Faheem Fast Food – Strathfield NSW Restaurant Review

We paid a visit to Faheem Fast Food’s Strathfield restaurant (they also have one in Enmore) after a day of medium-intensity primary study where I learned and promptly forgot about the determinants of cardiac output, amongst other things.

Though the very entrance of the restaurant had a bit of a uraemic smell, this was quickly overcome by walking deeper into the restaurant, and I’m glad we didn’t allow it to turn us back, because the food was pretty good.

The half garlic tandoori chicken ($14) came out of a fridge at the front of the restaurant pre-butterflied and pre-skewered and straight into an oven (presumably a tandoor, though I won’t pretend that I know what one looks like, nor did I pay close enough attention at whatever magic box turned the raw chicken into cooked chicken. Looking online it does look like commercial tandoors have an stainless steel exterior, so it was probably that). This chicken, though smaller in terms of muscle development to many other chickens, came out extremely juicy and perfectly tasty, probably owing to the lack of thick muscle to try and cook through evenly. It was overall a really well done tandoori chicken, with a superfluous but not unwelcome hint of garlic which I wouldn’t pay 50 cents for again.

It’s very tricky for my partner to walk past a restaurant and not order some kind of potato, and Faheem Fast Food’s aloo baigan ($15.50) was this night’s victim. Though by no means experts in South Asian food, both my partner and I enjoyed this very mild mix of potato and eggplant, though I think I still prefer aloo mutter more (my intern KP made me a very good one recently, and honestly this aloo baigan can’t compete at all. I doubt she will ever see this. By the time this post is published she will probably be a fully fledged psychiatrist.)

Haleem, the king of curries ($18), a mix of four types of lentils and some shredded beef was honestly just fine. I’m glad that they looked at our skin colour and modulated the amount of spice in this “red chilli level” dish, because I don’t think my partner could’ve taken any more. I know that the vibe is for it to be a bit of a thick stew rather than a meat dish, but my disappointment in not having actual chunks of beef to chew between my molars is unbound by actual culture and tradition. Not my thing, but again much appreciated by my partner.

I thought that the cheese and garlic naan ($6) was to cheesy. A lot of complaints, I know, from a guy who can neither pronounce nor make any of this food himself but it is what it is.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Faheem Fast Food’s tandoori chicken was the obvious standout, though the other dishes that we tried enthused my partner much more than they did me. Mazaidar Foods remains my go-to for late night Pakistani and Indian food in the general 10km radius of Parramatta.