish, and we had a 20% discount.

Chef’s special lamb curry with calamansi
Look, this dish was tasty, with surprising new flavours which were nice as I’d not had them in curries before. True, the dish was cooked well, the meat was OK tender, and the blend of flavours worked well. However, when the portion is barely enough for one, but priced higher than average, I find it hard to stomach the dish. Call it quantity over quality if you like, but that’s an important factor to me.

Lamb mango curry
This was what I ordered, mainly because I like the taste of fruit in curry, and find the mix of sweetness in curry quite delightful tasting. It didn’t disappoint, and exceeded my expectations actually, with the mango infusing ever so well with the curry sauce. The sweetness of the mango was evident throughout the sauce, and the only thing bringing the dish down was the tough pieces of lamb in the dish.

Fish balti
The flavours here were again, quite good. Dry and fragrant, the dish would have been top class if not for the fact that the portions were just too small, and the fish was just that bit overcooked and tough.

Chef’s special chicken curry (not trying to be vague, but I didn’t take down the name of the dish)
Refer to comments above, is all I can say.

Bhindi side dish (ladies fingers, or okra), about £3

This is the dish where the spoon was almost bigger than the portion itself. As we ordered this to share, there wasn’t much there to be shared, so we kinda had about a teaspoon each. Tasty, but so very little of it.

And as I usually say at the end of each post, would I recommend this restaurant? Not really, no. From the deals you have to negotiate outside the restaurant, the wait, the being led to another restaurant, the soapy glass, the small portions, the not so attentive waiters, and the overall feeling of dissatisfaction as you come out of the restaurant, it just didn’t give me the feeling of having just had a good meal out.

Google Maps to here!

View Larger Map

Mirch Masala, 111 – 113 Commercial Road, London, E1 1RD

Whenever we go to Lahore Kabab House (and then invariably miss the turning to get to it), we then go by Mirch Masala and think to ourselves how we’d like to try it out. After doing this about 3 times, we decided to make an actual trip there instead of just imagining it.

While waiting for our friend who was making his way from Clapham, we decided to look through the ENTIRE menu. Not just waft our way through it, no, but look through it in entirety, understanding every word as though revising for an exam. A fun exam.

Having had a look through the entire menu, memorised the spelling of the dishes, completed a quiz on the prices of the dishes, and then decided what to order on behalf of said friend from Clapham, said friend still hadn’t turned up.

When you have nothing to do while waiting for your food, you play with whatever food you have. Can’t do anything with chilli sauce and yoghurt? You’ve been proven wrong.

The table setting here is pretty much wooden table with some red napkins, nothing jazzy, but nice and purpose-befitting. When our friend finally turned up the day after (kidding), we told him what we;d be ordering and what he’d be eating. Thus, the dishes you see below were decided upon entirely by us, which is what happens when you’re late for dinner.

Mixed frill (3 grilled chops, 3 seekh kebabs, 3 pieces chicken tikka, 3 pieces lamb tikka, 4 pieces tandoori chicken wings) £14

With 3 of us dining (2 of them being hungry man-types), the full works had to be ordered. After a quick mathematical assessment of price vs quantity, we decided that this was the best option for starters if we wanted variety, quantity, and lots of meat.

Suffice to say, it didn’t disappoint as it looks like half the farm was served up on the sizzling plate. With a bit of seekh kebab to lend to the texture of pure meat, the blend of spices, the mixture of tastes, and the sheer quantity of the dish made this very enjoyable.

Trust me to always prioritise quantity over quality.

Karahi ginger chicken £7

It’s not often that I see ginger in my curry. Ginger is more often than not a vegetable (?) I associate with steamed Chinese dishes, so when I saw this on the menu, I thought it might be worth trying out.

When the dish arrived with the ginger bits on top, I felt slightly disappointed as just from looking at the dish, it seemed as though it was a typical curry dish, just with extra ginger garnishing on top of it.

Pleasantly enough, the curry actually tasted of ginger, so this is a dish I’ll order again.

Paneer naan £2.50

Due to no other reason than pure greed for food, we decided that 3 portions of rice between the 3 of us wasn’t enough carbs, so we ordered one more portion of naan for good measure, just in case we hadn’t ordered enough already. The cheese used in the bread is not as strong as the usual Cheddar variety, and I could actually taste the milk used in the cheese, with a nice stringy chewy texture in between the layers of bread.

Karahi fish £7

Typically ordered to see how a new restaurant fares on our weird and non-scientific benchmark list, this dish proved to be a winner. I’m not sure what white fish they used, but it was tender without being too flaky, and because of that, it managed to retain all the spices used in the curry. Kinda like a sponge with ovely texture.

This was the first time we’d been to a Mirch Masala (it’s a chain restaurant), and it won’t be the last as the quality of the food and service was really impressive. Reasonable prices, more than decent portions, and a creative (but not big) menu made this meal very enjoyable.

Google Maps to here!

View Larger Map

070509 Kanna Curry House, Section 17 on top of the hill, Malaysia

When I told some of my friends who were not from Malaysia that we frequently have curry with rice for breakfast, most of them looked like they were seriously considering a move to the country.

The dish that I’m referring to is the ‘nasi lemak’, which translates literally to ‘creamy rice’, as the main feature of the dish is the rice cooked in coconut milk, and served with ‘sambal’ (a spicy chilli and onion paste), ‘ikan bilis’ (fried anchovies), fried or hard boiled egg, and sometimes, fried chicken.

We like going to this restaurant as it has an outside eating area under some trees, and it’s quite windy and airy. Some people may consider falling leaves in food as something unacceptable, but I think of it as extra greens in your meal. Ants on the table? Extra protein.

This is the standard three-curry bucket that is put on every table, consisting of dhal, fish curry (without the fish) and chicken curry (without the chicken). Used as a sauce for most of the plain dishes, it’s free and tasty.

Nasi lemak RM1.60

This dish comes served in a banana leaf packet as it adds flavour and fragrance to the dish. The rice is drenched in the sauce but if you want more, there’s always the curries in the curry bucket. Eaten with a spoon, lots of enthusiasm, and a nice gust of wind, this is one of the nicer things to have for breakfast.

Roti canai RM1 a piece

Known also as roti paratha in England and some other countries, this is a bread similar to puff pastry, which is made by flipping a piece of dough and folding it over and over again until there are enough layers in it. It is lightly fried over a flat pan and can be served square or round, though we sometimes request for it square as it means it’s freshly made. This is because at any one time, there are usually quite a few of these ready-made, and reheated on the pan before being served, but these are of the usual round variety, so asking for a square one usually means that a fresh piece will be made for you.

Would we come back to this restaurant? Most definitely one of our favourites.

Masala Zone, 147 Earls Court Road, SW5 9RQ

After meeting up with some friends for a moving-of-things-session around the Earls Court part of town, we were pondering over that all important question which we ask ourselves, and each other, daily.

Where should we go for dinner.

We’d spent the day being stuck in traffic, while trying to get from one side of London to the other. Usually, without traffic, this journey takes about an hour. With traffic, you’re looking at a leisurely time of about 3 hours.

With nothing much to do while stuck in traffic, I took some snapshots of London on a Sunday evening (looks warm but it’s not). In fact, it was raining and windy throughout the day, with bits of sunshine in between, which was when I took these pics.

These were blocks of flats near Earl’s Court. In the evening light, they looked like something out of a movie, and very unlike any flats I’d seen in London, so I took a picture of it.

When we got to Earls Court road, we were spoilt for choice as to what we COULD have if we decided against Masala Zone.

Japanese? There was no one in there so probably not. Chinese? Wagamama’s didn’t seem too appealing. Masala Zone was it, so in we trooped.

The girl behind the menu is not trying to be the Masala Zone man, she’s just holding up the menu for me to take a picture of. Most of the pictures here are in an attractive shade of orange, mainly because I believe in getting the ambience of the place like it was when actually dining there.

Mainly also because I don’t know how the white balance on my camera works.

Dhaaba roghan josh thali £10.45

Although it may seem as though I’m taking pictures of the same plate of food, just from different angles, I assure you this is not the case. The plates just all look the same, with curries in slightly different shades or red and orange.

This dish (same as the one above, in case you can’t tell the difference between them) was nice. Not as nice as the Grand Thali, which is basically the thali seen here, but with MORE STUFF. More stuff is always nice.

This thali had the vegetable of the day which was curried cauliflower, spiced potatoes, curried lentils (dhal) and the chapati. The main part of the dish was the roghan josh, and although it looks really red here, it wasn’t actually that spicy.

You could taste the spices coming through, not heat-hot spice, but more, flavourful spice. The meat was rather too lean, and so was slightly chewier than I preferred.

Yellow chicken korma Grand Thali £7.40

This may look particularly yellow here, but it was quite yellow in real life also. Does what it says on the menu though.

I don’t usually go for kormas because there’s something about the creaminess of it which I don’t like. The korma is a curry stereotyped as the one you go for if you can’t take spicy food, but this is not always the case. It has its own taste, and that day, my friend (who can eat spicy stuff) decided to have this for his dinner. I didn’t try it so I don’t know what it tasted like.

Since we’re taking lots of pics of the same meal, but from different angles and in different mood lighting, why not take more of the different bits to the meal. This is the pilau rice on the thali, which was very flavourful and well cooked. Each bit of rice had enough spice on it, and was firm (but not too firm) to the bite. One of my favourite aspects to the meal.

This is the kachumber, which is the Indian salad according to the menu. Served chilled, this was slightly tangy, slightly sweet and very refreshing to have between bites of the spicy curry.

The potatoes that came with the thali, each bite was fluffy yet slightly chewy the way I like it. Not too spicy either.

Dhaaba roghan josh thali £8.05

Tender pieces of lamb in a very flavourful sauce, accompanied with the mini portions of potatoes, rice and veg.

Overall, this was the first time I’d had thali here, and found it an enjoyable experience. Would I return to this restaurant? Most certainly so, and I’d recommend it to anyone despite it being a chain restaurant as the food is tasty, the quality is satisfactory, and the ambience is always good for groups of friends wanting a loud party or even couples wanting a quiet dinner.

Google Map to here!

View Larger Map

Chennai Dosa, 353 High Street North, Manor Park, E12 6PQ (East Ham tube station)

As you come out of East Ham station, there are 3 Chennai Dosa restaurants (similar sign boards, similar name, similar colours in fact) on the high street. Which one you go to depends on who recommended it to you.

The one we went to was the third one down from East Ham tube station, after the second vegetarian one with the long queues. As we went by the queues, I wondered if that meant we were going to the less popular one, but my friend then said that the queues were for the vegetarian restaurant, so I guess you can’t compare the two.

Less queues = faster service

For those of you who don’t know, there is a big difference in the type of food served in Northern and Southern Indian cuisine. I’m not exactly sure what the main differentiating factor is, but from what I’ve had, Northern Indian cuisine consists of chapatis, fried meats and vegetables, and curries, while Southern Indian food is mainly dosa (or thosai depending on where you come from) and idli, with the Southern version of the cuisine being based more on steamed and roasted items.

Being the non-choosy kinda people, we like all of it.

The ground floor of the restaurant looks pretty much like any other takeaway shop with bright lights, a few tables for diners, and a counter where orders are placed. We went to the first floor, which had some more tables but was set up to create a comfortable (although simple in decor) environment for their diners, which seemed to be mostly larger groups of people. Where the cool kids hang out.

The menu is here another one which I like, consisting of a piece of paper, printed on both sides with little boxes for you to write the quantities on. As the prices were very reasonable, the four of us decided to order more than what the usual equation would have required us to. This time, the formula we used was:

n + 3 (instead of n + 1), with n being the number of diners

Mini idli with sambhar £2.20

The first dish to arrive at the table, and spoons delved into the dish almost immediately. Oohs and aahs and oh this is nice.

Little idlis (steamed rice cakes, soft and slightly chewy with a sour after taste) swimming in sambar sauce which tasted similar to dhal (chickpea curry).

Chicken kotthu parotta £3.75

Parotta is different from paratha, as the latter is Northern Indian (this is what Wikipedia says anyway). Thing is, unless I’ve had parathas disguised as parottas, or vice-versa, I can’t really see the difference between the two types of rotis.

This dish consists of parotta (closest thing I can liken it to is flakey puff pastry, but chewy) cut into little pieces, and cooked with egg, chicken and a spicy sauce.

As I was eating this, I tried to see what was in the dish but couldn’t make out what was in it, although onions was one of the main ingredients, from what I could tell. Taste-wise, it was very flavourful and eggy, and each bite made me want more. Similar to fried noodles (?), definitely one on the repeat-order list.

Mango lassi £1.75 (sweet)

Creamy and thick with full flavours of mango bursting through with each sip, soothing the spiciness of the dish mentioned above.

This is probably as close as it gets to eating dessert while having your main meal. Some people turn up their noses at that, but I say, the more the merrier.

Kal Dosa with Special Chicken Masala £3.75

The chicken masala curry that came with this dish was one of the nicest I’ve had. Tender, flavoured with spices and with just enough heat coming through the dish, it managed to stand out as the super-star of the dinner, fighting for space with the other super-stars (there were quite a few).

The dosa (or thosai) was nicely chewy, going well with the sauce.

Super-star chicken deserves a closer look.

Parotta £0.80 a piece

This is so similar to the roti parathas I’ve had before, that I really wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference if I hadn’t known there was any. Chewy like dense puff pastry, flavoured with eggs and ghee, this made a fabulous side-bread to chew on, even without being dipped in any curry.

Mutton masala dosa £3.99

When it arrived, I took one look at it and assumed that it would be like the chicken masala one, with the curry on the side. My friend then had a little prod at the dosa and revealed …

A treasure trove of potato with onions, and lots of mutton, very flavourful mutton. Each mouthful had little applauds of spice, rich meaty flavour, and fluffy potatoes cooked to perfection.

Special of the day – Nethili fish fry £2.75

When we were shown to our tables, we saw bright posters on the wall with the specials of the day. The one that just had to be ordered was the Nethili fish fry as I had been wanting fish the whole day, so even though I had not a clue what Nethili was (or where), I just had to order it.

It’s pretty much little fish deep marinated in spices and deep fried. Although only little, they managed to retain moisture and flavour, and the cooking process made each one very crispy and sweet.

Mutton Dum Biriyani £3.95

With more mutton than rice, this was our kind of dish. The rice and mutton was tender, yet not over-cooked, and nicely coated with spices.

Fluffy rice, tender mutton, creamy yoghurty minty sauce and 3 other diners who were already full meant that I had it all to myself.

Would I return to this restaurant? Most definitely so. In fact, halfway during the meal, we wanted to order some dishes to take-away, that’s how good it was.

Google Maps to here!

View Larger Map