Nawaab Khan, Oakwood

After driving back from the Wirral and a few drinks in Stew & Oyster, the last thing we wanted to do on Sunday night was cook.  Luckily for us, next door to Stew & Oyster is Nawaab Khan, self proclaimed "probably the best curry in Yorkshire".  Now, I'm not really in a position to judge whether that statement is accurate - I've eaten a lot of good (and some rubbish) curries whilst living in Leeds.  However, I will say that I did like this one. 

We opted for takeaway treats (Joe finally getting his way after what feels like months of asking), although on Sundays they do a "mega Asian buffet" for £10.95 per person.

Nawaab Khan is a family run restaurant serving Pakistani and Indian dishes.  We were relatively restrained in our ordering and could have gone for a lot more.  What I did note is that the menu doesn't give much of a spice indication - its fairly clear what is mild from the ingredients list, but what is spicy is less clear. 

We went for poppadoms and a pickle tray as a little starter and the pickles were great.  There was a lovely little coriander pickle which I haven't tried before, and was really tasty.  The others, although more standard, were also very good.

Poppadoms and pickles

For mains we went for Punjabi chicken, which is a Rajastani dish made with green chillies, cloves, cumin, black pepper and coriander, and was full of flavour and not too hot despite all the chillies. We also had lamb madras, which had sweet lamb in a lovely warming sauce full of flavour.  Both served up with pilau rice and a plain naan, it was a lovely dinner.  I was stuffed to the rafters but it was well worth it!  They are definitely giving the other Indian restaurants in the area a run for their money.

Punjabi chicken (left) and Lamb Madras (right)

A Weekend Round-up - Edinburgh

I was in Edinburgh this weekend, while I left Joe to party the night away in Leeds.  For ease (and laziness), this is a round up of the weekend, minus the review of lunch at Joseph Pearce which has its own post.

On Friday night we opted for an Indian takeaway from the St John's Curry Club in Corstorphine which was a pleasant surprise.  I'm never convinced Indian food will match up to what is on offer in this area - Yorkshire is blessed with a huge number of very good Indian restaurants so we rarely have a bad experience.  But this one was very good - when the menu said spicy, it meant spicy, as my poor mother found out to her shock (I think she mistook a chilli for a green bean and had a bit of a surprise!).  I also treated the family to some home made bhajis so overall it was a good (drunken) meal.  I would particularly recommend the prawn jhalfrezi and the lamb sag gosht which had a really good sauce. 

My onion bhajis - getting better with every try!

Vegetable samosas

curry...including chicken pathia, prawn jhalfrezi and bombay began and mushroom jhalfrezi (which was also pretty special and included that sneaky green chilli!)

On Saturday night Michael and Kerstin made dinner, with Michael showing off his Italian cooking skills with a lovely seafood and mushroom risotto.  I am particularly jealous of anyone who can make a good risotto as mine is a little hit and miss, and Michael's was pretty special.  I was told the secret is a lot of white wine and possibly a risotto spoon (although they may have been winding me up about that!)  We were also treated to some lovely home made bread and salad.  Yum.  Many thanks!

Salad

Michael's Seafood and Mushroom Risotto

And my plate - a total treat for dinner

Tuesday - Leftovers...Already?!

Usually we don't get to leftovers until later in the week, so I'm clearly having a lazy Tuesday.  That's combined with the fact that I never seem to be able to make food for just 2 - there's always lots sat in the fridge or freezer, which annoys Joe after a while!  He did make it a bit more interesting by bringing me some Waitrose Indian treats to cheer things up so............. drumroll.......

Left over prawn curry with vegetables, Indian treats and poppadoms.  Get in.

Waitrose Indian treats

Prawn curry with vegetables

Poppadoms.  Job done.

Friday Night at Cilantro

Last night Joe and I were invited to Cilantro on Moortown corner to try the food and meet the owner, Russell, who is new to twitter and looking to boost his online marketing.

Russel, who is just 35, opened Cilantro in Pickering in 2009, and expanded to Moortown last year.  Of Bangladeshi origin, his aim is to have a "pan Indian" restaurant serving specialities from across the country.  He is trying to modernise Indian cookery, and considering opening the restaurant for tapas at lunchtimes.  Citing Atul Kochhar as a food hero, he wants to experiment and bring something new to the Leeds cookery scene.

Me enjoying the wine as usual (please ignore the slightly odd blue lighting)

Joe enjoying his wine - his last night on the booze until after the Bradford half marathon on 2 October!

The big shining stars at Cilantro are the main courses.  The menu has a few unusual dishes that you wouldn't find in other local Indian eateries, such as lamb with turnip and a masala sauce, or chicken lavender korma (at the Pickering restaurant).

We went for the Andhra Chilli Murgh with chicken, which is described as spiced deep fried chicken in a chilli sauce with curry leaves and mustard seeds.  The fried chicken is cooked down in the sauce so doesn't have the taste or texture of deep fried chicken.  It is marked as medium hot, and was nicely warming.  We also had the "Cilantro Special" which is fresh water king prawns with onions, peppers, coriander and cumin.  This came with big, juicy butterflied prawns and lots of vegetables.  This one is also marked as medium hot, and I asked them to make it more spicy.  I even explained my difficulties in finding sufficiently hot food in Indian restaurants, which seem to anglicise the spicing levels, but I could have had it hotter.  They came with nice pilau rice and freshly made naan bread too.

We also had starters of crab and coriander cakes and lamb chilli tikka which, while nice, didn't match up to the mains.  I am also a little confused as to why they would serve the crab and coriander cakes with mayonnaise as opposed to a raita (which was perfectly nice with the poppadoms).

I'd recommend giving Cilantro a try - they are a relative newcomer to the Leeds Indian dining scene and looking to do something a little different, so deserve some local support.

Poppadoms - which were nice and warm

Dips, which I think were raita, chilli sauce, mango chutney and spiced onions

Crab and coriander cakes (with mayo!) and a little too much red onion for my tastes.  Very nice pickled cucumber accompaniment though.

Lamb chilli tikka which had some nice flavours

Andhra Chilli Murgh Chicken - a good recommendation

Cilantro special with spicy butterflied prawns - yum

naan bread

pilau rice

Our dessert - not entirely sure what this is - possibly pistachio ice cream with cream and syrup.  Probably wouldn't have this again.

Friday Night Takeaway from Rice

Earlier this week, Joe received the following text from his mum (who has obviously been reading the blog!)

"Hi darlin, have just put £20 in ur acc. Plz get nice 

btl vino an flowers. Happy anniversary! Lv 2 u both xx"

That was very lovely of her, but in true FoodandBiscuits style we spent the money on a takeaway from Rice in Roundhay instead!  It is interesting timing given the new study being discussed on the breakfast news this morning, which apparently shows that Indian and Chinese takeaways are super bad for you.  The story seems to be pretty inflammatory, given they surveyed only 200 restaurants out of about 12,000 and only looked at chicken tikka masalla, which isn't very nice anyway!  Sorry, rant over...back to the food...

We have been going to Rice for a couple of years now, and it doesn't let us down.  We decided not to be too glutinous and swapped starters for poppadoms and dips which were pretty good (although I think it is difficult to get a poppadom wrong).

We then had Chicken Achari which is from northern Bangladesh and made with a pickle masalla, green chillis and coriander and was pretty yummy. Joe's choice was Bengali Lamb which is made with cloves, green chillis, cumin, black pepper and coriander.  Although the menu describes it as fairly hot, we asked them to make it spicy.  It was nice, but it definitely could have been hotter!

All in it was a pretty good Friday night treat!

Poppadoms and dips

A close up of the dips

Achari Chicken

Bengali Lamb