Henri V.
Yelp
The Indian Kitchen on Santa Monica Bl in West Hollywood is a small restaurant that prepares Halal Indian food. My last review was over 4 years ago and it's time for an update.
I've never eaten inside the restaurant because parking is limited in the immediate area. Once I picked up my takeout order, and the cashier/manager was not cordial, lacked civility, so I knew to avoid dealing with him in the future. The Rest of my orders been mostly delivered via an app service.
This evening's dinner was via GrubHub and the delivery was on time, the delivery person was pleasant because I made it easy, meeting him at the Maybourne hotel driveway.
After zapping every dish in the microwave to kill any potential COVID virus, I plated each dish in a small utility bowl. I can't stand eating from any containers: paper, styrofoam, plastic and plastic utensils, hell no! I want dinner plated in a civilized manner, I enjoy it more.
The best Indian foods I have had, had always been in London. I was informed that years ago, the English royals and British elites hired the best chefs from India and moved them to England to serve as their cooks and so that's why the best Indian cuisine is in England. Don't know how much truth there is to that story, but evidence is in the indian cuisine, all so tantric delicious.
Since my love affair for indian food in England, I have not really found any restaurant that closely prepared Indian cuisine as good.
Some restaurants are excellent at one or a few dishes and others are not close, food is inedible.
In my past orders, The Indian Kitchen has prepared some of the best Chicken Tikka Masala, Chicken Kurma and Saag Paneer. I recalled the flavors and craved it.
Kept it consistent and repeat ordered the chicken Kurma, Saag paneer. New order was the Eggplant Burtha, aka Began Burtha at some other places.
While thesis eggplant dish was good, it was just ok, missing was that smokey toasted aroma flavor. I was not a fan of raisins in the eggplant dish, didn't care for that sweet surprise.
The Saag Paneer is ok, but was not as good as before. This was too watery and bland, really missed the authenticity. Usually if an indian restaurant can't get this dish right, it's an epic fail, and this Saag paneer was not good.
The best of the three entrees is the Chicken Kurma. Kurma, aka Korma is a creamy, rich sauce with cashew nut, ginger and other mild spices. The sauce was perfect not watery, and the chicken was tender fresh, not precooked or rubbery hard. Had I know the other dishes would be a flop, I would have just ordered this Kurma.
I hate gambling and losing bucks on food, so wasteful. While all these entrees looked appealing only the Chicken Kurma was the absolute star and worthy of my recommendation. Saag Paneer was such a disappointment and I will never repeat order, as with the Eggplant dish. Even the saffron rice was not satisfactory, almost day old rice awful. Looking forward to the end of COVID so I can have amazing indian cuisine in London.
My generous 3 star overall, versus a disaster 1-2 star was helped by The 5 star Chicken Kurma dish ALONE is worthy of my recommendation.