Category: Indian

Ellenborough Market Cafe

Ellenborough Market Cafe Review:

When I went to Singapore last month, we went to a buffet restaurant called Ellenborough Market Cafe in Swissotel Merchant Court. The dining area was nicely decorated with a little pool of water in the middle. We also could see a couple of chefs hand-rolling our dumplings. It was a very nice first impression to the restaurant.

Before I start talking about the food, I just want to say that the review below did not include every available menu on offer at the restaurant. There were just too many of them!

Bain-Marie

The list was quite extensive in the bain-marie section as it tries to cater to almost every demographics in Singapore. The ones in the slide below are: lobster (however it looked more of a Balmain bug in Sydney), otak-otak ( a traditional dish from the region), and babi pongteh (slow braised pork).

Seafood

The seafood options were very extensive. It is probably even more than some Japanese restaurants in Sydney. You can find 2 different sashimi, 4 sushi, baby octopus, seaweed. There are also cold seafood dishes like prawn, crab, mussels and escargot. In addition to the fresh seafood area, they also provided hot and cooked versions.

Others

There is a dish that I’m not familiar about but sit at a very prominent location. The dish is called Kueh Pie Tee. It was more of a DIY station than a complete set. They also have the roast meat section, cheese and salad.

Desserts

One of the most amazing things about this restaurant is the availability of (not just one, but) two durian dishes! I always thought you could not bring durian into the hotel. But then again, the durian in the restaurant wasn’t exuding that lovely (or horrible, depending on whether you are team durian or not) smell.

One was more on a creamy side and the other, deep fried!

If durian is not your thing, they also have a whole display full of desserts.

The Final Verdict for Ellenborough Market Cafe:

All you can eat lobster and durian? and did you also see that sashimi and fresh snails? I’m sure you know what my verdict is.

Do you think I should go?

When you are ever in Singapore and are in needs of a buffet, Ellenborough Market Cafe will be a good fit for you!

Rating:

8.5 / 10

Taste: 8.5 / 10

Price: S$68 dinner buffet

Place: 8.5 / 10

Details:

20 Merchant Road, Level 1 Swissotel Merchant Court 058281

+65 6239 1847

Ellenborough Market Cafe at Swissotel

Jun 3, 2019
Delhi Streets

Delhi Streets Review:

Our review this week is an Indian street food restaurant in Melbourne called Delhi Streets. We went there with my friend (he was the one recommending the restaurant) who used to live in Sydney. The restaurant was pretty full that day but my friend somehow managed to secure a booking. Apparently, quite a lot of them ordered the food for takeaway.
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Pani Puri – $9 – ‘Hands-on’ street food! – Crispy cracker balls stuffed with potatoes, chickpease, tamarind/mint/yoghurt chutneys and served with spiced water. MUST TRY!

You must pardon me but this was my first ever pani puri dish. I was very impressed with the dish.

When you combined the spiced water with the crispy cracker ball, the result was this explosion of flavours in your mouth. It was quite a mouthful tho!

Chicken Biryani – $13 – Indian Paella – Rice cooked with chicken, saffron, aromatic herbs & spices. Served with fresh Raita yoghurt

Chicken biryani is one of the staples we always had in an Indian restaurant. The rice was so flavoursome!

Mixed Grill – $12 – A succulent selection of tandoori chicken, chicken tikka & seekh kebab all char-grilled in the tandoor.

They served quite a lot of pieces for the mixed grill. I think the mixed grill and chicken biryani can be shared by three people for lunch. My friend and I could barely finish them.

Butter Chicken Thali – $14 – Butter Chicken heaven – large serve butter chicken served with rice, naan, pappadum and pickles

Butter chicken is my son’s favourite Indian dish. The serving plate for the butter chicken was actually bigger than our dishes. I would have enjoyed if it were the only dish that I had for lunch.

The final verdict for Delhi Streets

Delhi Streets is quite possibly one of the most exciting Indian casual dining restaurant I have ever been to. They served good quality food, fast and cheap!

Did you know?

Just like anything good in Melbourne, Delhi Streets is located in quite a small alley way, barely visible from the main street.

Rating for Delhi Streets:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $10 – $16 per main dish

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

22 Katherine Place, Melbourne 3000

+61 3 9629 2620

http://www.delhistreets.com.au/

Apr 25, 2017
Haji’s Biryani Restaurant

Haji’s Biryani Review:

Haji’s Biryani is located in Lakemba, Sydney. The restaurant is your typical neighbourhood and old-fashioned restaurant with unassuming appearance. Their curry costs between $13 – $16 and a few extra dollars for seafood ones.

There were only the three of us, hence we didn’t order a lot when we first came in. Since then, we’ve ordered their dishes via one of those food delivery service companies.

Biryani – $14.90 – Speciality of the house aromatic nice and tender pieces of marinated meat cooked together with assorted of freshly ground herb and spices

My friend told me this is their specialty and the one he ordered a lot when visiting the restaurant. Biryani is the perfect dish if you don’t share with the table. They give you quite a generous serving of rice and meat with one boiled egg.

For the meat, you have a choice between Lamb, chicken, beef, goat, and vegetables. On this occasion, we tried their chicken biryani.

Goat Curry – $14.90 – Tender goat meat on the bone sautéed and blended in a sauce on onions, garlic & chili with potatoes

It was quite a spicy goat curry.

Naan – $3.00 – $3.50 – Garlic, Peshwari, cheese, butter, plain

They have five different types of naan as written above. On this occasion, we chose garlic and cheese naan. The garlic and cheese taste were not too overwhelming… and that’s good because we want the curry taste to be more prominent.

Raita – $2.50 – yogurt with cucumber

Raita is my best friend in an Indian restaurant! This side dish makes the super-hot dishes more bearable. Considering that a lot of authentic Indian dishes are quite spicy, I am never far away from Raita.

The final verdict for Haji’s Biryani

Hot! That’s what my impression of Haji’s Biryani dishes. Even their ‘mild’ options can still be considered as hot for most people in Sydney. The price was quite reasonable for dishes in Haji’s Biryani.

Did you know?

Lakemba is a suburb generally linked as an Arab/Muslim suburb, due to the many Middle Eastern establishments in the area and the presence of Lakemba Mosque.

Rating for Haji’s Biryani:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $13 – $22 main dish

Place: 6.5 / 10

Details:

158 Haldon Street, Lakemba NSW 2195

+61 2 9750 3993

http://www.hajibiryani.com.au/

Feb 7, 2017
Surjit’s Indian Experience with EatNow

For this week, I was invited by EatNow to try their online takeaway and delivery services. This will also be our first take away review ever! As we feel like eating Indian cuisine, we made an order from Surjit’s Indian restaurant from their Sydney CBD Food delivery page. We also order a few starters and drinks from Cellarbrations.

Surjit’s Indian Restaurant

We made the decision to go with Surjit’s as it was one of the better ones according to some of the review sites. The good thing about having Indian (or to some extent Thai) food for takeaway is that you can simply reheat the food without losing too much of the beautiful texture and flavour.

After around half an hour wait past the scheduled delivery, the food arrived! For our entrees we ordered Surjits Onion Bhajia and Vegetable Samosa. The entrees were complemented by cucumber and mint raita. I love how the raita soothed the rather spicy taste of the samosa. The Bhajia is not as crunchy as I would have hoped for.

For our main courses we had Murg Mumtaz Begun (Butter Chicken) and Korma Zaffar Shahi Beef. I wanted to try the mild option, for obvious reasons! The takeaway containers were a bit messy but the taste was nice for the price that they are charging.

Obviously, you need naan to accompany your Indian dishes. There are quite a few options available, and for the day we had Garlic Naan, Keema Naan, and Plain Naan. Keema naan was probably the only thing I haven’t tried before. It was a lot heavier than the other types of naan.

The overall taste of Surjit’s dishes was quite spicy but it was still something that I can enjoy.

Drinks and Starters from Cellarbrations

If you want to spice up your evening (pardon the pun!), there are quite a few beverages and starters ordering options in EatNow.

Capi Blood Oranges, Duck pate, Camembert, Sun-dried tomato and Baby Octopus

I actually find this service to be pretty useful, especially when you need the items ASAP but you do not have the time to actually go to the shop yourself. Obviously for alcoholic delivery, you have to be over the age of 18.

Jun 29, 2015
The Colonial Restaurant

Review:

This week we go to an uncharted territory. The Colonial Restaurant becomes the first Indian restaurant for us to review! We were quite intrigued by its concept of British Indian cuisine. I then invited my friends from the UK to join me and gave an opinion on how ‘authentic’ the restaurant was.

Tapas

Interestingly, the Colonial restaurant has a selection of Tapas on their menu. They creatively transform Indian dishes into Tapas-sized delicacies.

We ordered quite a few Tapas, especially the platters:

–          Onion Bhaji ($6) – Fritter of Onions and spring onion (Deep-fry) served with mint and date chutney

–          The Colonial Vegetarian Platter ($10) – Vegetarian samosa, batata bara, onion bhaji and Paneer Tikka, Served with Mint and Date chutney

–          The Colonial Non-Veg Platter ($14) – Meat samosa, lamb lollipop, chicken tikka and Chicken drumstick, served with mint chutney

–          Seafood Platter – Prawns, deep fried fish and calamari, served with tomato chilli chutney

So, unless you have a dish that you really like, I suggest you ordered the platter. I loved how their complementary sauces worked differently depending on the dish.

A La Carte

We ordered quite a few a la carte dishes which were mostly different kinds of curry. However, I didn’t get the chance to try the vegetarian ones.

Straight off the bat, we were quite fixated with the Railway Goat Curry. The description also reinforced our belief: goat meat cooked in yogurt, bay leaf and saffron! However, we felt that the dish was overshadowed by the others. Our next dish, Chicken Tikka Masala, was promoted as Britain’s National Dish! So, we felt we really must get that. It was a well-balanced dish with capsicum, onion and tomato sauce.

We felt that the best dish of the day was the Mango Chicken. Cooked in mango pulp liquor (you can have the non-liquor version), this dish had the perfect recipe to be my favourite: sweet, tasty and flavoursome. To round up the a la carte menu, we had Beef Dhansak, diced beef cooked with lentils and spiced.

Mango Chicken ($17) – Boneless chicken cooked in very mild spices with coco cream and mango pulp liquor (Suntory Mohala)

Beef Dhansak ($17) – Diced beef cooked with lentils and spices

The Rest

Normally, you enjoy Indian food with either bread (naan or paratha) or rice. They have quite a large selection of naan and rice. I think it is better to have the plainest tasting one because the dishes are already very rich.

You should also order Pappadums and mint chutney as they were very nice!

Unfortunately, this time around they ran out of their dessert special: The Colonial Special Creme Brulee. It might have been a great finish for our lunch. We had to settle for part of the dessert, Gulab Jamun.

The verdict for The Colonial – British Indian Cuisine

I was very impressed on how the Colonial restaurant was very well-presented. You can have the option of enjoying the usual Indian dishes or Tapas-style dishes with Indian influence.

Rating for the Colonial:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $35 per person

Place: 8.0 / 10

Details:

118 Crown Street, Darlinghurst 2010

02 8084 6700

http://www.thecolonialrestaurant.com.au/

Jun 27, 2014