Okay you know what? I can't take this anymore. I can't hold it anymore. It's about goddamn time to start reviewing the Regina food scene. Or the severe, painful, lack there of. Obviously if you compare it to the neighbouring areas with population 15, Regina seems like a culinary destination. There are hidden diamonds in the rough so to speak, but you really, gotta, have to, look.
This Indian takeout I'm having tonight from Da India Curry House is the first of many straws. The only thing it's doing right now is satisfying my curry craving, but had I wanted curry sauce on rice, I could have bought it off the shelf at Superstore. Really chef? The chef-owner has lived in Vancouver. I'm coming from Vancouver. Why are you serving good food like this? I don't want to play the snobbish big city card, but you have lived there. You should know what good Indian is, and it's not just putting flavour on the table. The dear chef does make fantastic curry sauces. No doubt about that. Butter chicken is creamy and delightfully indulgent. The malai kofta sauce is buttery, sweet and spicy. But we don't order curry for just the sauce do we? Horrendous.
I had literally 3 small balls of what they're trying to pass off as malai kofta. While the sauce was authentic, the supposed paneer and vegetable balls were not. They were basically potatoes with a side of ras malai. It tasted like someone got lazy so instead of grating fresh paneer into the kofta balls, they stuffed a bit of ras malai (yes, the dessert) to substitute for the paneer in it and hoped to the heavens the sauce would mask it. Butter chicken was absolutely swimming in sauce. There must be about 2 tablespoons worth of actual chicken in it. Don't even get me started on the bharta. Edible on its own but definitely not bharta, unless the recipe is from some much unknown region of India. Because East Indians in Vancouver sure as shit do not make their bharta with tomatoes, peas and non fire-roasted eggplants. There was absolutely no beautiful, smokey, charred eggplant in it. I'm actually unsure if there's actual eggplant in there. It honestly looks like a conglomeration of peas and tomatoes.
My bill of 3 dishes and 2 dessert pieces came to about $65 with tax, a "delivery charge" of $6.00 they don't tell you and tip (which I wouldn't have bothered with had I known this was the outcome). If you are a newcomer to Regina, this place is only worth going to for the buffet. They do, do the flavours well. But at least at the buffet, you get to sort out sauce from food. Everyone from the lady who took my order on the phone to the delivery guy was pleasant as hell. But don't do take out. Just don't.
It's somewhat doing the trick tonight but ladies and gents, this one's no Vij's.
I literally am going to Superstore tomorrow to buy some chicken that I can cook in the sauce. read more