420. Zindiya, Moseley.

 

  Zindiya. located in a Moseley side street, not far from Chakana, serves what is termed Indian street food to eat pleasingly not in the street but in a pleasant, spacious, comfortable dining room, with lots of natural light and strings of fairy lights lined up across the ceiling, an open kitchen at the distant rear of the restaurant and the atmosphere of a popular neighbourhood diner as one suspects it might look and feel in India itself.

  The menu is fun - cheerful and colourful and divided into sections - chaats, side dishes, large plates, curries, breads and rice and grills - all very tempting and, like an old Woolworth sweets counter, to be mixed and matched as the diner wishes. The service is pleasant and efficient and a feeling of happy anticipation and contentment soon sets in. There were three of us at lunch at that allowed for a good range of dishes to be ordered.

  I ordered the delightful pani puri - wafer-thin, crispy, slightly flattened wheat balls filled with a joy-bringing sweet sauce based on tamarind on a mixture of tender potato, onions and chick peas with a watery mint sauce to be poured into the puri though it has to be said that flavour of mint was a little too subtle. Still, an enjoyable dish. I also ordered the moderately hot, spicy gunpowder potatoes which were admirably tangy being prepared, as they were, with chilli, spring onions and coriander.

  How can one resist the allure of onion bhajis. Zindiya’s turned out to be nicely sized, beautifully golden and crispy coated though the interior was a little too dry and woukd have definitely benefitted from the inclusion of more onion. As onion bhajis go,they were nevertheless, pretty decent.

    One of my dining companions selected chana chaat which proved to be singularly unremarkable and he made little progress in working his way through the numerous chickpeas but my other fellow diner chose beetroot chaat, which I sadly forgot to photograph, and derived much pleasure from the various elements which she all worked together very nicely.

  Two of us opted for the excellent lamb curry, the spicing of which was spot on for us, though I myself would have liked a sweet element as part of the dish to balance the dryness and mild sourness of it. The sauce was beautifully thick and substantial and the lamb was lean and tender and we both agreed that it was an enjoyable dish for we with our middle of the road western palates. We ate the curry with a shared nicely subtly-flavoured garlic  garlic naan and well cooked steamed basmati rice. Our companions was very satisfied with his butter chicken.

 

  Two of us chose light desserts from the list on offer - I had a surprisingly generous helping of cardomom-flavoured kulfi which was nicely flavoured and refreshing and my companion’s palate was greatly refreshed by a generous serving of mango sorbet though in reality, what came along was a mango icecream, though she thought it was none the worse for having an imposter identity.

  If I lived nearer I would be quite happy to visit the charming and highly affordable Zindiya on a weekly basis.

Rating:-🌛🌛🌛🌛. 9 August 2024.