Today is Scott Baio’s Birthday. This leaves us with only 2 options for the evening: a) Massive Charles in Charge marathon on DVD or b) curry. Really not a difficult choice. (Sorry Chauchy). We had some friends coming in from Red Deer and it was decided that we would include then in our Indian food fun. For you’re reference, here are their career statistics:
Jeremy Slobodan aka “Perogy Tits”
Goals scored off corner kicks in university: 1
Skating ability: limited to embarrassing
Skills: Makes a good sandwich, Part time ninja
Vicky Dauk aka “Token Eye Candy”
Geese brutally maimed while golfing: 1
Stray puppys: 2
Skills: Complaining about being a pharmacist
Jason Howorko aka “Caligs, Pokey”
Keys lost: Countless
Keys lost in pocket: Countless minus 2
Skills: Dumbfounding others around him
Adrienne Lindblad aka “The Smart Half”
Number of keys found for Jay: Countless
Curry experience: limited
Skills: Protecting Jay from himself
(matt)
When you've got company coming from outta town, you can't just go to any old curry joint. Especially if they're all curry-noobs, you want to take them to the best place possible to ensure a few more converts for the cause. So what do matty and I do, we pick some place we've never been to so we can sneak in a review at the same time. (ren)
Perhaps the dodgiest part of the evening was picking Jer, Jay and Adrienne up at their hotel, the Blackfoot Inn, a trucker’s paradise. I drove everyone down to 17th and we had a beer at Bob the Fish before going next door to eat at Kashmir (matt)
I didn't have to join in on the great-big carpool of death...so I tried the next best thing and took the scooter down. Figuring it was a fairly nice evening and since we were right in the heart of the 17th ave party zone I thought the scoot would be easier to park than the SUV.... I really gotta learn that what's fairly nice night in a car is more like playing in one of those “ice-bowl” football games when you take the scooter....Oh well...live and learn...or die of frostbite. (ren)
The inside of Kashmir is predictably undodgy. It’s clean, safe and welcoming. So, it's pretty much everything that Wattan Sweethouse isn’t. Travelers will note that, unlike the real Kashmir, there are no houseboats, fine scarfs or bombs. (matt)
Ren and I tried to guide those less familiar with Indian cuisine through the menu the best we could. While almost everyone could identify samosas on the menu, pakoras were unfamiliar to our guests and so we tried these, veggie style. They were very tasty and quite spicy. I would suggest them to anyone dining at Kashmir. Our mango lassis were probably sub-par but served a purpose later in the meal. (matt)
The lassi was ok, maybe a bit too much ice in it....but better than a warm one. I decided to go with the classic medium-hot curry, the chicken madras. Generally this is a good halfway point between the basic curry and the spicy vindaloo. It's often served as a fairly “chunky” dish with lots of big chunks of veggies (potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, onions etc) as well as the chunks of chicken. Here however it was a very “thin” dish. Pretty much all sauce and chicken. No really recognizable veggie chunks at all. Admittedly it was quite tasty, but it was also very hot. I've honestly had milder vindaloos. Many recipes for madras have it as basically a toned-down vindaloo with mostly just chicken and sauce and few extra bits so really I'm judging this against my own personal preference . The heat wasn't too over the top I just like it better a different way. The biggest problem was probably that our waitress seemed to abandon her water refill duties right around the time that the heat level became an issue. (ren)
Three out of 4 of our guests decided to try the chicken or prawn Jalfrezie. Once again, I forgot that I hate this dish and I can only hope it didn’t leave a poor impression of curry on our friends. Hats off to them for ordering their dishes with spice. That takes guts, especially for curry newbies. Adrienne had Rogan Josh and seemed to be okay with it. Ren, not to be out-done by anyone, went and had the overly spicy Chicken Madras. I was enjoying my Kashmiri Prawn in a creamy apple and almond sauce until I sampled Ren’s Madras and subsequently couldn’t taste anything else. Grrrr. The Kashmiri Prawn is apparently a staff favorite. Its also quite rich and even the hungriest of diners will be full after finishing it. Rice and Naan were decent. (matt)
I don’t think Kashmir will ever be in the upper echelon of Calgary curry houses, even when compared with other “non-dodgy” places. Put up against the Taj or even Rajdoot, this place would likely finish 2nd more often then not. That being said, the staff was very helpful, going out of their way to accommodate us when we asked for a nut free dish due to an allergy. It’s a tough one to score really. Either a 6 or 7. I’ll leave it to Ren to decide. (matt)
Well...everyone else enjoyed their meals and my madras wasn't “bad”. It was just a different style of the same dish than what I prefer. Can't really dock marks for that. Not like when I get butter chicken with no cream in the sauce... A 7 would be a fair score. Not spectacular but really, nothing altogether wrong or bad either. (ren)
Not at the Restaurant
Russell Peters (Somebody gonna get Russell Peters (Somebody gonna get “a hurt”)
Perhaps the dodgiest part of the evening was picking Jer, Jay and Adrienne up at their hotel, the Blackfoot Inn, a trucker’s paradise. I drove everyone down to 17th and we had a beer at Bob the Fish before going next door to eat at Kashmir (matt)