Eat Drink Hong Kong

13 Elgin Street
Soho
Central
Hong Kong
Tel 2547 9998

59 Staunton Street
Central
Hong Kong
Tel 2857 2966

7/F, Cheung Hing Commercial Bldg
37-43 Cochrane St
Central
Hong Kong
Tel 2854 0916

This is one of a number of restaurants that have sprung up in Sheung Wan in recent months. “Don’t Worry. eat curry”, the menu exhorts, “A Taste of Modern Indian Cuisine”. It sounded good to me so I went in and took a seat.

It’s a small restaurant but bright and cheerful with orange being the dominant colour. The staff are friendly and helpful and produced poppadoms within moments of my sitting down. I ordered a bottle of Kingfisher beer ($30) to go with it and turned to the menu.

Of course all our old favourites are there, korma, Madras and vindaloo. Tikkas in both fish and chicken and, what looked to me to be great value at $158, a tandoori mixed grill. This included both the tikkas, seekh kebab and lamb.

But in places like this I always like to look for the things that are a little unusual. One of the first things that caught my eye was the inclusion of a number of salads. Tandoori chicken tossed with cucumber and tomatoes ($45) sounded good as did the herb crusted fillet of sole with green salad ($58). Though the latter didn’t sound very Indian.

Elsewhere on the menu the Lamb Shank Masala ($135) sounded very good. A baby lamb leg cooked in a crunchy masala sauce. I was very tempted but I had a suspicion that it might be a fairly large dish. Not that such considerations have ever stopped me before but I was intrigued by the Fish Head Curry ($88).

This is made with a fresh salmon head. I’ve had fish head curries before but I couldn’t recall ever having one made with salmon and I was keen to find out how a flavour as distinctive as salmon would work in a curry. According to the menu it is a secret recipe that includes mustard seeds, eggplant and poached in a “special condiments” curry.

The curry itself was slightly dry in flavour and a little tangy and fish head was indeed very fresh. It was quite a surprise to find the salmon flavour in there at the start but after a few mouthfuls my palette warmed to the task and by the time I’d finished that, and the Palak Paneer ($48) that I’d ordered to accompany it, I was rummaging around in the debris to make sure I hadn’t missed any tasty morsels.

I’d ordered the curry medium spicy but it seemed a little hotter than I would expect and garnished with dried chillies. This doesn’t bother me at all but for people who don’t like curries at the very spicy end it is probably worth making sure the waiter understands or ask for very mild.

I mopped up with the remains of a naan and I had to admit that I was feeling quite full.

There are no desserts listed on the menu but the waitress did confess to having Gulab Jamun and I felt it was my solemn duty to indulge. It was actually very good gulab jamun and I was glad that I did.

Lovers of top notch, value for money, curries have always made a beeline for Chungking Mansions. A favourite of mine, when I arrived in Hong Kong as a fresh faced backpacker in the early eighties, was buried so far in that even the rats and roaches went around in pairs. The reward was an excellent curry that even backpackers had to agree was very reasonably priced.

But for some folks the very thought of Chungking Mansions is enough to put them off their dinner. Luckily, there are alternatives. One of these is Afghan Canteen, a small Indian (halal) restaurant that has inhabited the third floor above the Red Lips bar for over 16 years. The entrance is just around the corner on Lock Road. There are two small lifts which take people, two at a time, up to the third floor. There were four of us.

After the lift, the restaurant itself seems quite spacious. The decor was simple and the staff friendly. The restaurant wasn’t crowded and we were quickly shown to a table and menus were produced.

I’ve always maintained that beer and curry is a marriage made in heaven, the rest of the party seemed to agree and four cold Cobras were ordered and promptly delivered. We settled down to discuss the menu.

The were no big surprises, all our favourite dishes were represented. To get the ball rolling we sent the waiter off for some starters; Onion bhaji ($24), Samosas ($20), and Chicken chat ($24). The bhaji and the samosa were both excellent the chat, whilst not being particularly bad, didn’t really hold it’s own alongside the other two.

Nevertheless we made short work of it all and soon we were putting in our orders for the main dishes. Chicken Afghan ($60) was the house speciality so we felt duty-bound to order that. To go with it we ordered Baingan Bharta ($48), Rogan Josh ($60), Palak Paneer ($48) and Boti Kebab ($72).

Boti kebabs are chunks of tandoori lamb and are an excellent alternative to the ever popular chicken tikka (which is also available). The chicken Afghan was a mild, creamy curry and quite delicious. The rogan josh was also quite mild which is unusual for a rogan josh. These are usually on the spicy side and a bit oily but this adaptation was mild and buttery. It was a very pleasant dish indeed, but if you are a stickler for tradition it would probably raise the eyebrows a little.

The Palak paneer and Baingan bharta both lived up to expectation and we scooped them up enthusiastically with with plain and garlic nan.

Dessert would have been gulab jamun and kulfi but by the time we got there we were all quite full. Instead we finished our beers slowly, brought peace to the world and abolished natural disasters forever before emerging into the frantic neon of Tsim Sha Tsui. An explosion of light and noise that would also underscore a curry trip to Chungking Mansions.

India Today is at 26 Elgin Street, right next door to I Caramba. Don’t be put off by the locked gate – simply rub your chin and put on a “lost” look and the genie will magically appear to guide you in and up to the first floor. There you will find a cosy little restaurant with a modern tropical feel. The walls are painted yellow and orange, decorated cushions are scattered around the seats, lanterns provide illumination and a coconut palm is sprouting in the corner. The restaurant has recently changed owners and the new ones were very attentive and keen to make sure we had an enjoyable evening. We ordered a cold beer (Carlsberg on draught) each and buried our noses in the menu.

The beer arrived along with a small bowl of chillies. They were a short fat variety, I don’t know the name. The manager explained that they were sliced open and filled with salt and yogurt, dried in the sun and finally deep fried and cooled. Nibbling them creates little explosions of flavour on the palate and left me in no doubt at all that, if they were able to make these in sufficient quantity, they would have one of the most successful bar snacks ever … that is, successful from the point of selling large amounts of cold beer thanks to the combination of the salt and the heat from the chilli.

All our favourite starters – onion bhajis, samosas and pakoras – are on the menu, but we decided to try the Murgh Chat ($42) and the Bhindi Rajasthani ($38). The murgh was small boneless tandoori chicken pieces rubbed with chat masala and served in a “salad” with coriander and green chillies. The Bhindi Rajasthani is okra fried in a deliciously light and crispy batter and served with a yoghurt dip.

From the tandoori menu we had considered ordering the Tandoori Kaliyan, a mixed platter of dishes from the tandoor, but there were only two of us and at ($178) we decided it was way more than we could eat. Instead we ordered boti kebab ($82) – young and tender pieces of lamb marinated in a spice-laced yoghurt and served on a sizzling plate, and cooked to perfection.

At this point the naans, two plain and one garlic, and our two remaining dishes arrived. From the vegetarian section we’d ordered Baingan Hydrabadi ($62). This is mild eggplant curry cooked in peanuts and sesame seeds. It was a very pleasant dish but on this evening it was facing some unfair competition. Our other dish was the Malabar Machli Curry ($78). The main ingredients of this curry are coconut and mackerel. The distinct flavours of each combine well to make a very memorable dish indeed. It is a mild curry, the sweetness of the coconut provides a startling, but very agreeable, contrast to the strong flavour of the mackerel. The only drawback was that it tended to overshadow the Baingan Hydrabadi. Next time I think I would choose something a little spicier to pair it with.

After a respectable pause we concluded the meal with that old standby, Gulab Jamun, balls of milk powder fried until golden and soaked in a sweet saffron syrup, followed with masala tea.

This restaurant is tucked away down a little side street off Johnston Road. At street level it is merely a doorway and quite easy to miss.

Inside the restaurant is simple but spacious. Indian popular music and dance was showing on a large screen TV but there was nobody there to watch it. I had the restaurant to myself.

It serves both Indian and Nepalese cuisine and there is a good variety of each. The menu is divided accordingly with good explanations of each dish and where it comes from. I’d gone along specifically for the Nepalese food.

I started with Bhogate Sandheko ($35). This is a simple dish made with some nice tangy grapefruit with yoghurt, sprinkled with chilli powder to give it a little extra bite. Following was a Chicken Choila ($65). This is a delicious chicken dish that has been barbecued and served with chillies, ginger onions and coriander.

Next, just to remind me that Nepal shares a long border with China, came some steamed chicken dumplings ($40) in soup. The dumplings are called momo. They were pleasant enough but they did seem a little out of context alongside the rest of the food I had ordered. It was a generous serving though, definitely designed to be shared.

Following this was a dish that I was particularly looking forward to, Himali Lamb Sekuwa ($65). This is cubes of barbecued lamb spiced with timmur. Timmur are the same peppercorns that make Sichuan cuisine so distinctive. It was nice, though I would have liked it to be more heavily spiced.

Finally came the Jhol Halu Ko Macha ($78) which is a very tasty but light fish curry in a thin sauce. Mopped up, of course, with nan bread.

For dessert there were the usual gulab jamun but the very last item on the menu caught my attention – Himalaya Special ($35). I ordered and waited in anticipation. When it arrived I was surprised to find that it consisted of three scoops of Ice cream, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, sandwiched between two slices of banana. It was topped with cream and finished off with a little pink umbrella.

‘Is this a traditional Nepalese dessert?’ I asked the waitress. She grinned.

G/F 12 Staunton Street
Soho
Central
Hong Kong
Tel 2869 6212

G/F 24 South Wall Road
Kowloon City
Kowloon
Tel 2716 5128

G/F Block D, Ho Kwan Building
48-54 Jordan Road
Jordan
Kowloon
Tel 6048 0492