29.08.08: Out to Sheesh Mahal

It's just the kind of Friday nite where you exhale, walk around the block, and plunk yourself down for comfort-inna-curry.
First up: the inevitable poppadoms with the sweet chutney, the minty coconut thingy, and the raita, with sliced onion standing by.

Pilau rice and - what else? - chicken tikka masala...

...plus (new!) king prawn pathia, billed as 'sweet, sour and hot', and, making a 2nd appearance, lamb rezalla ('fairly hot and sour').

SHE SAYS: Lamb rezalla is one serious curry, deeply flavoured and tender, with no hint of the cloying that affects some of their dishes (such as the saag paneer, otherwise a surefire fave in any Indian eatery). I don't know if I can resist ordering it from now on. The new prawn dish barely rates an 'enh', though; it almost tasted off, even, and was only saved by a hint of smokiness; the tomato sludge it sat in didn't add anything nice, either. Chicken tikka masala was as rich and creamy with that nice charcoaly taste offsetting the sweetness just so.

HE SAYS: The CTM was great, creamy and not too shweet. I agree with Her that the prawn dish was a little fishy tasting and I count myself lucky that I felt okay the next day. The lamb dish was probably the best thing on my plate, really quite a hot one but also very aromatic and satisfying. I missed the chickpea dish we usually choose but we were a little legumed out by the end of the week.

14:06.08: Veggie Indian nite

Spicing up a Saturday nite: She prepared the much-loved saag paneer with the even-more-loved subs of halloumi for paneer, and filled out the plate with a too-good-to-be-true microwave recipe for eggplant curry. Since it was the weekend an' all, She pushed the boat out with ho-made raita, our favourite lime pickle, and some mini-poppadoms. An ultra-quick salad with pre-peeled pomegranate seeds provided cooling crunch.

HE SAYS: The saag went up against the eggplant curry and won convincingly. The eggplant dish was a not really a curry but a dry flavourless impostor, and well, I ate what was on me plate like a good boy but didn't feel the need for seconds. The saag, on the other hand, performed beautifully as per usual, I say it was a fix. The salad was a mixture of tart and aromatic, I have noticed that pomegranates have a nice horseradish-y aftertaste to them - discuss.

SHE SAYS: I'm now firmly committed to halloumi over saag in the paneer recipe stakes: it's so salty and yummy, and the extra kick from the spices puts me in culinary nirvana. That bogus eggplant curry recipe from the NYT, tho' - f'shame! It was, in a word, icky, with a cardboard flavour and limp, dryish texture. I could have cooked it even longer (already went over the tme suggested), but it wouldn't have improved the flavour. The only good thing to come out of this experiment was learning that you can toast dry coconut by microwaving it. Well, that's neat. But even my raita couldn't make the eggplant worth eating. Normally I'm opposed to packaged pomegranate due to the ripoff price, but the pack I bought was on sale, plus the seeds were ruby red and full of juice, yet taut and satisfying to pop between the teeth. All good.