Indian Brunch at Dishoom

A few weekends ago, I met a friend for brunch and I finally got the opportunity to go to Dishoom in Covent Garden. I read about Dishoom years ago and have been itching to try this place ever since! On the website, Dishoom is described as a "Bombay cafe" and after studying the menu, I quickly noticed that the dishes were different from what I've seen on other Indian restaurant menus.

I met my friend, A, around noon at Dishoom. She warned me that because this place is so popular, the queue can be quite long. One time, she waited 2 hours! Lucky for us, the wait was quite short --- a mere 30 minutes or so. While we waited for a table to open, we found a spot at the bar and started to schmooze. I know A from college, and we probably haven't seen each other in about four years? (I graduated two years before her). She moved to London a year ago for work and loves it here!

Since A has been to Dishoom before, I let her make some suggestions of dishes she liked. Everything looked delicious and I wish we could've ordered it all! Before deciding upon our meals, we ordered drinks. A got a tea, but I ordered one of my favorite drinks, a mango lassi.

For brunch, we ordered a couple of different dishes, which we shared between us. We ordered: okra fries, lamb samosas, spicy lamb chops, mattar paneer, and falooda. Everything, well almost everything, was absolutely delicious!!!! [Wasn't crazy about dessert, but I'll get into that later…]

For starters, A and I ordered the okra fries which were so crunchy and really spicy! I couldn't stop eating them. Super yummy! We also shared an order of lamb samosas which were also very flavorful and the pastry was perfectly crisp. Loved it!

Okra Chips

Lamb Samosas

For our main, we split an order of lamb chops and a paneer curry. I enjoyed both, but for me, the paneer curry (Mattar Paneer) was the more interesting dish of the two. For those who don't know, paneer is a type of Indian cheese. (Sort of looks like fresh mozzarella). I love paneer curries and my favorite is palak paneer, which is a spinach based curry. The mattar paneer curry was like a tomato sauce with cheese. I really rather enjoyed it and it was something that I'd never eaten back home. The sauce wasn't too tomato-y, nor was it crazy heavy or creamy. The spices were perfect. My only major criticism is that I think they could've added a bit more paneer! 

Spicy Lamb Chops, Mattar Paneer (red bowl in back), and Naan

Now we come to dessert. I am a fan of trying new and adventurous foods, but sometimes, my sense of adventure can seriously backfire, like on this occasion. A and I were looking at the menu and I saw things that I was familiar with like kheer or kulfi, but there was one dessert that caught my eye: falooda. What on earth could this be? According to the Dishroom menu: sweet, extravagant and fun, this is the Irani cafes' answer to the knickerbocker glory. A glass full of malai kulfi, vermicelli, rose syrup and tapioca pearls. It certainly sounded impressive, so I thought, "lets give this a go."

When it arrived, A and I were both in awe because it looked really pretty, but we soon came to wonder, how are we supposed to eat this? I loved the kulfi, that was delicious and normally I love vermicelli noodles, however, I did not love the rose syrup and there was A LOT of it. Still, I gave it a go and at the end of the day, that's what counts, right?

Falooda

Overall, I had a great time at Dishoom and I really loved the food! It was unlike other Indian food I've had and that's one of the reasons why I liked it so much. The food at Dishoom is like a posh re-imagining of classic Indian dishes. Everything tasted really yummy (except for the falooda) and restaurant itself was really nice. Can't wait to go back!