It has been awhile since we had Indian food! After looking up some restaurants online, we decided to try Bombay Kitchen and Bar for delivery. I haven’t heard of them before, but the restaurant is located on Commercial Drive.

Chicken biryani: I love my chicken biryani, but I always find it to be hit or miss. Unfortunately, the chicken biryani was a miss. It was pretty oily and dense, and lacked the fluffiness that is sought after.

On the plus side, the taste was flavourful and the portion was pretty big.

Chicken korma: Luckily, the chicken korma was much better and delicious! We had no complaints about it. The chicken korma was fragrant and tasty.

Tandoori roti: We ordered a tandoori roti to go with the chicken korma, since it didn’t come with rice. The tandoori was hot and fresh, and went well with the chicken korma.

Yogurt: Sorry, I’m not sure of the exact name of this! They gave us a free yogurt, which came in a pretty generous size. It was refreshing and cooled our mouths down in between bites of the biryani and korma.

There are so many places to pick from for Indian delivery these days, which is definitely not a bad thing! Bombay Kitchen would fall somewhere in the middle for me.

A couple of years ago, the fiance and I tried House of Dosas a few times. The first time was delicious, and was how I was introduced to chicken biryani. The second and third times weren’t as good though, so we stopped ordering from them. I didn’t end up writing a review because back then, I didn’t want to write delivery reviews.

How funny is it that fast forward two years later, most of my reviews are delivery because a “small thing” called a pandemic happened and uprooted everyone’s normal lives?!

Since it’s been awhile, we decided to order from here again and see if it was any good two years later. We are trying a bunch of Indian restaurants now to see which is our favourite and could be the go-to, hence why you are seeing a bunch of Indian food reviews lately.

Chicken kothu paratha: When Lager took us to Sri Lankan food at Kurumba earlier this year, I really enjoyed stir fry roti bread dish. While looking at the menu, I noticed that House of Dosas also offered this dish so I ordered again in hopes that it would be as delicious as I remembered it to be.

The flavour was delicious, it was very aromatic and seasoned. There was a hint of spiciness to it. However, I found it to be more on the wet/oily side, and lacked the smoky, grilled taste from the pan that Kurumba. I wish that it was fluffier too.

The portion was absolutely huge, and we were only able to finish half of it that evening. Despite the huge portion, there wasn’t much chicken in it. But what chicken there was, it was tender and flavourful. Overall, the dish was disappointing, especially having Kurumba to compare. I wouldn’t order it again because of how wet, oily and dense it was.

Chicken korma: One thing that I remembered we really liked from House of Dosas was that their dishes came with papadum, which is a thin, and crunchy flatbread. In addition to the delicious papadum, they also include roti bread and rice too. It’s great that they have all 3 sides offered at no extra cost!

The chicken korma was delicious. It was fragrant and really flavorful. My favourite would be the roti bread though. The roti bread was perfectly layered, chewy, and soft – perfect to dip with the chicken korma.

The chicken korma also came with a tub of sauce? We weren’t too sure what it was but ate it anyways. There was a sweet taste for the first few seconds, which quickly turned into a spicy kick.

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Overall, House of Dosas was alright. What stood out to me most was the papadum and delicious roti bread. Those two sides would be the reason I’d order again rather than the main dishes.

It is also quite hit or miss here. As mentioned in the intro, we ordered delivery here a couple of years ago and the chicken biryani was different quality each time. This time, the chicken korma was delicious but the kotthu parotta wasn’t.

With so many Indian restaurants to choose from, House of Dosas wouldn’t be high on my list. Dosa Factory is on the same block as House of Dosa, and I would prefer Dosa Factory instead.

Disclaimer: By the time I post this, I am not sure what the COVID protocols are because things are changing so quickly. At the time of writing, we are currently in a two week semi lockdown that began one week ago. This dinner happened before the lockdown when we were allowed to be with our safe 6 so please do not attack me.

Please be responsible, do not expand your social circle, stay home if you’re sick, and overall be a considerate and decent human!

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Dosa Factory is an Indian restaurant that I’ve heard good things about. While looking for a place to order delivery from that I haven’t reviewed yet, I saw Dosa Factory on UberEats and suggested it for dinner!

Also, a heads up on UE incase this happens to you as well. This has nothing to do with Dosa Factory but I wanted to share our experience. Unfortunately that night, UE was experiencing issues. In the morning, we scheduled the delivery between 5:30-6:00pm. By 6pm, the app still showed that the food was being prepared so Nigiri called the restaurant. Turns out, the food was ready and had been waiting for a driver since 5:30! We waited a bit more until 6:30pm when Nigiri decided to pick it up because we were all hungry (btw the app was still showing that the restaurant was cooking….ugh).

By the time Nigiri drove to the restaurant, came back and we opened our food, it was lukewarm after sitting for 1.5 hours. Needless to say, we were not impressed with UE that night and requested a refund. I learned after this experience that if the app says that the restaurant is still preparing the food and it’s been an hour already like us, call the restaurant and check.

Again, I know this is not the restaurant’s fault and the experience with UberEats does not affect my review on Dosa Factory but I wanted to let you know incase your food is taking a long time.

Palak paneer: This is Nigiri’s must order when getting Indian food! The palak paneer here was not bad. The flavour was mild with not a lot of spice, so it was great to eat this in between the spicy dishes to cool our mouth. I’ve only had palak paneer at Chakra, and I found that Dosa Factory had more cottage cheese cubes inside.

Malabari chicken korma: The chicken korma here was delicious too! The meat was very tender, aromatic and flavourful. There was a good amount of spice to it.

Butter chicken: The butter chicken was sweet, creamy and a nice break from all the spicy dishes. Kimbap doesn’t eat spicy food so this was the perfect dish for her. There was a generous amount of chicken inside.

Tandoori chicken: Kimchi picked the tandoori chicken, which was essentially two very large drumsticks and breast. The chicken was marinated very well and wasn’t spicy. It was my first time having tandoori chicken so I don’t have much to compare it to, but I did enjoy it!

Fish and prawn kotthu parotta: Since we had a lot of chicken dishes already and Maki is a pescatarian, I chose this dish. I had a really good kotthu parotta at Kurumba and a not so good one at House of Dosa just down the block from Dosa Factory, so I wanted to compare.

First of all, this was jam packed with juicy, flaky pieces of fish! I would say there was more fish than roti bread which I am not complaining about. There wasn’t much shrimp though but the generous portion of fish more than made up for it. Taste wise, it was delicious and very flavourful, not heavily drowned with oil to the point where the roti bread wasn’t fluffy anymore.

Madras fish curry: This was a random addition after it looked like we wouldn’t have enough food. The Madras fish curry was the spiciest dish of all! It had no mercy with the spice level. The fish was cooked well and flaked off. There was a generous amount of fish inside the curry too.

Garlic naan: The curry dishes came with a free side of fluffy basmati rice and naan bread as well. We upgraded some of the naan bread to garlic bread. Both the regular and naan bread was delicious and doughy.

Despite the hiccup with UberEats (see intro paragraph) and our food being lukewarm by the time we ate, we were all very satisfied with Dosa Factory. Everything was very flavourful and not slicked with oil to the point that it wasn’t enjoyable.

After trying many Indian restaurants before deciding on a go-to, Dosa Factory would be one that I order regularly from! House of Dosa is on the same block but Dosa Factory is a lot better. Stay tuned for a review on House of Dosa! I actually have it written but I try to spread out my reviews on the same cuisines :).

Chakra Indian Cuisine opened a bit over a year ago in The Heights neighborhood. The restaurant used to be King Mahal Indian for almost 10 years, but they have since switched owners. Before that, I remember that this used to also be an Afghanistan restaurant.

Maki and Nigiri order delivery from Chakra regularly, and have said good things about it. When Nigiri came over one night, he placed an order here and I was able to try it.

Garlic naan bread: The garlic naan bread was huge! It doesn’t look that big in the photo, but it was. There was a nice garlic flavour and the bread was nice and chewy. We used the garlic naan bread as dip for the other dishes.

Palak paneer: Maki and Nigiri both really love palak paneer, but I have yet to try until now. Palak paneer is a thick puree of spinach and cottage cheese. Initially, the taste of the puree was mild but the heat and aromatic herbs and spices slowly built up.

I thought that the palak paneer would have more cheesy taste since there is lots of cottage cheese inside, but the cheese was quite mild in flavour. Most of the flavour came from the spiciness and herbs. There were also some cubes of cottage cheese inside. Overall, I enjoyed it and would eat it again.

Butter chicken: The butter chicken was great as well. The sauce was very creamy and rich with a hint of sweetness. No complaints about it!

Vegetable biryani: The only dish I didn’t like that evening. I’ve had biryani at many different places now and it seems to be hit or miss. The vegetable biryani was really oily so it lacked the fluffiness that biryani should have.

In addition, the oily rice was packed densely together in the takeout box so everything was compressed tightly. So far, the restaurant with the fluffiest, fragrant biryani has been Desi Turka and that has been my standard for biryani.

Overall, Chakra Indian Restaurant was great and I’d order delivery from them again (just not the biryani). I’m glad that we finally tried it.