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curry & naan: an adventure in solo dining

*** curry & naan is no more.  in its place, you will find chand palace. ***

solo dining is not something i enjoy doing. until very recently, i never ate in a restaurant by myself. for me, eating is more than just an act of sustenance. food brings me pleasure and it’s something i like to experience with friends and family. there are two main reasons why i have always been reluctant to dine alone in a restaurant: the lack of good company and the inability to sample a variety of dishes without coming off as a glutton. even if i weren’t worried about looking like a pig, the lack of stomach real estate would make having a feast-like meal a near impossibility. this is where compartmentalized dining comes into play.  oh thali, what a beautiful solution you are! a thali, i am told, is a plate.  at the vast majority of indian restaurants, it is a selection of dishes served on a steel plate with little compartments. think prison tray with much better food. dining this way lets one sample a variety of dishes in small quantities without breaking the bank or busting out of the seams of one’s pants.

for my first solo dining adventure, i picked curry & naan.  this little gem, a relative newcomer to the park-ex food scene, sits at the same intersection as veterans bombay mahal and indian curry house.  although it is just as bare bones as the aforementioned restaurants, it somehow felt cleaner and more welcoming. maybe it was the touch of colour on the walls and the natural light at lunch time that did it. what surprised me most was that they had someone on staff that spoke english and french fluently. this is a rarity in parc ex’s indian restaurant scene. kudos to them for making an effort!  it is probably greatly appreciated by les amateurs de la loi 101.

politics aside, i was there for the food. wanting to make the most of my solo dining adventure, i went for the obvious choice: a thali.  the butter chicken thali, to be exact. after a short wait, i was presented with a compartmentalized steel plate replete with butter chicken, a piece of tandoori chicken, vegetable curry, salad, rice, naan.  it was all there for a well-rounded meal.  the butter chicken was creamy and very gently spiced. a little mild for my tastes, but it was far from being bland.  what impressed me the most is that their butter chicken didn’t have the little pools of bright orange oil on top like so many of its counterparts at other restaurants do. i tell myself that this is healthier and use its lack of oil pools to justify eating more of it, but who am i kidding?  after all, it’s cream and butter.  the tandoori chicken was bright red with nice char marks. it wasn’t too salty and the level of spicing was just right so that your taste buds still knew that you were eating chicken. as expected, the meat was dry on the outside, but surprisingly moist on the inside.  the vegetable curry varies from day to day.  the first time i went, i got a mix of potatoes, carrots, and broad beans.  on my second visit, they gave me an eggplant & potato curry. both times, the vegetable curry was the thali’s spiciest offering.  i quite enjoyed the fact that everything didn’t have the same level of heat.  this was pleasing to the palate and helped sidestep the pitfall of everything starting to taste the same. the naan was pliant enough to use as an utensil for picking up pieces of meat or vegetables and fluffy enough to soak up the delicious sauces. the cumin-studded basmati rice was a little dry, which is bad on its own, but perfect once mixed with the curries as it held up and didn’t become mush.  to cool down the palate, there was a refreshing cucumber & red onion salad. this was so much better than the sad piles of iceberg lettuce you get elsewhere.  here, the salad wasn’t just an afterthought. to wash everything down, i chose the mango lassi, a yogurt-based drink.  it was thick without being so dense that your cheeks would hurt from trying to suck it through the straw and it was sweet without being cloying.

upon first setting eyes on the thali, i was a little disappointed that the butter chicken only had 3 or 4 pieces of meat swimming in the creamy sauce.  in the end, the platter contained way more food than expected and i was grateful that they only gave me those three pieces of butter chicken. any more and i would have lapsed into a food coma before i made it home.

i would like to mention that i had a great solo dining experience.  the staff was nice and attentive without being intrusive.  they never made me feel rushed or unwanted even though i was the sole occupant of a table for three.

on a subsequent visit, i was joined by my sister.  we both got thalis and decided to try a couple of appetizers.  i already knew the thali was filling, but my eyes were bigger than my stomach.  we got ourselves a couple of vegetable samosas. they were a good size, the pastry was crispy and flaky and the filling was dense with huge chunks of potatoes. they were good, but i prefer the ones at india beau village.  the samosas were served with a tamarind chutney.  i like to eat mine with a spicy mint & coriander sauce, but i didn’t think to ask if they had any.  as if samosas and thalis weren’t enough, my sister wanted to try their dahi vada. knowing full well the capacity of my stomach and against my better judgement, we still ordered it.  the dahi vada i’ve had before were spicy lentil fritters drizzled with yogurt sauce.  here, the vada are more like dough dumplings made of lentil flour and swimming in yogurt.  i’m not too keen on the version at curry & naan. the taste and texture were so similar to rasmalai that i wondered if they didn’t give us someone else’s order.

a thali and a drink is all you really need.  after my solo dining experience, i left happy and satiated.  adding appetizers to the mix on my second visit left me feeling uncomfortably full.

if you can make it to curry & naan for lunch, you will get to enjoy the thalis for $1 less than at supper time.  the butter chicken thali cost me $5.99.  add $3 for the mango lassi. with tax & tip, i had a satisfying lunch for around $13 and didn’t eat until the next morning!

*** curry & naan is no more.  in its place, you will find chand palace. ***

curry & naan
989, rue jean-talon ouest
montréal, québec
H3N 1S6
T: 514.271.6000

payment methods: cash, debit, credit cards

hours:
tue to sun 11h30 – 22h00
closed mondays

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  1. By staycation 2011: travelling the world without leaving town | the eating project 18 Sep ’11 at 6:13 pm

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