Beyond India [2]

An extremely busy weekend saw me celebrating the 18th birthday of another one of my friends, as well as doing lots of driving, studying and eating!

First of all, a big happy birthday to one of my best friends, Sophie. It's hard to believe she's 18 when she is in fact the smallest (height wise) in our circle of friends! 

She celebrated with a lovely dinner at Beyond India, one of our favourite restaurants. (See my first review here.) She was kind enough to let us order whatever we liked! We ordered a lot more since there was one curry per person, however I could only snap a few photos of the curries around me.

Beef Patiala 

I ordered the Beef Patiala as it was something I had never tried before. I loved the rich flavour and the slight punch from the mild chilli, though I wish the chunks of beef had been more tender.

 Chicken Korma

 Butter Chicken

Chicken Tikka Masala

Naan basket

Absolutely delicious! I can never get enough of the cheesy naan. 

 Sophie's first legal drink, a Swirling Sari cocktail!

 Cutting her cake, a delicious Apple & Berry cake from Muratti's

We had such a great time, with the food and service being fantastic and prompt, as per usual. I'm quite sure that Beyond India is without a doubt one of the best places in Adelaide for Indian food!

Once again, happy birthday Sophie!

Singapore House

Hi everyone,

I hope you've all had a great weekend like I have! This past weekend, I celebrated 2 very important milestones in the lives of a few people in my life.

My Friday night was spent celebrating the joint 21st birthdays of a sister of one of my closest friends in the world, and her friend who actually went to the same primary school as me. It was so much fun, though I must say being underaged at a 21st birthday truly sucks!

I spent Saturday night celebrating my godfather's 60th birthday. He chose to celebrate it at Singapore House. I'd actually never heard of this restaurant before, mainly because it's on the side of Adelaide which I rarely ever venture to. I looked it up and saw lots of comments on the gorgeous decor so I was very excited to visit! The menu also looked interesting, particularly the 'Street Food' section.

I'd just like to point out that this won't be a proper review - I just wanted to share my experience with you. The lighting was SO dimmed that I struggled taking nice photos of all the dishes and I really didn't want to be the only person on the two tables of 60 people taking photos of the food with a larger-than-usual camera, complete with flash! I did manage to snap a few, though I gave up because there were so many dishes. I tried my best to make what's in the photos more visible but my photo editing skills are rather abysmal. Be warned, photography enthusiasts!

You can probably tell what I mean about the lighting!

There was a set menu for the night: 

Pappadums, Raita, Mango Chutney

ENTREE

BBQ PORK Hoi Sin sauce and mixed herbs

SATAY CHICKEN and cucumber

BAKED MUSHROOMS with cumin, cheese and chilli jam

CRISPY DUCK BREAST in plum sauce chilli sauce

PRAWN AND RICE NOODLE SALAD with Asian dressing and paw paw

MAINS

BUTTER CHICKEN in a creamy tomato sauce

SALT AND PEPPER SQUID fresh chilli, spring onions and oyster sauce

KING PRAWNS in red curry and pineapple pieces

OVEN ROASTED OCEAN TROUT wrapped in banana leaf with coconut red curry, lime and galangal

BEEF RENDANG coconut rice and fresh lime

Rice and Naan to accompany mains

As you can see, there were so many dishes! Everyone at the table originally thought we would be ordering individual dishes but we were actually sharing all the dishes. There was SO much to taste and I had to really pace myself :P

These pappadums are way better than the ones at Beyond India. They're very thin, crisp and definitely less salty, making them a lot more enjoyable. I really enjoyed it with the raita which was lovely, fresh and light, but the mango chutney was a lot richer than I expected and not as sweet as the one from Beyond India. 

Now for some nicer photos of some entrees...

All the kids had a separate menu, and this was my little brother's Singapore Noodles. I had a taste and it wasn't bad! I did enjoy the flavours as well as all the different vegetables and textures in the dish. My only complaint would be that it was a little oily, but that could just be my personal preference.

Crispy Duck Breast 

The skin was definitely crunchy and the meat was very tender, which all tasted great with the very rich glaze-like plum sauce.

Baked Mushrooms 

This is what I had my eye on when I thought we were ordering separate meals. I'd say the stand out element was the chilli jam - it had a good amount of punch (I think a little more wouldn't have hurt!) and complemented the mushrooms really well.

Orange Blossom Sherbert 

and Sir Raffells Iced Tea

I'm not too sure of the exact name of this but it is a pomegranate cocktail. It was delicious! The sweet pomegranate juice disguised the flavour of the alcohol in it (tequila, if I remember correctly) making it a very refreshing drink.

That's it for the photos of the food. I really wish I'd been able to snap a few more but it became too difficult. A few other [positive and negative] stand out dishes were:

Satay Chicken

The meat was very tender and I loved the satay! It was filled with chopped peanuts so it was rather chunky, but that's how I like it.

King Prawns

I loved the flavour of the curry - it wasn't too rich and the prawns were very nicely cooked. I'm not usually a fan of pineapple in curries, though.

Beef Rendang

I absolutely loved the rich flavour of the dish, but it was a real pity that the meat was dry. Also, the coconut rice was served as a hidden mound under all the meat and sauce, but it was extremely mushy and stuck together in globs. Not very nice!

After dinner, I took two of my family friends over to visit the famous Butterfly Room. 

 The magnifying glass on the sign allowed people to see the intricacies of the butterflies. I've never seen anything like this before in Adelaide!

 The entrance to the room is via the big red arch, which has lots of facts and images painted over it in white.

 How beautiful is it? Every single one of those butterflies was real, I'm pretty sure. They were all beautifully preserved in their labeled frames. I think this would be a pretty cool setting to dine in.

 There were so many butterflies of different sizes and colour. 

So gorgeous! The two family friends I took with me were 5 and 7 year old girls, so they were basically in a dream world. 

And of course, we finished off the night with some Muratti's. Yum!

Overall, I'd say I had a great experience at Singapore House. The service was a little slow but I don't blame them at all for it since we had such a huge number of guests and there was so much going on! However, the staff were very friendly and attentive which of course contributed to everyone having such a great night. A few of the guests actually commented on the food being a little too salty, which I'm not sure is true, or due to their own personal preferences or just a one-off occurrence. Who knows! If I'm ever given the opportunity, I do think I will come back for a visit in a smaller group of people, just to get the full experience. I would recommend giving this a go if you're up for something different for lunch or dinner!

Enjoy your week and I'll see you again on my blog in a few days :)

Vy

xo

Beyond India

Hello everyone,

I hope you're all well and enjoying the week so far.

Last weekend, I went out to dinner at Beyond India before seeing the school production with a bunch of my friends. We chose Beyond India because it's one of our favourite restaurants - the food is always absolutely delicious and it was conveniently located not far from our school.

We decided to order 5 different curries to share on a table of 7 people (Shout out to the 6 of you if you are reading! :* and R... even though she wasn't there for dinner). We also wanted to choose a different curry for each type of protein to get a large variety of dishes, along with our usual favourites!

 Complimentary papadums

Not usually a fan of papadums to begin with, but I found these quite salty!

Mango lassi $4.50

This was something I was really looking forward to trying but I was actually quite disappointed. The consistency was insanely thick and it felt like I was drinking yoghurt through a straw. I also wish it was colder. There is also an alcoholic version of this in which there is an addition of Midori. 

Butter Chicken

Chicken fillet char-smoked in the tandoor, then folded through a cream based tomato and roast capsicum sauce enriched with crushed cardamon $18.50

During the week while we were discussing our menu options (we were excited, okay...), we vowed that we wouldn't order this because it wasn't authentic Indian. However, one of the girls loves butter chicken, and we're not people who'll deprive a best friend of something she loves! This was delicious, as expected. 

Lamb Korma

Tender lamb pieces simmered in a creamy cashew based sauce with lighter flavours of cardamon, ginger and fennel $19.50

This was also delicious - the pieces of lamb were so tender!

Mango Prawn Curry

Prawns in fresh smooth mango sauce embellished with ginger, turmeric, coriander and spiked with a dash of green chilli $22.90

Definitely a hit with all of us tonight! I loved the really subtle mango flavour in the sauce and I think it definitely suited the prawns, which were very well cooked. I'd recommend this for people wanting to try something a bit different to the usual curries. 

*

Chicken Vindaloo

Our much loved hot chicken dish. Chicken pieces and potato in a clove and green cardamon tomato based sauce dish with sour flavours abounding $18.50

I'm actually kicking myself right now because I forgot to take a photo of this! Probably my favourite of the night because I loved how spicy it was. It was a beautiful deep red colour and really packed a punch. Definitely try it if you love really spicy food! This was great with the cucumber raita.

Saag Paneer

Our homemade cheese in a sauce of roasted mustard seed and fenugreek spiced sauce folded through cooked pureed English spinach $13.90

Definitely not one of the most visually enticing dishes I have ever seen, but looks are deceiving! We ordered this because we wanted a Saag curry and didn't want to order another chicken curry. I really enjoyed this, especially the delicious bits of paneer.

Aromatic Steamed Basmati Rice $3.00

 

 Zeera Pilau Rice

Pilau flavoured with cumin, clove and peas $3.50

Naan Basket

One piece each of plain, garlic and cheese naan $9.50

Our favourites! Sooooooo delicious. Look at that cheese oozing out of the centre - yum!

Mint Chutney $2.50

Mango Chutney $2.50

Loved them both. The mint chutney was delicious with the richer curries and the mango chutney was delicious with EVERYTHING!

Cucumber Raita

Our homemade organic yoghurt with finely sliced cucumber $4.00

Perfect accompaniment to the curries tonight, particularly the vindaloo. It added a lovely freshness which cut through the richness of the curries. 

This will definitely always be a favourite amongst my group of friends, and a place we'll be often returning to! Service was great - our waiter was very nice and asked us numerous times through out the night how our meal was. We had a little mix up with one dish but it was easily fixed without any hassle. The food is just divine and never lets us down. I'm sure it's one of the best places for Indian food in town! We actually ended up ordering another serving of rice as well as another garlic naan because we realised we hadn't ordered enough for the amount of curry we had. I think next time we visit, we might have to try out some of the entrees and desserts.
Also, how cute is the presentation? I love the look of the brassy little pots along with the matching spoons.
Altogether, we ended up spending just under $25 each, which I think is fantastic value! However, I think that for smaller groups, it would be a little pricier as the servings of curry are probably only enough for one very hungry person. The only fault in this place is I've noticed that the takeaway quantities are much larger for both the curries and the rice compared to dining in, yet the price is the same.
I still highly recommend visiting, though!