Tandoori Kona

August 6, 2015August 6, 2015Leave a comment

Looking for a new place to try, MH (pictured above as he wanted to be featured) suggested I try Tandoori Kona in Richmond near Cambie and No. 5. I’ve heard great things about the restaurant, but I just never made the effort to try since it’s sort of out of the way. The restaurant doesn’t look very nice from the outside, but I was surprised that the interior is actually pretty nice and well decorated. It’s fairly small inside and on a Saturday night, we were lucky to find seats without reservations.

Vegetable Samosas

We ended up inviting MW, S and J along and that was perfect since we could try more dishes! We started off with Vegetable Samosas (although we had wanted meat samosas, but they had sold out). It came with two sauces – one being slightly spicy.

For $1.50, you get two samosas, which is a pretty good deal. The samosas were crispy on the outside and stuffed with peas, potatoes, and spices.

Lamb Vindaloo

MW suggested we try the Lamb Vindaloo. The boneless lamb is cooked in ginger, coconut, vinegar and cream mixed with potatoes. For all the curries, they will ask you how spicy and you can choose from mild, medium, or spicy. We went with medium, but I was surprised it wasn’t too spicy. MH commented that this was surprisingly very good. The lamb was tender and the sauce was a nice change from your typical masala or butter chicken.

Butter Chicken

Well we had to get the typical Butter Chicken as well. MH and MW had told me that this was very good at Tandoori Kona. The boneless chicken is marinated in their special buttery sauce, cooked in garlic ginger, and cream. Chicken was well tenderized and the sauce was creamy yet flavourful.

Naan

All the dishes came with Naan as well, which is baked in a Tandoor oven. I really liked this leavened bread because it didn’t feel oily at all! It was much different from the naan I’ve tried at other restaurants, which are usually drenched in oil. Very fluffy and perfect to pair with all that sauce!

I think you get a bowl of rice for each dish you order, so we got 4 bowls of basmati rice. Rice was fluffy and seasoned with some vegetables. The curries may look small in the bowl, but along with the naan, rice and all the cream that’s in it, you actually get really full!

Chicken Tikka

The Chicken Tikka featured boneless chicken marinated in yoghurt ginger, cooked in a Tandoor and served with butter sauce. This was slightly more spicy and the chicken was very tender. I thought the sauce was not really necessary since the chicken is already well flavoured.

Mixed Grill

We also got the Mixed Grill (I think it was called a different name on the menu), but the platter featured BBQ chicken, chicken tikka, lamb tikka, fish tikka, and was served with butter sauce. This is great if you haven’t tried a lot of their grilled dishes and want a bit of everything. I found that the fish wasn’t that great since it didn’t seem very fresh.

Overall, Tandoori Kona is definitely a hidden gem in Richmond. Prices are reasonable since Indian food is very buttery and you will get very full with the rice and naan. Good idea to come here with a small group of friends so you can share a variety of dishes. However, the restaurant is fairly small, so larger groups may need reservations.

Pros:
– Great food at reasonable prices
– Ambiance is surprisingly quite nice inside

Cons:
– Service is a bit slow (seems to be run by husband and wife)

Price Range: $15-20

1: Terrible 2: Poor 3: Average 4: Good 5: Excellent

Food: 4 Service: 3 Ambiance: 3.5 Parking: 4 Overall: 4

Indian Star Restaurant

July 24, 2013Leave a comment

We had originally wanted to go to The Bombay for some butter chicken since J said it was pretty good. Of course, we had to decide to go on a day it wasn’t opened though… Really? A random Tuesday. So yes, we ended up Googling another Indian restaurant closeby, since we were still craving for that butter chicken… And with the limited choices in the Port Coquitlam area, we ended up at Namaste Indian Restaurant. Wait hold on, where is the Namaste on the banner? We got kind of confused, but realized it’s printed on the very side of it vertically… So weird…

Surprisingly, the inside was really nice compared to the outside. It actually looked pretty fancy. They had their lunch buffet advertised at $10.95 outside, so we asked if we could take a look at what the buffet offered. It’s literally just that tiny section at the back corner of the restaurant and there is a salad bar, which to be honest, looked pretty gross. And then there was the meat, veggies, and curry area. Not a lot of offering, but what do you expect when it’s $10.95 and all you can eat. We also asked to look at their regular menu, and we saw that most entrees were probably more expensive than the buffet, so we ended up going for the buffet. What was funnier, was that we asked the man, who basically operates the whole restaurant, how much the buffet was, and he said it was $9.95! Okay, now that’s definitely a deal.

There’s Basmati Rice, and Kofta Curry, which I tried a bit of. It was just decent, and wasn’t one of my favourites. Let’s just say it was “alright”.

I also tried some of their Mixed Vegetables, which were just vegetables, like beans, potatoes, and cauliflower mixed in a seasoning. It was decent, but I felt like their warmer wasn’t heating the food hot enough. They were just warm, and definitely not that great. The Tandoori Chicken were also one of the more popular options. Definitely not the best, but it also wasn’t terrible. It could’ve been more well-seasoned though.

They also had something called Dal Turka, but I wasn’t too sure what it was, and didn’t really want to try it. It looked like no one had touched it! On the left were some Vegetable Pakoras. They were pretty cold, so they weren’t that great. A lot of batter as well.

And then there was what we came here for! Our Butter Chicken. It was alright, and definitely one of the repeat items for us, since there were limited items that were actually decent. There was tons of chicken, but we didn’t find it extremely moist. The sauce was on the creamier tomato side and I found it quite salty. I guess it worked well with the rice and Naan though.

The warmers also had some Naan, but it was cold and quickly gone. So the man occasionally came by and brought us some fresh naan. I found it really oily and it wasn’t flaky at all. Quite disappointing.

And here’s a picture of our first plates. Not a lot of food, since we wanted to try a bit of everything first to get a sense of what’s good and what’s bad (the key to eating at buffets!). I guess Namaste is alright for what you pay for. I mean, you can probably get really full if you keep going for the butter chicken, tandoori and some rice. And all for the price of $9.95 (since apparently it’s a dollar off now…). But then again, I’m not sure how fresh your food is, since the whole time we were there, there was only one other couple eating with us. So imagine your food being in those warmers for the whole lunch hours. I wonder if their regular menu would be better though.

Tandoori Grill at Whistler

January 9, 2012May 4, 2013Leave a comment

Assorted Indian Snacks – Vegetable Pakora, Samosa, Chicken Tikka and Seek Kebab

Lamb Tikka – Marinated leg of lamb pieces

Spinach Naan – Leavened bread, stuffed with grated homemade cheese and chopped spinach and Naan – Leavened bread of fine flour

Aloo Gobhi – Fresh cauliflower and potatoes cooked with fresh onions, tomatoes and exotic spices, Curry Chicken – A traditional boneless chicken cooked in onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and exotic spices, and Butter Chicken – Boneless pieces of chicken marinated in ginger and garlic, cooked in a butter-tomato sauce

So I pretty much disappeared for a while after Christmas to New Years since I was celebrating my holidays up at Whistler! Sadly I didn’t get many pictures of food up there as we didn’t eat out much or I was too hungry to bother taking pictures. So this is the only post about food up at Whistler! Last dinner before we left, we decided to have a nice Indian cuisine dinner at Tandoori Grill. About a 15 minute walk from where we lived and situated in the Village, we were all starving to get some good food. We had made reservations ahead of time, which probably was a good idea as it was quite packed. To our surprise, it was a really quiet with dimmed lights and probably one the more fancy restaurants up at Whistler. Excuse my poor lighting pictures, as it was very dim inside and I only had a phone to take pictures! Food was quite delicious although portions were on the smaller side for the price. But then again, it’s about quality over quantity! I especially liked the assorted indian snacks as we got to sample a little of each, and the lamb was also very good. It came in a sizzling plate and had just enough spice. We asked for mild for all our dishes, but even so, the more we ate, it got a little too spicy for me to handle! Great place to have a lovely dinner up at Whistler!

Sanafir

July 20, 2011May 4, 2013Leave a comment

Grilled Naan Bread – Hummus, garlic confit, mixed olives

Prawn Ceviche – mango papaya salsa

Mezze Platter – Mediterranean ribs, lamb kofta, black pepper calamari, grilled tandoori tiger prawns, braised shortrib crostini, tuna confit crostini, watermelon & valdeon salad

Butter Chicken

Sanafir offers a menu of exotic flavours showcasing North African, Asian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Indian. The Mezze Platter was really filling, but you have to order at least two portions. I came in thinking it was more of an Indian restaurant, but the flavours are very interesting and clearly showcases a fusion experience. The dining environment is also very interesting! The restaurant is basically open so flies coming in was a little frustrating. However, when you go upstairs, they have beds and also low couches that you can choose to dine on. Apparently you need to make reservations before hand for those special seatings though. Now that I think about it, it probably would be quite hard to eat on a bed, or at least I would make a mess. Great service and food! Check it out if you want to try something exotic!

Their Website: http://www.sanafir.ca/index.html

Butter Chicken Poutine

June 29, 2011May 4, 2013Leave a comment

Butter Chicken Poutine

I’m a big fan of poutine, and when I heard that New York Fries came up with a Butter Chicken Poutine, I got really excited! Butter chicken is already good, and now with poutine? I wondered what that tasted. Indeed, it was really fatty, but so delicious! A great twist to the normal poutines out there. I believe they also have a Braised Beef Poutine. Definitely go try these new poutines!