Another Indian Disaster!

the indian food stall in legaspi sunday market is a real disaster as the food was not even remotely close to the real thing. frustrated, i searched for another indian restaurant near legaspi village where i stayed in my most recent trip to manila. new bombay and swagat were the closest.

i heard horror stories of some undesirable life forms in the samosas of new bombay (uh, little thingies that had six or eight legs) so i told cat to accompany me to swagat.

her first reaction was that it wasn't really that good. on the other hand, she mentioned that her group previously asked the food to be mildly spiced and it came back resembling "lugaw" (rice porridge) without any flavor. well, not really "lugaw" but it was rather bland.

i was able to convince her to give it another shot but we made it a point to ask for the dish to be cooked spicy "hot". unfortunately, filipino definition of spicy is just loads of chili. the red variety.

the murgh korma (curried chicken in tomato cream sauce) was decent except that the meat seem too tough for my taste. the biryanni with goat and chicken was well cooked, a dash of calamansi lemon made the flavors pop.

since we're in an indian restaurant that generally specializes in vegetarian dishes, we ordered palak paneer (cottage cheese in spinach). The cottage cheese was too crumbly and tasted sour. and palak paneer should never be sour.

perfectly spiced palak paneer should give hints of coriander for the minty taste and cinnamon, a bitter hint of cumin and loads of onions, garlic, a good portion of green chili and topped with cream. flavors that i definitely did not taste - it was just sour and chili hot. my taste buds practically died and no easter is going to resurrect it.

the only saving grace to this meal was the curried potato samosas (fried puff pastries) stuffed with curried patata and peas. the green mint chili sauce made a perfect dip.

cat acknowledged that the food tasted spicier this time around but we weren't so happy with the fact that it was just purely flakes of chili that seemed to permeate every dish on our table. spicy is not the same as chili.

i think i tasted hints of chili in my rose petal lassi. cat did warn me about that one, next time around, the closest i'll get to a rose is on a bunch.

ironically, swagat means "welcome" in hindi. in any case, it should probably be

wel(not)come(back)

peeps, DO NOT go to swagat. if you are craving for indian food go to Spices in the Peninsula or Queens in Jupiter.

Comments

cat said…
hmmm i thought you liked the food?
1:14 PM
Cacho said…
the biryani was okay, same with the samosas but i wasn't really happy with the palak paneer and the murgh korma was a bit tough and dry he he he. next time we should go to queens. at least i know that place serves good indian food. :P
5:54 PM
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