Tuesday, October 27, 2009

October 22, 2009: Indya Bistro II

Edit 22/12/11: Indya Bistro is now closed. It's been replaced by another Indian restaurant called Ganesha.

When Mike and Jo arranged to come over for a takeaway dinner and cards, Jo registered an interest in trying out Indya Bistro. Our first experience was certainly pleasant enough, and we'd received comments indicating that the menu has expanded since then. It has indeed - there've been a few alterations to the entrees (no more Mumbai fries!), while the number of main courses to choose from has almost doubled. If anything, it looks a little more like the typical Indian takeaway menu and a little less like a modern reinterpretation of Indian cuisine. Nevertheless, the unusual and irresistable gobi florets ($7) are still there - hooray!

The Diwani Handi Delight has been renamed the mixed vegetable sabzi and goes for $3 less ($15). It still tastes great, with Mike deeming it his favourite of the night. This is high praise, since all of us agreed that the paneer and spinach delight ($15, a long-term Indian favourite amongst the group) was probably the best we'd ever tasted - it was terrifically creamy and probably dreadfully unhealthy! The new malai kofta ($15, another of our Indian meal yardsticks) was also lovely. We mopped those thick, delicately spiced sauces with basmati rice ($4), garlic naan ($4) and kashmiri naan ($4).

On paper, I wouldn't have expected to become an Indya Bistro regular - the vegetarian options aren't too different from the norm and cost a few dollars more than usual. But they're easily the tastiest in the neighbourhood! Next time we're in the mood for Indian takeaway, we'll almost certainly be ordering it from Indya Bistro.
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You can read about our previous visit to Indya Bistro here.
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Indya Bistro now have a website: www.indyabistro.com.au.

7 comments:

  1. I've been going there for my regular curry fix for a couple of months. This place is getting quite busy now! The food is consistently top notch. Head and shoulders above other curry houses. I noticed a sign on the door saying they were now opening for weekend lunch. I might go there with my mates on a lazy sunny Sunday for some of their yummy entrees and a cool drink or two! I'll keep you posted, but I expect it will be a good feed!

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  2. Yeah we went for Lunch this weekend. All the usual goodies, but also some excellent salads and wraps. Well worth checking them out. Thanks for the heads up Tim. We had a great feed. They said the liquor license is basically approved (maybe they'll stock up this week) but in the meantime we brought a couple of bottles with us. Good times had by all. Thanks for bringing this place to our attention Michael&Cindy- your great review made this one of my favourite places to takeaway from. A real gem!

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  3. Last night we had the most unpleasant take away experience with Indya Bistro. We ordered the fish curry to take away. Pricey at $19, but if done well, worth paying. What we were given was a runny curry with big rubbery slabs of smelly fish that cannot in any way be fresh. To add insult to injury the naan was dry. We discarded most of it.

    We called the restaurant to let them know about the situation, and they didn't know what to say, the young girl said 'there's nothing I can do'. They offered a replacement but flatly refused to give a refund. As if we want to eat more of their food! We spent the night sitting on the couch regretting the few mouthfuls we did have.

    We Will stick to Spice-a-Delic in Brunswick West in future - not exactly local but not a disappointment either.

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  4. I suspect spice-a-delic or someone is spamming these guys with negative reviews. I have seen the same review in 4 different websites under 4 different names. do you really suppose that someone would be so motivated to post negative reviews everywhere unless it was for commercial gain? The food at Indya is superb - we are regulars there now. I ave not had the fish, but my friends have - I can't believe it would be anything less than excellent. Please remove the anon post from 29 Jan as its complete BS and demeans your blog.

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  5. Hi Jim,

    Based on what's been posted here and what we can see of our visitors' IP addresses, we have no more reason to doubt this anonymous commenter's story than yours. Is it more likely that a disgruntled customer would post their experience on multiple websites, or that a regular customer would vehemently denounce a conflicting opinion as BS and demand it be deleted?

    We've made it clear that we've had only positive experiences at this restaurant but we welcome alternative perspectives in the comments. We reckon our readers are smart enough to make up their own minds about which contributions have merit.

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  6. We have recently been receiving negative comments for our shop on several sites as well. I suspect this has to do with anonymous commenter's story here (and other sites as well). Rest assured that no one from spice-a-delic is making these comments as we are not a restaurant (take-away with a few sit in tables) and hence don't compare or compete with restaurants. I as the owner of spice-a-delic have never been to Indya Bistro to make any comments - good or bad (too busy working in our own shop). Ours is a family run place (mum cooks) and our trade is 95% take-away orders with majority of customer local brunswick west people. Also, as the owner of a spice-a-delic, I am fully aware of the amount of hard work that goes into running a food place and would never try to undermine another restaurant's efforts. Anyhow, just thought that I should reply here to let the people (especially Jim) know that spice-a-delic is not responsible for the anonymous's comments (mum is completely illiterate when it comes to computers and blogs and I certainly did not write the comment :-). Tanveer

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  7. I have been to a lot of Indian restaurants and this one is the best by far! I am gonna keep going to Indya often...

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