I grew up in Maylands. Lovely part of the world, right near the river. Back in the day there used to be a Chicken Treat on the corner of Seventh Ave and Guildford Road. Now we are taking many, many moons ago. I was still in primary school at this stage. Following on from this, this space became an Ezy Plus, and I can recall many visits in my youth for Frozen Cokes. It’s gone through a bunch of rebranding in the past few years and mostly recently changed hats into Indus Café. Now I didn’t actually realise this had happened until I was perusing voucher websites once day…. as I have been occasionally known to do, and saw a bargain offer for an Indian meal in Maylands. For $29 you got your choice of two entrees and two mains. Always trying to plan ahead I had thought it would be nice to eat out the night before Australia Day, knowing we could sleep in the next day and all. So I read the terms and conditions of the voucher, saw you could use 2 in one visit and placed my order, knowing there was a couple I’d like to ask along.
So with that sorted and Mr C and Ms B saying yes, we patiently waited for January 25th to roll around. Now I’ll be the first to admit that when I realised where this restaurant was, after I’d bought the voucher, I was slightly worried. I mean it had been an Ezy Plus so I knew décor wise it wasn’t going to be all that flash. I also knew they had drive through available at some parts of the day. More alarm bells… not entirely sure why though. But I went in with very low expectations.
It was a balmy evening when we arrived (ok it was more than balmy, absolutely stinking hot would be more apt) but the temperature inside was pleasant. As I have envisioned, it wasn’t the flashest looking place, but hey everything was clean and tidy and food is always going to be the big test!
I gave the friendly waitress our vouchers on arrival and she confirmed that with our two vouchers we could choose any four entrees and mains off the menus, then we just needed to order any rice or breads separately. We were very appreciative of the bottle of water brought to our table and on request were bought some wine glasses – another plus – BYO wine and beer! So we were all tasked with choosing an entrée and a main with a very to sharing them all. It was quite an extensive menu and split into vegetarian and non-vegetarian which made things easier and a helpful description of each item was provided. So we nibbled on the pappadums we’d been given and had a flick through the menu.
After careful consideration our entrée order was given – I find it hard to go past onion bhajis so that was my choice, then around the table we had chilli mushrooms, chicken tikka and also this kutha paratha dish with lamb, which did sound interesting. Timing wise, didn’t take too long for our first course to arrive and first impressions were wow this all smells fabulous and also wow this is a pretty decent size. The chicken tikka entrée was two pieces of chicken breast, marinated in spices, so we cut those in half so everyone could try it. Very tasty!
The plate of onion bahji were overflowing! Massive serve and such fabulous crunchy onion rings. Yum, yum, yum, I was well pleased with my choice.
The chilli mushrooms packed a pleasant enough amount of heat. Hot enough for me to handle so I was happy.
The parantha dish was really tasty. I’d not tried it before but the combination of the bread with the lamb was seriously tasty! Looks can obviously deceiving because while this entrée might not have been the prettiest of pictures, it was a memorable mouthful!
On working our way through the starters, our primary concern was how in the world we would get through our mains, which were still to come. We had ordered a butter chicken, beef rogan josh, prawn curry and also a vegetable curry. Along with that we thought 2 serves of saffron rice and 4 plain naan should fill the void. Well this had been our thoughts before we’d had our entrees. A serious dent had already been put in that void….. so there were some concerns. But they were presented and it was quite the impressive spread with all the dishes in front of us.
One comment I had read on urbanspoon before arriving was someone who had said that dishes were primarily sauce with not much meat. I would beg to differ, because I definitely didn’t think that on this visit. We each had a decent helping from each of the 4 dishes and while I favour the more saucy serve, there was more than enough meat for everyone. Even the protein loving GG.
I love butter chicken. The flavoursome sauce is the perfect accompaniment to naan bread. Just delicious. And it was nice pieces of chicken breast in the sauce. No chewy or gristly bits that I encountered – so two thumbs up for that! The beef in the rogan josh was perhaps slightly tougher but again it wasn’t fatty and the sauce was rich and tasty. The prawn curry was well prepared and we would have each had at least 3 prawns each, so again a reasonable amount. And finally the vegetable curry was a nice break from our meat heavy meal. I know that our two dinner partners favour spicier selections but I was grateful that they went for milder choices, given that hot foods are not exactly my strength. 2 serves of rice was probably much more than we needed and it was a similar story with the naan….. though as we sat and chatted we found ourselves dipping the naan into any of the remaining sauce. It wasn’t that we were still hungry, just seemed a shame to waste such a tasty dipping opportunity as it sat right in front of you!
So with our voucher it was only another $20 for our meal – so a total bargain – glad I snagged them! But even without the voucher, you are looking at around $12 to $15 a mains, which seems quite reasonable. The staff had been really friendly and sure it might not be the prettiest place but you can bring your own drinks and hey the food is the star, which is what you want. By the time we left, the place was packed, a positive sign and yeah….. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back 🙂
perthmunchkin 
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