Omar Shariff Authentic Indian Cuisine

Two of us had dinner here on Wednesday night and we were practically the only patrons around.

The emptiness didn't deter us though and we proceeded to order palak paneer, masala prawns and a lamb dish I don't remember the name of. We shared garlic and butter naans.
The food was disappointing to say the least.

The palak paneer was runny and didn't taste anything like spinach.
The lamb was alright, nothing fantastic.
The masala prawns tasted much less of masala and more of salt.

Needless to say, I will not be coming back here. There are other North Indian restaurants of comparable price and better quality.

The only tiny mitigating factor was that it's 20% with an Amex card. An extremely disappointing dinner overall.

Had dinner here because friend had this 20% off voucher. Service was certainly good.

Curries somehow lacked that something, just can't put my finger on it. Probably the way they served it, the curries got cold very quickly, which was a bummer. The naans were decent, but I thought they were quite stingy with the fruits in the Kashmiri naan. Overall, a decent passable meal but then I am not sure I would bother to travel all the way there for it. Oh, and portions pretty small as well.

I will admit, we sometimes have difficulty in deciding where to eat. Besides the perennial question that is type of cuisine, there are always the other factors like price (what with the economic downturn and what not) and accessibility (how to get to the place and back without a car, and how to beat the 20 minute queues).

Today being Diwali, the bf somehow had his mind fixed on North Indian cuisine, namely mutton curry. No, we don't eat Indian food much, if at all. But tonight he had this craving for mutton curry, so he dug up this restaurant out of searching this website, and so here we came.

It's actually not that cheap. Fortunately, they've got this 20% off for all dining in offer for the time being. So this makes the cost a little easier to stomach.

Foodwise, the bf got a mutton masala dish ($17.90) and some kind of saffron rice with raisins ($6.90). The mutton masala was really amazing. They were generous with the mutton chunks and the gravy, and the sauce was spicy and flavourful, but didn't burn a hole into your tongue. Only thing is $6.90 for a portion of rice is a bit steep. But on the upside, the rice is of good quality, its really fragrant and absorbs the gravy nicely, and the generous helping of raisins in the rice gives it this burst of sweetness every time you bite into one.

I got the chicken tikka masala ($17.90) and a cheese thingy. It's not a naan but it tastes like it ($6.90). The chicken tikka masala also came with generous chunks of chicken and a lot of fiery red creamy gravy. The gravy wasn't spicy hot either, but it was sweet (in that flavourful way, not the dessert-sweet way) and creamy. Would have gone nicer with rice than my naan-like thing though. Not too bad, but because of the creaminess, it got really heavy after a while. For this reason I would prefer the mutton masala. The naan-like cheese bread was nice too, but $6.90 for a piece is a little steep. Especially as I couldn't really taste the cheesiness. Maybe I'm just better off with a garlic naan. Or maybe I should have just stuck with the rice.

For our starter, because we were hungry, we went with the recommendation to order the deep fried mixed vegetables ($6.00). Don't be fooled; their idea of deep fried mixed vegetables is really deep friend potato and white onion slices with chilli sauce on the side. Not bad, but only if you want to kick start your dinner with a big portion of carbs. Terrible idea if you wish to go on a diet. Hell, in fact, coming here is a diet buster, anyway.

Service was great though. Helped that we happened to be the only customers around. The waiter was really nice; patiently took our orders when we couldn't decide what to eat, recommended the starter, brought our drinks and appetizer (pappadom with mint sauce) and kept on refilling our iced water promptly, and checked with us as to how the food was.

Only thing is the price. What can I say? Glad for the 20% off; makes the bill look much better. Food's pretty good I must say, but it's a little steep. And very heavy.

One of those few restaurants with membership privileges and say what you will, it brings us back every time, esp vs the OTHER Indian restaurant right next door. Which is really strange, I mean, why have 2 very similar restaurants next to each other? I don't get it. Anyways, membership entitles us to a discount every meal and free masala tea after, which is a really nice way to end off a curry meal.

This is quite a decent place for Indian food. After all, our theory when it comes to North Indian cuisine is that we really can't quite tell the difference between really top-end curries from above middle-range curries. I mean, it's just curry, right?

The naans are good and there's a wide range of menu items. I'll always recommending starting with some tandoori chicken or chicken tikka, before having a couple of curries with some naan. It's a simple formula, but it works!