Good Indian Restaurants in London

When I was pregnant, I used to crave for typical Indian food. There was no chance we could get it in Bedford so we used to go all the way to London on weekends or sometimes every other day. No wonder both my babies love eating those things I badly craved for.

Even now we go all the way there to eat but now we go once in three to four months. As far as possible we prefer a pure veg restaurant but don’t mind decent mixed ones.
So where do we go?

Tulsi :- Located near Wembley Centre on the corner of Ealing Road. Ample of pay and display parking on a road  just opposite  it. Pure veggie authentic Indian food. They serve Punjabi, Indian Chinese, South Indian and Gujarati food. Great ambiance.
My Favourite is the starters- Bhel Puri, Pani Puri, Shev Batata Puri, Chilli Paneer. South Indian - Almost everything
Chinese- American Choupsey (fired noodles in tomato sauce with shredded cabbage and carrots) and Hakka Noodles (stir fried noodles with veggies and soy sauce). Anything from the Punjabi items. And their week end speciality - Baigan Bharta (Roasted mashed curried aubergine) and Bhajrano Rotlo (bread made from flour of Pearl millet). It is advisable to book a table especially on weekends.

Chennai Dosa:- Chennai Dosa is a chain of restaurants. they have many branches all over London but the one we go is on Ealing Road.
Few steps away from Tulsi near the signal. Same parking lot should be used. They have two separate places for Veg and Non Veg next to each other. As the name suggests, their speciality is South Indian food. Several types of dosas (crepe made from fermented batter of rice and white lentils), Idlis (steamed dumplings from the same batter as dosa), Uttapams (thick pancakes from the same batter as dosa). Several types of rice. They also do Punjabi items but sticking to South Indian fare is a best bet. I like their rasam (special spicy lentil soup ) I have it as starter. Whenever we go there, children prefer disco idlis (10 mini idlis) and cone dosa (dosa served in a shape of cone). This dosa comes with a complimentary goodie bag. We always have kulfi (special ice cream on stick) for dessert and finish with filter coffee. Don't go on the looks the dosas are really brilliant.


Sakonis:- Located centrally on Ealing Road. They serve everything that Tulsi serves but they also have variety of ready made Indian sweets to take away and also lovely cakes. Their speciality is the unlimited Buffet. It is awesome. Everything that is on the menu is in the buffet with unlimited ice cream and it is reasonably charged. So it is a bargain to taste everything. Put your appetite to test. Avoid eating the whole day if you are going to Sakonis in the evening ;) Sakonis have just renovated the place though it is spacious and clean don't expect great ambiance.


Celebrity:- A gem on Kenton Road Kingsbury. This is very cosy and tastefully done place. the food is also excellent. Great service.


Rose:-Located on Kingsbury Road NW9 9HH, Rose is a hidden gem and if my brother in law won’t have taken us there, we would have never entered the place. The portions are huge and very very tasty. I never had tofu before I had it there and now I am a fan of tofu. Their speciality is the variety of street food, starters and Chinese and their South Indian and North Indian dishes are great as well. The bill is always a surprise but the quality is always the same EXCELLENT!

Chutney and Larger :- Located near Oxford street in W1 this place is great if you work in London or are on a shopping trip on Oxford Street. They do veg and non veg with a great bar on site. This is Deepesh's favourite. He likes everything veggie they offer. They have a buffet in the afternoon. I liked their Veg platter. It was just lovely and you can't have anything else after having this. The cocktails are amazing.
Delhiwala:- We recently went to this restaurant for the very first time and loved it. Excellent hospitality and brilliant food. Delhiwala is in Southall. It is a pure veg restaurant which serves several chaats, punjabi and south Indian food. they also amazing selection of Indian sweets and the bill is a very pleasant surprise.
Ram’s :- This is on Kenton Road, Harrow. They specialise in surti food . There is no doubt the menu is very extensive, service is great with lovely ambience but I don’t know why, we didn’t like it as much. Worth a try though may be you would like it.

I know there are many more excellent places in and around London but have not been there. Have heard a lot about Shilpa Shetty’s chain of restaurants V8 Gourmet but have not had a chance to visit them.

BuzzNet Tags: Indian restaurants in London Shilpa Shetty

Sabudana Kichdi

Sabudana is called as tapioca or pearl sago. It is available in most Tesco stores in Asian section or in any Indian store.

The Khichdi is a very common and well known traditional Marathi dish. It can be eaten anytime of the day- breakfast, lunch, snack or dinner. Some people have it on a fasting day.

Ingedients:-
Sabudana 1 cup
Potatoes 2 (boiled) (Optional)
Roasted peanuts 1/2 cup (do not remove the skin)
Sunflower Oil 2 tbsp
Cumin seeds (jeera) 1 tsp
Green chillies 2
Sugar 1 tspn (optional)
Coconut (grated) 2 tbspns (optional)
Lemon juice 1 tbspn (or as per taste)
Salt

Soaked Sabudana

Roasted ground peanuts

 

 

Method

Preparation:-

1. Wash and soak the sabudana in water for 5- 10 mins.
2. Drain it and keep it covered for 5-6 hours or overnight
3. Coarsely grind the peanuts in a grinder. Remember we don't want very fine powder.
4. If you are using the optional potatoes, skin them and dice them in cubes.
5. By now the sabudana should look fluffy and soft.

Cooking:-

1. Mix the ground peanuts, sabudana, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl.
2. Heat oil in a pan.
3. Add the cumin seeds, once they start spluttering, add the chopped green chillies and potato cubes.
4. Saute them for 2 mins and turn the flame off.
5. Now add the sabudana mixture into the pan and lightly mix it with the potatoes and add the lemon juice.
6. Shift this mixture into a microvaveble bowl , cover the bowl and cook it in the microvave for 3 mins on full power.
7. Keep it in the microwave for next two mins.
8. Garnish it with few coriendar leaves and grated coconut.
9. Serve hot.

If you don't have a bowl big enough to fit all the sabudana in, you can do it in two / three lots. (you might have to adjust the time based on the power of your microvave and amount of sabudana cooking )

  

Ready to eat

Visit to LegoLand @Windsor

Yesterday we went to Legoland @ Windsor.

Here is my take on the attraction :- There are several creatures e.g. :- Lego people, dragons, dinosaurs, fairy tale characters, animals, etc made from Lego bricks. All these things look brilliant. Imagine you making a house out of Lego bricks- sometimes it becomes so frustrating and these people have created huge sculptures from these bricks simply fantastic.

The 3D / 4D shows in the Imagination Centre are very nice. We saw the Racers show and thoroughly enjoyed it. Don't want to compare , but we have visited Disneyland Paris last year and saw similar show Honey I shrunk the audience and it was just awesome. Abhishek called it 'Out of this world mum!' so it won't be fair to compare this show with Disney. It was good.

A ride called Fairy Tale Brook was a  gentle boat trip to see Little Red Riding Hood and all fairy tale favourites come to life through "LEGO MAGIC." This was lovely. Having done this last thing in the evening, we didn't have to waste our time in the queues.

Next to experience was the ups and downs of a hot air balloon ride. Seated in a LEGO themed gondola, guests pull on the "gas valve" cable to increase altitude, whilst the ride rotates at a constant speed. We waited for more than 45 mins for this and it was not at all worth the wait.

Having enjoyed the maze at Disneyland, we thought the next attraction called as Loki’s Labyrinth would be lovely but we were supposed to face disappointment here as it didn't take us even a minute before we found our way though to the destination and back.

We went on several rides we were three adults in our group so we would queue separately on different rides so we managed to save a little bit of time on each ride.

It was amazing to see nearly 40 million pieces been used to recreate scenes from the USA and Europe, all bustling with sounds, traffic, trains and boats.. in the Miniland.

If I have to explain our trip in short, we were there from 10.30 am to 8.30 pm and we spent almost 60% of our time in the queues. Some rides had waiting time of 70 mins and they turned out to be awful rides not worth the wait.

 

Word of caution: -

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  The attraction in itself is good but not worth the amount they charge for entry (£38 per Adult and £29 per child).
• 
  
  
  You end up spending more time in the queues than on the rides.
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  Most of the rides are not as exiting as you would want them after standing in the looonngg queue.
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  Some rides are available at additional charge.
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  There is hardly any healthy veg choices in the restaurants.
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  All rides close at the same time but as the Miniland is in open space, visit it in the end.

PS: This is entirely my view based on our experience.