Rapsy Restaurant, Munnar, India (Alissa and Don Eat Asia Day 16, Part 1)

I could have sworn the main restaurants in Munnar town were easier to find. We walked around the main city loop twice and just could not find either of the two restaurants in town that I wanted to eat at. By this stage of the trip, we'd entered the more relaxed portion of our holiday and my book of notes had become less necessary than it had been in Hong Kong and Mumbai. However, we needed the book now to help locate the elusive restaurants and I'd foolishly left them at the hotel. I was not going back down that pothole-ridden road just for the book so we had to just keep an eye out and hope for the best.

Little did we know that Silver Spoon (one of the restaurants recommended by Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet) was closed for renovations so we had no hope of finding it even though it is right in the middle of the main loop of town. We decided to try walking towards where the Tea Museum is, and as we walked up the road we found the other recommended restaurant in town – Rapsy Restaurant. From the outside, there is little to recommended it as it looks like any other restaurant in Munnar. The décor inside was very spartan, however it did at least look to be clean. As we sat down at a table a waiter handed us a notepad to write down our order:

If you're in the south and in particular Kerala, you have to have some fish curry. The curry itself was very good – having that sourness I associate with southern fish curry, but not overpoweringly so. Being a whole fish, I found the bones cumbersome, though I know this is the usual fare for this style. At the end of the day I'm hard to please when it comes to fish curries of the south as I much prefer the richer, creamier chicken and lamb curries of the north but I ended up eating this dish the most. Very enjoyable.

The other dish we ordered was the Chilli Chicken. This was done in a similar Chinese-inspired style to the squid at Trishna and was very tasty. Alissa liked this dish in particular and as I was happy with the fish curry I left this mostly for her to eat.

Alissa ordered chappathi at first, but when she saw the parotta I had ordered was basically roti paratha we ordered additional parotta to eat with our meal. The parotta was nice and layered in a way that is perfectly suited to the runnier consistency of southern curry, although a little crispier would have been nice.

The Verdict: Very Good

In a town like Munnar you're not not likely to find a high end restaurant like Indigo or Dum Pukht, or something a bit more casual but mindblowing like a Trishna. However, if you're looking for authentic South Indian food Rapsy is a very strong recommendation. I should also say that at roughly $5AUD for the two of us Rapsy is easily the cheapest meal complete meal we had in India, and that was with pretty free-flowing parotta as well. Considering we paid three times the price for the terrible service and stingy portions at Copper Castle, we would have rather eaten at Rapsy for a second time. Excellent value.  

Ambrai, Udaipur, India (Alissa and Don Eat Asia Day 12, Part 2, Day 13 & Day 14, Part 2)

When it comes to restaurant location, Ambrai has few competitors in Udaipur. Located right on the lake on the quieter west bank of Lake Pichola, Ambrai is perfectly located for a stunning view of the lake, the City Palace and its surrounding area, and the Taj Lake Palace built on its own private island. For the best view, the table located at the very corner of the restaurant is the most prized, and given that this was our honeymoon I made reservations for the table for three nights in a row. Since we ate at Ambrai repeatedly we were able to try most of their signature dishes by our final night. As such rather than dealing with this meal by meal, we'll give an overview of all the dishes we tried.

The journey to Ambrai was a pleasant walk from our hotel Jaiwana Haveli, as you walk the streets near the city palace, down the laneways to the bridge across the river. Udaipur is really a magical city. Once you're on the western side however, its a walk through a gauntlet of sellers who taut constantly and try to find sneaky ways to get you into their store with such veracity its quite off-putting and (in one case) a little unnerving. Throughout Udaipur you'll get the constant 'yes please' and 'look at my shop' and the classic Udaipur trap of getting you into their store with 'Excuse me sir, where are you from?' but with less foot traffic in this part of town there is a desperation and forcefulness that wore out its welcome. One guy seemed particularly angry that his guilt trip comment of 'Now... finally I have my chance to show you my shop!' was greeted with 'No, please, we're not interested' everyday, and we even took an auto-rickshaw on one of the days just to avoid having to interact with him.

Once you've actually made it to Amet Haveli – the hotel Ambrai is located within – you'll see that the walk was entirely worth it. Amet Haveli's grounds are perfectly tended, with the odd chicken casually strolling through the gardens as you approach the restaurant. Its truly idyllic. As you enter Ambrai, the fairy lights and candlelit tables are as welcoming as the staff. And with the view of the city all lit up accompanied by sarangi and tabla music by live musicians, this is Udaipur at its most romantic.

Ambrai have quite an extensive menu. Not quite as comprehensive as Persian Darbar but nonetheless considerable. Having eaten here before, I knew to focus on the 'Ambrai Specialties' section as their signature dishes are excellent.

Of their curries, I feel that the Chicken Jhangiri is their most significant. A tomato-based creamy gravy, the curry is filled with nuts and is served with cherries and egg. I've not found this dish anywhere else, and its really very delicious – like a much more deluxe butter chicken made all the better due to the additional flavours. We heard a table near us order the Butter Chicken, and I couldn't help but feel that they were missing out.

Their other most significant dish is the beautifully presented Ambrai Special Biryani – or as I like to call it 'Three Colours Biryani'. The rice is layered in the orange, green and white of the Indian flag, each having its own flavour that when mixed together makes for a delicious biryani. I particularly like the paneer and spinach that is in the green layer, and the cashew nuts that give it a nice crunch and nuttiness. Its not quite as amazing as the biryani at Dum Pukht, but this is definitely a must order at Ambrai.

As much as we really like the Jhangiri, we wanted to sample a few different dishes from their menu. Almost as good is their Chicken Angoori. Instead of the tomato base of the Jhangiri, this one is a lot creamier and even more nutty and uses chicken meatballs instead of the boneless chicken. This is extraordinarily rich and opulent – definitely one of the dishes we can point at as contributing to our massive weight gain during the trip.

Since we were saving our fish curry eating for the south, we decided to skip trying Ambrai's fish curry and instead give their Mutton Rana a go. This mutton curry gravy is sort of halfway between the Angoori and Jhangiri curry, insofar as creaminess and overall flavour is concerned. The mutton was cooked perfectly, with a great melt in your mouth quality that complemented the richness of the curry. Its not as refined as the lamb curry at Dum Pukht and I personally rate the Jhangiri higher, but if making multiple visits is good to break up the endless chicken eating.

When I was last at Ambrai two years ago, I remember their being an excellent eggplant dish, and on one of our nights we ordered the eggplant curry even though it was not on their Ambrai Specialties list. Either their standard had dropped or I had ordered the wrong dish, but it did not taste as I recalled. The eggplant was very vinegary and almost tasted like bottled eggplant, lacking the nice soft texture I was expecting. Definitely not an item I would order again.

To accompany the curries we ordered the garlic naan. The garlic naan was good, though its not on the level of Trishna.

For dessert, we repeatedly ordered the Gulab Jamun with Ice Cream. This was about what I would expect for the dish, being neither bad or exceptional examples.

The Verdict: Excellent

As you'd except from the north, Ambrai's food is decadently rich. But it so delicious you've just gotta try it if you're in town, plus their cocktails are very good too. And while I would probably would eat at a few different restaurants next time I'm in Udaipur, I would certainly go back again. To sit there at the corner table, with the music wafting through the cool evening air as we overlooked the city... for me, it wouldn't be a complete Udaipur experience without it.

Delhi Darbar, Mumbai, India (Alissa and Don Eat Asia Day 9, Part 1)

After a late morning walking Colaba's gauntlet of money changers, peacock and folk instrument pushers, pashmina stores, perfume sellers and the constant, sometimes annoying 'yes please' of overly desperate salesmen, its nice to have Delhi Darbar located so conveniently close on the other side of the street. Waiting as we were for a pair of jeans to be hemmed, we arrived at Delhi Darbar for a late (by western standards, right on time by Indian standards) lunch.

I've been to Delhi Darbar many times before with my parents as we've always found them to be decently priced and of reliable quality. When I'm in India I tend to go for some of the more unusual curries I'll never find in Australia, but Alissa just had to try what good Indian Tikka tastes like so she could see how far most Australian places fall short.

We decided on an order of the familiar Chicken Tikka Masala and the slightly more unusual Mutton Kadai, served with our usual order of garlic naan. The Chicken Tikka Masala was very good, with the chicken having that lovely, smokey flavour and texture of meat that can only come from having been cooked in a tandoor. Paired with the creamy, buttery, tomato-rich curry, its what I wish all tikka masalas back home tasted like. I mean, I know that they say there is no standard recipe for Chicken Tikka Masala but at the very least the chicken in tikka masala should taste like its been cooked in a Tandoor – many of the so-called tikka masalas in Perth fail to pass the test.

The Lamb Kadai had a cashewy sauce that I've had more often with chicken than lamb, though seeing it with the lamb made me realise its similarity to a middle eastern dish in Ottolenghi's Jerusalem cookbook. The lamb itself was melt-in-your-mouth soft, and the sauce was deliciously smooth, creamy and decadent as northern style curries tend to be – just the way I like it. Definitely something I need to order with lamb more often.

Alissa and I mopped up most of the two curries dutifully with our garlic naan. The naan was good, but not as good as the crazily garlic-encrusted and drenched in butter naan you can get at Trishna. We ordered two serves each, and even then we had to leave some of the curry behind on the plate as the serves of curry were very generous.

We decided to share two desserts. My dessert order was one of my favourite desserts in India – mango kulfi. Kulfi is a fairly common dessert, but we found on our trip that its much harder to get the mango variety. Delhi Darbar's mango kulfi is amongst my favourites, having the delicious cardamon flavour of kulfi with the extra sweet fruitiness of mango added. Alissa agreed that the mango variety was very nice, though she still preferred the falooda-style kulfi we've had with the noodles and rose water.

As our other dessert we had gulab jamun. The gulab jamuns we had in India were all roughly of the save level of excellence and this was no different – nice and warm, with that delicious taste of fried dough soaked in cardamon sugar syrup. 

The Verdict: Very Good

Compared to Indian restaurants back home in Australia, Delhi Darbar produces better food than what I would expect from the better curry houses around town and at a fraction of the price curries of this quality go for back in Perth. As a cheap and casual family restaurant located in the happening markets of Colaba, its hard to pass up – especially for that mango kulfi.