Going to Bollywood

For the longest time we had thought Bollywood was a movie store in our local Qurum Al Fair shopping square. We passed by mostly during the day time and the sign outside looks a bit deceiving until you look closer...

Our friends Abi and Vaibov from Bangalore, India have started a weekly night out at Bollywood where they educate us Canadians, Irish, Scottish and British on Indian cuisine. Which seemed terrifying at first because I have seen how many small green and red chilies the Indians buy at the grocery store!  Bollywood is a vegetarian restaurant which serves dishes from all over India, but both Abi and Vaibov are from northern India, and so ordered some of their favorites from that region.

The menu

C'wise from L: Abi, John, Alan, Vaibov, Janelle, Adam

We started out with Vaibov's favorite, a Chaat (snack) of Pani Puri. It was a good thing he showed us how to eat these little poppers. You crack the top of the shell, then put the lentils inside, then fill it with a broth and spicy sauce, and then eat it all in one go.
We decided to get a Chaat platter to try a bunch of different appy's. I can't remember the exact names, but we had Dhokla (sponge-like cake), puffy rice, a different kind of Pani Puri and rice crackers with raita on top. The whole dish was covered in crispy bits and cilantro. At this point we ordered a Lassi to drink - a yogurt drink to cut the heat. This drink was also very good and I hadn't had before.
We also ordered the tandoori platter for an appy as well. This had some cauliflower, tomatoes and onion, 2 types of paneer (cheese), and veggie kebabs.

Chat platter and a pani puri at the bottom

Tandoori platter

For our mains we ordered Chole Bhature ('chole' - chickpea, 'bhature' - fluffy bread) which was my favorite dish! It wasn't too spicy and the bread was awesome, yum! We also had the Dhaal Makhani (brown lentils) and another spicy curry and garlic naan bread. Vaibov was showing us the proper way to eat these dishes - first a tiny bite of the green chili, then a bite of the dish and follow that with a bite of purple onion. He was also starting to break a sweat at the end of the meal...I think I'll need to build up my tolerance to heat first.

John digging into the chole bhature

I can't remember the name of this one...but it was spicy! And more green chilies just in case.

For dessert we shared a few Gulab Jamun (timbit sized sweet soaked cakes) and a cardamom, pistachio flavored creamy dish, like ice cream but not quite.
Dinner for 6 came to only 25 rials (68 CDN) and we were stuffed. I'm already looking forward to some new dishes next week!