Sunday, April 10, 2011

Great India, Wellington

On Friday morning I got an email from a friend of ours asking if we wanted to go with him and his other half for curry that evening. I was starving at the time so leapt at the opportunity - not that I wouldn't have anyway, but you know how food seems so much more appealing when you're hungry?


Great India have $10 curries for lunch, and I've been there a couple of times with workmates for that. One workmate in particular maintains at length that their Gehtu is the best curry in the universe - I have tried it, and actually thought it wasn't anything special - but good for him that he's found his ultimate curry. ;-)


Anyway, Friday night it was dinner for the four of us. They do a great job of serving the table at Great India - if you're dining with a group you can choose to have naan and rice for the table, in which case you get an assortment, or choose your own. We had four different type of bread - plain naan, garlic naan, paratha (wholemeal bread), and onion kulchi - and three different types of rice.

Mr Cake ordered the rogan gosh (on the left) and I had the chicken masta masala. The rogan gosh was fantastic - he asked for it hot, and it was a good hot, not so hot you couldn't taste the flavours but definitely with a strong heat to it - not Kiwi hot! :-) The flavour was rich and and warm and the lamb was in big, tender chunks - much better quality meat and more of it than you'd normally get in a curry. I was quite jealous as this is possibly my perfect curry - I'll be lining up for that next time!

The masta masala was the same story with the chicken - generously sized pieces, and well cooked. The curry itself was once again well spiced - I asked for medium and it had a good amount of heat - in so many places I've found medium actually means mild, but Great India don't fall into this trap. Tandoori is not normally my pick but I thought I'd give it a go (since Mr Cake was covering my normal spicy-tomato-based curry choice) and it was good, though I did like his a bit more - it was maybe just a little less savoury than I like. It was good enough though, that I asked them to put the leftovers (I only managed to get through half) into a container to take home and had them for lunch yesterday. How's that for value for money?

Though I love Indian food I think Great India is the only Indian food I've tried in Wellington (our own kitchen excluded). My favourite haunt in Christchurch was Taste of Bengal on Riccarton Road - I don't know it fared in the quakes - it was in a pretty old row of shops, and the lovely gentleman who ran it lived above with his family, so though I very much hope for the best I wouldn't be suprised if it's no longer there. Can any Christchurch people enlighten me? Where do you go when you want a good curry?



Great India is located at 141 Manners Street, Wellington, ph 04 384 5755, www.greatindia.co.nz

7 comments:

  1. I love Great India. The service there is fantastic and the food never disappoints. They have such a great range of dishes that I always get something new each time. Have never tried them for lunch though, should get around to that.

    I also really like Little India, at their new location down Blair Street (I think it is Blair... it is one of those streets off of Courtenay Place). My favorite Indian in Chch is Copper Chime, followed closely by Little India in Merivale. I love paneer and at Little India they do paneer tikka, which is quite hard to find in Indian restaurants. I never tried Taste of Bengal though...hopefully it is still standing for me to try when I visit chch next!

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  2. I'm a member of a Wellington curry club - once a month we go to a different restaurant in Wellington - mainly Indian, but we've branched out to Malaysian and others, too. The organiser is looking into setting up a website/rating system for the places we visit - I'll keep you posted if you're interested. For the record, I love Great India, Planet Spice, Holy Cow, and heaps of others!

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  3. Jen, yes, the service also! I haven't even heard of Copper Chime, might have to check that out sometime. :-) Paneer is great - I've never had paneer tikka though, sounds excellent. Let me know if you do figure out Taste of Bengal's status!

    mrlew1, the curry club sounds like a fantastic organisation to be part of. I'd definitely love to hear more about it. Obviously I have a lot of exploring left to do!

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  4. Copper Chime was in Colombo St by Smiths City. Its now reopened as part of Indian Fendalton according to Dineout.

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  5. Mrs Cake,

    Taste of Bengal is still there

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