Dum Biryani House, 10th November

I was unexpectedly contacted by Dhruv, the man behind DUM Biryiani, newly opened in Soho, inviting me to review the place. He said he liked my blog – clearly he has good taste, which boded well for his new restaurant.

Dum might sound like an odd choice for a restaurant name but Dum biryani is actually a specific dish native to Hyderabadi. So, this is another of those ‘one choice’ places, with either lamb or veg (mushroom, chickpease, and potatoes) biryani being the two choices for mains. With these there’s a handful of starters or sides and we ended up trying all of them except the prawns because I have allergies.

This may sound a little greedy but I had been waiting for my friend for almost an hour by the time she arrived, slowly being driven mad by the tantalising smells though somewhat soothed by the gentle Snoop Doog being played in the background. So by the time she arrived, I was starving, despite demolishing a plate of the masala nuts while I sipped on a cocktail. With the spicy coating it was hard to tell what nuts they were but I definitely spied peanut and cashew and maybe one other. They are fried and coated with a homemade spice mix which was not afraid of some real heat and were completely moreish. Perfect snacking.

They were all gone by the time Carolyn turned up so we got some of the fried yoghurt (because it sounded so strange) and also the black chickpea salad. I wasn’t sold on the fried yoghurt, but I don’t actually like yoghurt anyway so perhaps that’s no surprise. I certainly preferred it in this form – it was a bit like fried cottage cheese/paneer and I loved the curry leaf sauce it came with. But not something I’d choose to eat again.

The chicken wings were superb. They must have come from some mammoth birds and were piled high with grated, crispy ginger – not the sort of thing to take a mouthful of on its own, as I did, but a fantastic kick when eaten with the actual wing. These were plenty spicy but not so spicy it becomes a challenge to eat. So, just right in my opinion. I would have happily eaten another plateful.  

The salad was light and zingy, and did act as a refreshing coolant to the wings I was eating alongside. I wasn’t sure about the firm texture of the chickpeas, but again, full disclosure, I don’t generally seek chickpeas out so I’m not their biggest fan anyway.

And so, soon after, the main event was brought out. At first glance it looks like a pot pie, but no, underneath that (really rather tasty – loved the nigella(?) seeds) was the biryani. This is superhearty. Mine had chunks of lamb throughout and a big bit of lamb on the bone which fell off with the merest prod. There was a lot of rice. A lot. You could easily share this if you also want to have most of the snacks, or have one each and only share a couple of the starters. I would probably recommend the former, unless you happen to be eating with a veggie!

The biryani comes with a couple of poppadoms, some raita, a korma-esque curry and chili (with boiled egg if you get the meat version) and an absolutely delicious chutney. Overall, the biryani was a little too… aromatic for me. The flavour profiles weren’t quite suited to my taste. Sort of reminded me of  incense. However, that didn’t stop me eating as much as I could until I was stuffed. It was still tasty, although the rice got a little dry at times so I would suggest giving the whole thing a good stir so the meat juices can supply some moisture. Or maybe pour your curry into it.

Anyway, we were way too stuffed for dessert and really enjoyed the whole meal - I would, and have, recommended it to others. Especially for those wings. Oh, those wings!

Ragam, 7th February

It is a sad fact that Stephen and I have bad luck when it comes to opening hours. Many’s the time I’ve taken a special trip to a street food stall only to find it shut, or we’ve taken a random Monday off and everywhere we’ve wanted to eat was closed. So it was when we first tried to get into Ragam, in the limbo time between Christmas and New Year. As we advanced on the front it became clear they too had decided to shup up shop for the holidays, but it luckily provided us with an opportunity to go to Honey & Co.

It also made us determined to try again. The sole reason I know about Ragam is because I follow Ben Goldacre on Twitter and about 3 years ago he raved about it. He’s a pretty sensible, logical guy – always tweeting about evidence – and so I considered him trustworthy even on food. I was right to do so.

Stephen had been doing PescaJanuary (no meat, fish allowed) and we decided to celebrate him rejoining the carnivorous fold by going for a curry with a few friends. Having a few of us gave the perfect excuse to have a smorgasbord of starters before getting a main dish each. Some of these weren’t the easiest thing to share but we just about managed.

So, what did we have?

Stephen had a lamb vindaloo which, strangely, didn’t seem to have any potato in it. This was rather vinegary and, I thought, really, really hot. He begged to differ but I think he was just trying to be macho. I don’t know whether I liked the taste all that much and I know I couldn’t have eaten much of it. I just dipped some paratha in every now and again.

Paratha is all they serve on the bread front but that’s fine with me as I think they’re as good as, if not better, than nan breads. As with nans elsewhere, these came in lots of different flavours. I almost ordered the chilli but as I’d asked for extra heat in my curry I thought that may be foolish and instead had a garlic one. This was so garlicky it was verging on bitter. I think a plain one would have been best.

My butter chicken curry was delicious and there was plenty of it. It is not traditionally a particularly hot curry so I asked for extra spice and they got the heat level just perfect for me. Noses were running but the flavours weren’t masked. It was exactly what I want when i have a curry – good consistency, spicy, plenty of flavour and plenty of meat. 

Butter chicken and stack of paratha

My friends have a favourite curry house in London – Gopal’s. They’re almost regulars there. But after visiting here their allegiance was certainly wavering. While the curries were good (they also had the butter chicken) I think the starters were what was swaying their loyalties. So here’s a run through of them:

Cashew nut pakoda – cashews dipped in spicy batter and fried. Amazingly moreish, just takes a nut to a completely new level. They disappeared in seconds and I haven’t stopped thinking about them.

Sambar vada – doughnut in a lentil gravy – this was incredibly savoury and deeply flavoured, reminding us of the dipping curry at Roti king. Not the easiest dish to share, as it is one doughnut but we managed to cut it up so that everyone could have a bite.

Onion bhaji – these are easier to get wrong than you might think but we were really happy with the ones we had. They weren’t too greasy and heavy and came with a raita-style sauce to dip them in. 

We also had pappadums of course and even these were a little bit special as some of them were not just plain pappadums but seasoned.

And we’re not even done yet. We also ordered some poori masala – puffed bread stuffed with potato masala. These were a little dry and not our favourites but easily tasty enough, especially when dipped in the sambar vada gravy.

Finally we also had a side of bhindi which came with onions and tomatoes as we wouldn’t have felt healthy without a bit of veg!

Apologies for the quality of the photos, I was too excited to get stuck in to worry about being arty, or even in focus!

The food is ridiculously well priced even for Central London – curries were around the £7 mark, the other dishes ranged from £3 to £6. Book ahead if you can as the place is pretty popular and yet not that big so was all but full when we went on a Saturday night.  

Dishoom, 21st November

I don't really know how to say this but, well, I thought Dishoom was... just... okay... I know, what is wrong with me? Wasn't I supposed to absolutely fall in love with it? I mean, I liked it, but that's as far as it went. If it were a beau, I'd probably go on a second date, but I'm not sitting by the phone on edge, waiting for it to ring.

Dishoom has been on my list for a long, long time. So long in fact, that in that time they have opened a third branch in King's Cross. I assumed, for the sake of speedy seating, that the best option would be to go to one of their more established branches to avoid any queues. But on twitter they assured me that their new branch had been pretty quiet since the 50% soft launch opening. And they were right. When we got there at six we were shown to a table straight away, and although the place did fill out a bit while we were there, there was no sign of any hour-and-a-half waits. (That's how long we were told we'd have to wait when we tried to get into the one in Shoreditch once.)

Dishoom sits comfortably between high-end Indian and eat-at-2-am curry. And the prices somewhat reflect that, although the portions are on the diminutive side, meaning it's not quite as good value for money as it would at first appear.

Trying to be reasonably healthy and not spend too much, Stephen and I just got one small plate, one grill and one main between us, as well as the requisite sides of a nan (garlic) and rice (they offer only one type – steamed basmati).

We ordered the okra small plate as our nibbles, which was as good move as we needed something to dip in the chutneys and dips that we were given for the table. These were delicious and it would have been nice to have some complimentary poppadoms to make the most of them. One was minty and cool, one was basically just chilli, so rather fiery, and the tamarind sauce was also surprisingly spicy.

Our lady fingers were great - most likely coated in something and lightly fried, they were a more than acceptable alternative to a bowl of chips. I easily could have eaten a portion on my own.

For the main event we ordered the plainspoken ‘chicken ruby’ and the lamb boti kabab. The ruby murray came in a thick, tomatoey sauce which was a little too tomatoey and sweet, not quite enough spice for the both of us. Perfectly nice to eat but didn’t make me swoon, and I was very much expecting to. We much preferred the chunks of lamb that had been marinated in red chili, garlic and ginger, although they seemed to get cold quite quickly.

To drink I had an East India Gimlet which was so nice I had another one. A very light, but strong drink, the celery bitters tempering any sweetness from the lime cordial.

Unusually, we had a dessert at Dishoom - we split the pineapple and black pepper crumble with custard, which was a good note to end on. Warm pineapple is a wonderful taste and the custard and crumble made it suitable stodgy and indulgent. 

In all it was a perfectly pleasant meal and I was only a bit disappointed because I'd had such high expectations. I’d be happy enough to return if someone suggested going (especially this branch - the setting is rather beautiful), but I’m not going to rush back. 

See the menu and more reviews of this restaurant on Zomato. 

Painted Heron, 8th November

I managed to lose my camera the other week when I was out cavorting at the Bugged Out Halloween party. This may seem to have little relevance to a review of an Indian restaurant but I mention it by way of apologising for the nonexistent or truly poor quality photos. My camera phone just isn’t up to scratch when faced with the kind of low lighting used to provide ambience. I took two photos of the starters and then gave up.

Which is a shame as some of the food looked really good.

Painted Heron had earned a place on my List from trawling through 1000 Things to do in London. And then, just as with McQueen, Time Out had an offer on to dine there which was an opportunity too good to miss. And what an offer it was – £15 for three courses. Naturally, Stephen and I assumed there would be a set menu as there was for McQueen but we were completely mistaken. Other than being restricted from ordering the sharing dishes as starters we had free reign to choose from their normal menu. They even included a side of rice and a choice of bread. You couldn’t fault the value for money with this.

There were a lot of interesting-sounding dishes to choose from which made deciding tricky. In the end I went for the lamp chops with nutmeg flower to start because I decided I would have the guinea fowl with green chillies for the main. The other starters I had been eyeing up included crispy quail or pigeon breast but once I’d decided on the fowl, I thought that was enough poultry for one meal. Stephen had the plaice with crab to start followed by the quail, pigeon and duck in coconut stew. We also ordered some poppadoms to munch on while we were waiting for our starters, though we forgot to order these when we ordered the rest and we’d barely started on them when our starters arrived.

They were plated beautifully and I was smitten with my lamb chops with the first mouthful. Tayyabs eat your heart out! There was a decent amount of meat on the chops, they were tender and fantastically flavoured and the sauces laid out beside them were equally delicious. Of course, it’s a little unfair to compare them to Tayyabs as, without the special deal, they would have cost £9.50, but on taste alone they win hands down. Stephen was similarly impressed with his fish starter and urged me to try it. We were excited by the food (and our discount) and Stephen even proclaimed that it was getting on for Lassan standards. Lassan is an upmarket Indian restaurant in Birmingham that we went to earlier this year, after having been taken with Aktar Islam’s creations on the Great British Menu. That was some pretty fine Indian food.

The dark splodges in front are the chops, the bright(ish)
yellow thing is the nutmeg flower

So we awaited with baited breath for our main courses and unfortunately they didn’t manage to maintain the gold standard. I definitely ‘won’ the main dish round, being quite satisfied with my guinea fowl. There was heaps of it – I think there must have been half the bird in my curry and I couldn’t finish it all (not a problem when you have a Stephen with you to take over). I liked my sauce – it was sweeter than I had imagined it would be, but the heat of the chillies tempered this. It was really Stephen’s dish that was the let down. He didn’t like the way the birds had been overcooked. He said the duck was alright but the pigeon and quail were far too dry and not at all tasty. The sauce seemed quite nice, if a bit thin. We had saffron rice and a chilli and rosemary naan bread which was nice, though neither particularly spicy nor particularly fragrant with rosemary.

My curry and some of Stephen's in the background

Desserts aren’t in general a strong point for Indian restaurants and this was no exception. Our choices were: kulfi, ice cream or sorbet. Stephen had a mango kulfi which was nice enough, and I had pistachio ice cream which was also nice enough – pretty creamy.

So a bit of a mixed bag but I feel I shouldn’t complain too much as we had it at such a bargainous price. The mains would have cost about £15 each alone, never mind everything else. It’s just a bit of a shame that they didn’t live up to the promise of the starters. 





Find the menu & restaurant information on Zomato