It’s definitely new, but I hear you, what’s so different about Indian food? How about Indian street food, influenced by vibrant Mumbai itself (that’s the modern, non-colonial and independent name for Bombay). STREET FOOD! YAAS!!!

Bombay & Co is situated in the lower High Street in Cheltenham.  It doesn’t look flashy or trendy, but who care’s, this is Mumbai right? You can almost hear the constant beeping of the rickshaws at you enter to a transformation and a very friendly greeting, the staff are amazing.

The decor is almost like a gallery of colour and street art, you’re under no illusion of what these guys are trying to do and immediately your mind turns toward the food – expectations climbing.

Initially we began picking out dishes that sounded vaguely familiar, it’s hard to stray from your comfort zone when it comes to Indian food. However, the owner put a stop to this and offered to bring out a selection of dishes for us to try and share. I don’t want to sound over the top here, but the colours, the flavours – these dishes knocked our socks off turned my hair even more pink. I wanna be a Bollywood star so bad right now.

These were just tasters!!! Now, I don’t know if this is the norm, but take it from me, if you go here, don’t treat it like a ‘curry house’, try something new.

The food in this place is unlike any Indian food I have ever tasted before – it’s insane.

Here are some the dishes we tried, I am not going to explain them all, go find out….

Pain Poori
Chole Bhatura
Ghee Roast Masala Dosa
Chicken Lollipops
Railway Goat Curry
Vangi Masala
Dal Fry

We didn’t drink Cobra or Kingfisher or anything like that, we just went for a couple of bottles of very usual wine.

The bad bit? The toilets, what’s up with the bloody toilets, they were disgusting. Maybe that’s part of the experience, slum bog millionaire.

The whole bill, £96 including the tip – for six of us!

I feel like I went to Bombay and I can’t wait to go back. Seriously, I need to go back soon. When your table makes stupid ‘mmm’ing’ and ‘aah’ing’ noises all evening, you know you’ve had a good night.

Conclusion is simple, if you haven’t tried Bombay & Co yet, you gotta.

PRICE: £

WEBSITE and RESERVATIONS:  bombaynco.uk

MENUS: bombaynco.uk/our-menus

TELEPHONE: +44 (0) 1242 584 301

Email: dine@bombaynco.co.uk

The post Bombay & Co Restaurant Review | Cheltenham | Indian Street Food appeared first on National Dish.

There seems to be Vietnamese restaurants popping up all over the place – and for good reason, the food is the nuts. How do you make Vietnamese Pho (pronounced fur)?

This is one National Dish we don’t mind posting, we did this as part of a banquet, my good chum @fp_in_the_kitchen and I. I’ll focus on the Pho here though and post the other dishes separately.

Get ready for some good food from ‘The Nam‘, Cheltenham…that’s fucking terrible…

The post How do you make Vietnamese Pho? | National Dish of Vietnam appeared first on National Dish.

Location is often everything, but London of course dismisses that entirely, most places in London have the ability to host great restaurants. In Duddell’s case though, they thought they’d pull the stops out and set up in the shadow of The Shard on St Thomas Street, SE1 – London Bridge basically.

I visited not long after it had opened and had no idea what to expect. I was accompanied by a dear friend of mine who really knows his stuff, so I took a bit of a risk.

At the time the outside was still a building site, the restaurant being located within an old church, St Thomas’s, which was still being renovated. Inside however, everything was in tip top condition. It seems I keep visiting restaurants in dramatic buildings lately – having been to the The Ivy Cheltenham and their Rotunda.

I know it’s new but the staff were so happy and helpful – I would say, they were proud.

It’s an old church, so this place is big and grand with a large bar, plenty of tables, an upper floor for ultra busy times and stunning lighting that leaves you to imagine a bygone era of this building.

Duddell’s London, originally from Hong Kong, is their first restaurant to open in the UK. You might think located within a church that the two cultures would clash, not at all – its a great place to eat.

The menu, fortunately, isn’t too large – which we appreciate her at NationalDish – large menu’s means poor, pre-prepared and  high likelihood of processed food.

As we were already enjoying the wine and having a good catch up, we thought we’d just go for a little mix up and let it come as it came. First off Cantonese Dim Sum Symphony – FUCK! Symphony is a great noun to describe this, you’re hit with some serious colour wrapped around variations of prawn, scallop and king crab. This was quite possibly the finest Dim Sum I had ever eaten, and we both agreed.

I go weak at the knees at the mere mention of Soft Shell Crab and I won’t even care how it’s prepared, which normally is tempura. It was refreshing to see that Duddell’s had tried to mix things up a bit, but not too much – serving theirs with some spicy toasted almonds. It was good – real good. My love affair with this soft centred shellfish continues.

Quick fact for you – soft shell crab isn’t a species, it’s a crab that has recently molted their old exoskeleton and therefore are soft – remove the gills, mouth-parts and abdomen and then you can scoff the rest.

This next dish is something quite special, it takes more than 12 hours to prepare – Cantonese Crispy Salted Chicken. This is a free range, organic french breed – Poulet de Bresse. What’s so special about that? It’s a chicken that has an appellation d’origine contrôlée status.

I have no doubt these guys could make any chicken taste good, but it really does make this dish even more special. It sits in a broth bath of Italian Parma Ham, Japanese dried scallop and shrimp, air dried for half a day and then crisped up in hot oil.

Grab a piece, dip it in the salt (looks like the Himalayan mined stuff to me), close your eyes and basically jizz yer knickers.

Naturally we ordered a few sides, this one in the middle was Wok fried seafood vermicelli Hong Kong Style, bottom right some cute baby pak choi and as you can see, the chicken is taking a beating.

The wine list is pretty extensive with everything covered – we both have a mutual fondness of South Africa and went for Walker Bay Blanc de Mer at £37.

They also give you a few cool little condiments to keep you company – chilli sauces and soy.

In conclusion, Duddell’s London, near The Shard is good, exceptionally good. My buddy was texting his boyfriend as we ate, arranging to bring him here. I would say if he was looking to romance him with food – this’ll do it and it will do the same for you.

Atmosphere
Food
Drink
Staff
Value
Overall
Average

 

PRICE: £ £ £

WEBSITE: www.duddells.co/london

MENUS: www.duddells.co/london/#menu

TELEPHONE: +44 (0)20 3957 9932

The post Duddell’s London Restaurant Review | Cantonese near The Shard | National Dish appeared first on National Dish.

– we’re not 100% sure where this dish might originate.

I accidentally made it up, but that’s not to say it doesn’t exist. So in actual fact this could be a South East Asian ‘influenced’ English dish – Changlo food! You saw it here first.

Anyway, I fancied sweet and sour chicken, but wanted to add lots of chilli and forgot to buy pineapple, so used some mango I had – hence…

It’s really good – I also knocked up a cheats Mushroom Chow Mein on the side.

The post Sweet and Sour Chilli Mango Chicken | National Dish Recipe from South East Asia…maybe appeared first on National Dish.

There aren’t lots of recipes around for Indian crispy duck.

Most of you will know that Indian cuisine isn’t all wet curries, quite the opposite. The country is huge and the cuisine incredibly regional. I am partial to a Dhansak, and when I was in Mumbai I mentioned this, which was greeted with ‘oh, they eat that up near Delhi’. How cool is that, made me love it even more.

Britain has a wonderful love affair with Indian cuisine, with many British favourites actually coming from this very island. This Indian influences dry spiced crispy duck breast and it’s friends, I guess you can say, follows that same tradition.

This is a very healthy Indian dish, Paleo friendly and extraordinarily pretty.

I had some ingredients lying around and went for it – and it went, well.

The post Indian dry spiced crispy duck breast with char-grilled peach, crusted paneer and hot green salad of spinach, peas, asparagus and beans | National Dish India appeared first on National Dish.

How do you make a healthy burrito when they contain both bread AND rice – it’s a challenge?

Compromise – in this case, the rice – which unfortunately messes up the gluten free option.  Use our simple recipe for the cauliflower rice.

Add to that, this is also a fusion of East and West – China meets Mexico and it’s superb.

The post How do you make a healthy burrito? | Chinese crispy duck cauliflower rice burritos | National Dish appeared first on National Dish.

I’ve done this to accompany a Dal Bhat, a match made in heaven, or as near to it as you can get in the Himalayas.

In Nepal they would use mutton or goat rather than lamb, but it makes for a close substitute in the UK. Not that mutton is that hard to get, if you really want it, lamb is plenty good enough.

It starts with marinating and as always, the longer the better, but even if you can only manage an hour, take it, it’s totally worth it. How do you make Nepalese Lamb Pakku?

The post How do you make Nepalese Lamb Pakku? | What is the national dish of Nepal? appeared first on National Dish.

Cooking Himalayan food is nowhere near as difficult as climbing Mount Everest but the result is equally enjoyable…ok, safer.

Dal Bhat (Lentil Rice) could be argued as a side dish here in the UK rather than a main and the meat eaters among you will probably want something else other than lentils and rice. To help you why not add in a Nepalese Lamb Pakku (in Nepal they would use mutton/goat) which you can prepare at the same time and uses some of the base spices from this dish – although on a much grander scale, seriously, it’s mental.

You’ll appreciate that rice forms part of the staple diet for much of the world, especially those areas that are heavily impoverished. Our western bodies aren’t geared up for such an energy rich diet, so for those of you wishing to manage that, I’ve replaced the rice with cauliflower rice – which quite frankly, adds to this dish. Don’t forget, the lentils carry a fair old whack of carb energy themselves, so this avoids doubling up.

But, if you must use rice, use white basmati rice – why not give this one a whirl first eh?

The post Nepalese Dal Bhat with Cauliflower Rice | दालभात | What is the National Dish of Nepal? appeared first on National Dish.