Tag: naan

Categories
Indian

Kohlis Indian Restaurant – Nowra NSW Restaurant Review

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.

Kohli’s Indian Restaurant Nowra
116 Kinghorne St, Nowra NSW 2541
(02) 4421 0300

Categories
Indian

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.

Categories
Asian Fusion Indian

Don’t Tell Aunty – Surry Hills NSW Restaurant Review

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.

Don’t Tell Aunty
414 Bourke St, Surry Hills NSW 2010
(02) 9331 5399

Diners JW, PX, WKS, BC

Categories
Indian

Mazaidar Foods – North Parramatta NSW Restaurant Review

Finishing work at 9PM in Westmead means that the best food options available are generally Subcontinental in nature. Mazaidar Foods in North Parramatta is a late-closing Pakistani restaurant, offering a variety of Pakistani and Indian dishes paired with really great and welcoming service.

Mazaidar’s naan was very good. I suspect that part of this was us having it fresh instead of having to wait for naan to be delivered, but really it was just so warm and nice right out of the tandoor. We enjoyed the garlic and cheese naan (Left – $4.75), which had cheese between two layers of bread, a little bit more than the butter naan (Right – $3.50), though both are safe choices.

Sadly the papadums ($3.50) were not free. They didn’t have any spices adherent to the dough – rather these were ground into the flour. My partner didn’t like this as much as most other papadums, but I actually liked them more.

The half tandoori chicken ($10.50) was of normal quality. No better or worse than any other, though the price was quite good.

The seekh kebab (4 pieces for $12) were nice, soft, moist, with a little bit of gamey flavour but not enough to overpower us.

The beef nehari ($17.50) featured huge chunks of beef, slow cooked in a only-slightly spicy thick sauce. The beef was quite tender, and it was quite good to eat with the naan. I’m told that this is quite an authentic nehari as far as neharis go, but I wouldn’t be able to confirm or deny this myself.

My partner loved the Aloo Mutter ($15.50), a thick, spicy curry of potatoes and peas. I don’t normally go for a vegetarian curry, but these two legumes worked synergistically to create a good dish with differing mushy textures. Pretty good.

VERDICT
I’m by no means an expert in Pakistani food, but I think that Mazaidar Foods provides both good food and good service for the late night Parramatta market.

Mazaidar Foods
515 Church St, North Parramatta NSW 2151
(02) 9630 0319

Categories
Indian

Indian Biryani Restaurant – Rockdale NSW Restaurant Review

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