Matty's
turn to go first.
Well, another Friday
night. Which means that if I’m not binge drinking/stuffing my face at either the Wicked
Wedge or the Shwarma King, I’m doing a curry review. Seeing as
this is a blog about curry, the latter prevails. We picked the Anapura
Curry Pot in Forrest Lawn because, well it’s in Forrest Lawn.
(See our review of Dhabar Restaurant).
Anapura
is different from every other curry house in Calgary because it is strictly
Gujarati Vegetarian food. (How specific can you be?) It’s the equivalent
of opening a restaurant specializing in kosher food found in Nova Scotia.
Bizarre.
Must admit, me and Ren (and curry virgin Jeff)
felt very out of place. I only recognized 2 or 3 items on the menu.
It was like a flash back to my first curry in England when I basically
closed my eyes and pointed at a random item. (Luckily, that item was
Chicken Tikka Masala!) The owner was very nice and tried his best to
make small talk; which is good cause there’s not much for atmosphere
otherwise.
I had the samosas and a masala
dossa (basically a boxty/potato pancake or crepe). The corn in the samosa
was different but most of the flavour came from the Jalapeno sauce. The
dossa was nothing to write home about. Basically, everything was about
as imaginative and exciting as Dhal. And who (asides from Renae Daly
of Melbourne, Australia) wants to eat Dhal? Incidently, the Dhal that
came with our meals was also lackluster. The sweet lassi was distinctly
unsweet and I had to add sugar.
Three People not at the restaurant
- Farley Mowat
- Sigourney Weaver
- Martin Yan (Host of Yan Can Cook)
Alright, Ren here. Not a whole lot
to add. Overall decor was like a cabin...turned inside out. Cedar
wood panelling and a fake roof overhang around the edge with wood shakes
on it. Very bizarre. Midway through our meal some kind
of other-worldly homosexual pirate strolled right through into the
kitchen and was heard to offer the owner a VIP card for a sub shop. It
must be hard to be a homosexual pirate.
The
food was vegetarian. This was not my
choice of restaurants. Anyone who knows me is aware that I'm
more likely to become a humanitarian (meaning cannibal in this context)
than a vegetarian. Like Matt I was feeling a little lost with
the menu for the first time in ages....but I gave it a shot.
I
ordered the thali (meal) which was basically a sampler plate. 2 veg curries, a papadum and pickle, some rice,
some dhal soup and a couple of roti. Oh yeah don't forget dessert. The
one veg dish was pretty ok, some kind of cholle (chick pea) i guess. The
other was bland and tasteless...some mutter/aloo (pea and potato). The
dhal soup was weird tasting so i just avoided it. I've never
liked papadums and the pickle was some kinda spicy carrot so I had
a bit but moved on quickly. The roti was nice and thin so I ate
it with the rice and the veg dishes. It wasn't bad....but I've
had better....out of a can...from the grocery store....cooked in my
microwave. (btw....we do plan to review some of the grocery-store curries
available sometime this winterspring) The dessert was a
rice pudding dish. It basically tasted like eggnog with
chunks of rice in it. This is to say that I enjoyed it....despite
my overall dislike of indian dessert.
When
taking my dishes away the lady noticed that I hadn't finished my dhal
soup. She asked if I didn't like it
and I said no, it didn't suit my tastes. So she looks at me like
I'm from some honky-suburb place and says "well its supposed to
go on the rice, so if you'd put it on the rice it would taste nicer" . Gee,
thanks. Personally I was just glad that I didn't ruin the rice
by pouring this junk on it.
Matty again....
Overall, very disappointing and we wont be back.
If we are back, we won’t be taking my car because while we were
dining a Malaysian couple decided to use it as a bench. On the plus
side, I finally go to use the “panic” horn on my keyless
remote entry to scare the shit out ‘em. We left hungry and dissatisfied.
Ren again...
I left wishing that we'd tryed out the next door
restaurant which was some sort of sweethouse. The highpoint of
the experience was watching the people leaning on matt's car freak
out, and watching the gentleman drop and smash his phone on the ground
as we drove away. The food however made me want to go somewhere
else (such as the sweethouse/restaurant next door....see future review
possibly).
5 elephantitis feet out of 10.
We've got a pic of some elephantitis feet....but
I haven't made it website ready yet....i'm working on it.
Rating:
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