I LEARNED this week that there are various interpretations of one of my all-time favourite Indian dishes, a popular street snack called chicken 65.
Named after the year it was introduced to Bhuari’s Hotel in India – at least that’s the most plausible explanation – this dish comes in various degrees of “hot”, but even the flavours can have some subtle differences.
One thing is for sure though, whatever the iteration, it’s still delicious and a great accompaniment with any Indian meal.
Randhawa’s Indian Cuisine at Holmview does a version which is a bit saucier than the street version you’d eat from a makeshift packet, and a bit more spicy. The kick goes well with the curry sauce, as does a sprinkling of sesame seeds.
It’s never a perfect start to a night out when you order a meal, only to be told there’s no stock. I’ve spoken about it before, being an increasingly common reality as the supply chain becomes unreliable.
In this case, there was no coffee or iced coffee because the machine was “broken”. And no duck as an option in the curry, which would have made a nice switch up to the usual lamb, goat or chicken.
Onward we march with our order, and I’m glad we did.
While chicken 65 will always do a menu proud, all of the curries at Randhawa’s are top shelf.
If specialties are available, I always try to give them the taste test. Chefs are willing to put themselves on a limb with these dishes, and in our case we went for the prawn and pepper curry.
Pepper isn’t a common ingredient, at least not as the star of the dish, but this was a gem. Prawns had been sauteed with capsicums and onions before being smothered with the chef’s special sauce.
This dish was a real pick-me-up.
Like many Indian restaurants, there’s an option here to choose your favourite meat and match it with your favourite curry. And there are 16 of them – each curry with its own subtle difference, from the popular roganjosh and butter curry through to handi and our choice of the night, jalfrezi which we paired with beef.
The beef was slow-cooked and crumbled in our mouths. As the menu states, jalfrezi curry is popular in Britain perhaps due to its milder flavour driven by cashew nut flavours and onion gravy.
It’s a smooth dish and no regrets with the choice.
Service here is friendly and efficient, and in the summer months there’s an outside dining area which fronts onto the carpark but does have some mood lighting to remind you you’re having a night away from the kitchen.
The menu has plenty of depth to it, with a long list of entrees, salads and biryani, breads and kids meals.
If you have space for kulfi, it’s a condensed milk dessert which gives the sweetest of teeth a sugar rush.
