The contents of this blog are matters of opinion formed over one more visits. There has been some artistry applied and metaphors and similes should not necessarily be taken literally.
We needed to find somewhere local to eat one night when I was on call for strokes. The idea was to have a quick in and out meal, at a place where I could still be back at work within the requisite period to do a quick NIHSS. The quick in and out bit didn’t go quite to plan, but the food was great.
The pappadums were free because they forgot to make our order for 45 minutes. My partner generally likes pappadums, I have no strong interest in them, but I’m happy we didn’t have to pay $1 each for them.
This half tandoori chicken ($18) was great. Such good flavours, whilst remaining not too salty, and so juicy on the inside as well. Served on a sizzling hot plate.
We had some keema naan ($8), garlic naan ($5), and cheese garlic naan ($7). No complaints about the quality here, though I guess it is a bit expensive at $5-8 per bread.
I was a bit embarassed about ordering the Dehli style butter chicken ($25), but this was actually a bit spicy, as well as yummy. It was, as the kids would say, ‘bomb’.
This kulfi, Indian style ice cream with pistachio, was also comped as an apology for the lateness of the meal. It tasted good, and at $7 is a nice novel thing to try. Though we were a bit miffed at waiting quite a while for our food, the subsequent service and free stuff more than made up for it. They were very apologetic.
Can recommend.
Not Just Curries 66 Wigram St, Harris Park NSW 2150 (02) 9893 8202
Kohli’s is at least one of my nursing colleagues’ favourite Indian restaurant in Nowra. It is so highly regarded in the local area, that some online reviewers have taken to comparing it to the quality of South Asian food available in the golden 7.5km stretch between Pendle Hill and Harris Park. Keen to fact-check these claims against my hood, I took an unscheduled trip to Kohli’s on one of my last days in town, waiting no less than five minutes at the front of the restaurant in confusion before my existence was acknowledged.
This fish amritsari ($14.50) was not bad. The fish was appropriately soft, tender, and moist, though the batter was grainer than I’m used to. I’m certainly no expert in Indian cuisine though, so perhaps this is just a known normal variant. Not bad.
The cheese-garlic naan ($6.20) was also not bad. What I got matched what was written on the tin, though did not quite reach the dizzying heights of say Mazaidar Foods in Sydney’s subcontinental heartland, with it lacking a certain moistness of freshly tandoored bread.
The butter chicken ($22.90) the dish that Sid and Emma told me I had to try. Imagine their surprise when this review comes out after hanging in the queue for like 2 years in 2024. It was not bad, but again I think it’s probably unfair for me to compare Indian food from regional NSW to a restaurant like Nawaz Flavour of India in Glebe which had one that was exceptional.
OVERALL COMMENTS I’m sorry that you came to this site for a review of an Indian restaurant in Nowra only to find recommendations for alternate restaurants a 150km detour away. The food at Kohli’s was certainly very normal, I think I am just an extremely picky eater given I grew up in Western Sydney. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Kohli’s if you’re in town and absolutely fanging for a butter chicken, but I also don’t think that it reaches the point where it’s clearly on the top tier of restaurants in and around town. (DTC felt similarly, though we did not eat together)
It might also be worth hiring an extra guy to wait tables around peak periods.
Allow me to walk you through the items on Nawaz Flavour of India’s $41.50pp banquet menu, eaten in their private dining room with 20 colleagues. Though I am by no means an expert in Indian cuisine, it is currently my eleventh non-consecutive year living along the train line between Harris Park and Seven Hills.
The starters started us off strong.
The chicken tikka may have been the best I’ve ever had in my life. They were thick pieces that managed to remain tender and juicy both inside and out, with the perfect quantity and quality of flavouring.
The seek kebab were meaty and juicy, good but not quite as standout as the extraordinary tikka.
This jam was wild. Fruity and unexpected.
This Fish Pakora was extremely good. Again, very juicy and moist on the inside. Like the chicken tikka this fish was also able to avoid being too oversalted, something I can’t say for a number of my local restaurants. Also the best I’ve had.
I didn’t care too much for the Samosas, to be honest. They were very standard, potato stuff. But the other starters were great.
The Chicken Butter Masala was good, maintaining the tenderness of the chicken tikka that preceded it. Very mild, and widely loved. The colleague sitting next to me (JZHW) couldn’t stop talking about it.
This Dhal Makhni was my first oral introduction to dhal (having known about it as a food for some time). As a meat-eater I was less impressed. I’m a big fan of having something to chew on.
The Beef Vindaloo was good, though not particularly memorable.
Same goes for the Kashmiri Lamb.
Saffron Rice was ample.
Naan (not shown) was good in quality but unfortunately lacking in quantity, and given the volume of curry I think that we could’ve done with approximately twice as much around the table. We did order a piece of garlic naan (pictured) to share, though I don’t know if this was charged for on top of what we paid for the banquet.
DISCUSSION
I honestly don’t know if it’s just the fact that most of the Indian food I have is delivered after 9PM when all the non-Indian restaurants are closed, but fish pakora and chicken tikka at Nawaz were both the best I’ve ever had. Definitely worth a visit.
Revenge meal (noun): the action of having a meal without someone in return for an injury or wrong suffered at their hands.
Several months ago a member of our merry band of colleagues was left out of the invite list to a work gathering at Don’t Tell Aunty, one of the inner-city’s foremost “Modern Indian” restaurants. In retaliation for this unceremonious snubbing we put the restaurant on the hit list for a future visit – it’s just unfortunate that the next time we found ourselves in Surry Hills that same friend was packing his bags, ready to board a flight to visit his partner interstate. I guess he’ll never know. (Unless he reads this post)
Parking in Surry Hills on a Thursday night was quite easy, with plenty of 2-hour free street parking around. We entered the restaurant at opening to the tunes of the Tokyo Drift song, a harbinger of the modern, Western musical theme that would persist throughout the night.
Aunty’s Balls of Happiness ($12) are tangy and creamy shots of chutney encased within puffs made of semolina. They came strongly recommended by BC via an esteemed professor of intensive care medicine, though were not so well received around the table. Though the puffs themselves were light and inoffensive, the chutney shot filling was, in my opinion, too strong tasting. The balance of filling to pastry was absolutely not achieved, and within our band of four diners we each had one, except for BC who had to have three.
The Papadi Chaat ($18), billed as “the motherland’s version of nachos and salsa”, was truly only okay. It featured a too-flavourful salsa over some flour-pastry chips. The flavour was, in my opinion, again too strong – erring on the tangy side, almost more of the same as the balls of happiness but different. I wouldn’t get this again.
The cheese naan ($8) was my personal highlight of the meal. Unlike most cheese naans, Aunty’s cheese naan is made with blue cheese, with a sprinkling of oregano. This blue cheese flavour – not too strong to be overpowering, but just there enough to taste – was a flavour that I had never experienced before in naan, and very enjoyable. Don’t go without trying this.
The basket of naan ($12) was a basket of three different types of triagular naan, cut in the middle. The garlic chive naan (left) was good, though my girlfriend missed out. The onion sesame naan (right) was also good, as was the plain naan (not pictured). Each of these three naans were quite oily, especially the plain naan, and quite thin compared to the spectrum of naans that I’ve had in the past. I guess you can’t go wrong with bread and oil.
The Unauthentic Butter Chicken ($30), was really just fine. There was nothing special about this butter chicken, except for the price, which I thought was quite extreme for such a small serving. You can compare the serving size with this normal sized spoon. It’s quite ridiculous.
The Short Rib Korma ($30) was also just fine. Unlike Korean BBQ, this short rib was indistinguishable from any other red meat – it wasn’t served on the rib, nor was there any rib-like display. The size of this serving was again minute for the price, and neither of these curries were any better than what you’d get at your local Indian restaurant in Western Sydney for half the price.
Mango Lassi ($6) was good.
VERDICT Don’t Tell Aunty is in a difficult spot to like. The only real standout of meal was the blue cheese naan, which is not something you can really get elsewhere. The curries were extremely expensive for their serving size, and had no special elements at all to justify their pricing. As a Wentworthville resident with the entirety of Western Sydney’s South Asian offerings at my doorstep I would have extreme difficulty in recommending Don’t Tell Aunty to anyone.
This is going to be a quick one. We got delivery from Indian Biryani Restaurant during our last run of nights. I had the Chicken 65 Biryani ($19, pictured) and the Achari Chicken ($14, not pictured). Both were very tasty, and probably a bit too tasty to be eaten alone without any non-flavoured staple food. The Chicken 65 Biryani was very edible and safe. My colleagues had some chicken tikka salad and the butter chicken and allegedly all was good.
My overall impression is this: Not many places deliver to work. It really wasn’t bad and we’ll probably get it again before the year is through.
UPDATE In 2024, we actually went to the store.
Everything was still quite good, and the prices are still really good too. I somehow managed to convince my partner to have mutton biryani ($18.99) which we normally avoid due to a fear of gaminess. Luckily, it was actually quite delicious, and not gamey at all.
The butter chicken ($18.99) was a very normal butter chicken at a very normal price. No complaints, though it’s a bit of an insult to one’s intelligence to end your prices with a .99 suffix. Just call it $19 mate.
The garlic and cheese naan ($5 ea, $10 pictured) was a not a standout, a bit less good than the best ones that we’ve had around the city.
No complaints about this juicy and tasty half tandoori chicken ($14.99), served on a reflective aluminium foil surface for extra ambiance.
Indian Biryani Restaurant 544 Princes Hwy, Rockdale NSW 2216
