Last week was National Curry Week and to celebrate, I headed to Bombay to Mumbai in Bramhall with my friends over at Lost in Cheshire.
Located on Fir Road, Bombay to Mumbai is a celebration of home style Indian cuisine. The bright decor is inspired by the history of Mumbai and its renaming back in 1995. The artwork takes you on this journey and even includes an impressive 3d skyline at the rear of the venue.
The menu includes a great selection of street food style starters, Indo-Chinese options and glorious tandoor dishes. You won’t get your standard Indian style take out options here. Each dish has been curated perfectly and the presentation is no exception. Let me show you…
Despite Bombay to Mumbai not being a stereotypical Indian restaurant, there are poppadoms and I’m not sure I can start an Indian feast without them. This version are not the greasy crisp style ones you’ll see elsewhere. They arrive as small discs, thicker than their counterparts and much crispier. They already topped with chaat salad and served with a cart of chutneys. The fresh flavours are lovely and light so they set you up for the feast to come perfectly.
If crispy pastry is your thing, you should probably also try the Dr Pani Puri and the Dahi Puri. The Dr Pani Puri is a theatrical experience which you build yourself. It looks spectacular with its syringe and test tubes full of colourful sauces. I know it is only due to Covid but the server delivering it wearing a mask just topped off the ‘doctor’ vibes! First, you add the crunchy vegetables and then pop the cork of the test tube filled with a spicy juice. Tone the whole thing down with the sweet tamarind sauce in the syringe and you are good to go. Pop it in your mouth whole for the full experience that takes you from sweet to sour, then hot to mild. It is a real taste sensation.
The Dahi Puri is a similar dish to the Dr Pani Puri but already constructed, if you don’t fancy being creative. The addition of yoghurt cools these ones down considerably but they are just as delicious.
From the tandoor oven we chose the Murgh Malai Tikka. Presented hanging from a metal cage above a light salad, the chicken tastes like it has been poached to that gorgeous soft texture before being basted in cream, cheese and subtle spices for the firing in the tandoor oven. The result is a creamy yet light chicken dish that just melts in the mouth. The spice is really subtle and more for flavour than heat.
My two favourite dishes of the night are next; Chicken Lollypops and the Yorkie Kheema. I LOVE a chicken lollypop! I very rarely order chicken wings from a menu because they are super messy and I’m so fussy with the fat. They take me an actual age to eat and just don’t end up worth it. The chicken lollypops have the meat all pushed to one side before being basted in a sweet and sour, spicy Indo-Chinese sauce and fried. They are incredible and even less messy at Bombay to Mumbai as they have wrapped the end of the bone in foil. Clean fingers is the way to go.
The Yorkie Kheema is the ultimate North England meets Mumbai delicacy. A mini Yorkshire pudding is topped with spicy lamb keema and then placed atop a bed of spicy mashed potato. They say mashed, I’d say it was more crushed as there is definitely still some texture there. I’m not ashamed to admit that I ate the whole thing to myself. I literally smashed the Yorkie pud into my face whole. You can take the girl out of Stockport….
We tried two different noodle dishes and I was surprised by just how different they were. The Hindi Chini Bhel Bhel has crispy noodles that have been tossed in a crunchy vegetable salad then dressed in an Indo-Chinese sauce. The noodles are surprisingly light and the taste explosion of the other Indo-Chinese dishes is there, with the sweet yet spicy and sour flavours. It really is a truly unique flavour.
The Noodle dish we had includes cooked noodles with chicken, cooked Bombay style in a spicy sauce. This one contains a lot more chilli style heat and is the hottest of the dishes we tried.
None of the dishes at Bombay to Mumbai are excessively hot with a madras style heat being the hottest you will find here. This is perfect for me as I much prefer a warming heat than an aggressively hot dish. The Staff Curry is probably the hottest dish we tried, which isn’t to be expected from a coconut based dish. The owner told us that it keeps his staff on their toes and I can see why! It has that type of heat that builds the more you eat and the creamy taste certainly lulls you into a false sense of heat security!
To celebrate National Curry Week, Bombay to Mumbai have five special curries on the menu to celebrate the different states of India. We had already eaten far too much so were treated to a sample of each of them, hence the presentation. When ordering, you get a full portion but I thought it was important to show you them and if you visit the restaurant for Christmas, this is the sort of thing you can expect!
There is a curry to suit all palates; Methi Matar Malai from Punjab is my favourite. Who knew garden peas would work in a curry? Swathed in a homemade paste of cashew nuts, poppy seeds and subtle spices with fenugreek, this is a lightly spiced creamy curry that I could have eaten for a long time.
Undhiyu from Gujrat (the home town of the Indian prime minister) is hotter and a vegetarian mix of aubergine, potatoes, peas and purple yam.
Chicken Sukka is a spicy and aromatic chicken curry from Maharashtra. It is much more intensely spiced than the others but no less moreish. With the sweet Meethu Naan, it is really balanced and the naan really helps to soften that heat if a high spice is not really your thing.
Laal Maas from Rajasthan is a royal dish from the land of Maharajas. Soft and rich lamb is cooked in a paste of hot dry chillis that are imported directly by the restaurant from Mathania for an authentic taste. The owner was adamant that no other chilli tastes like it and the dish simply could not be made without them.
Finally, Fish Caldinho from Goa. This is a mild to medium seabass stew with coconut milk and freshly ground spices. The stew is made to the family recipe of the Goan chef so you can guarantee the authenticity and its made exactly the way it is in their home.
I’m not normally one for desserts at an Indian restaurant as they can be either overly sweet or fairly generic with ice cream or similar. That is not the case here and I knew when I first looked at the menu that I would be ordering the Sizzling Brownie! I mean, look at it. It looks like a volcano as it arrives at the table with the chocolate sauce bubbling away on the sizzling dish. When this is served in Mumbai, the hot dish is served with a jug of chocolate sauce for extra theatre at the table when the sauce hits the hot dish. It is also a lot more messy, hence the sauce being on the dish already. The result is a sticky and rich sauce that almost turns toffee like in consistency. It is delicious with the chunks of brownie and cooled down with a blob of vanilla ice cream.
We also tried the Rasmalai, which is a lovely choice if you fancy something that is not too sweet and not as rich. A paneer dumpling is served swimming in a vanilla flavoured milk, topped with crushed pistachio nuts. The texture takes a little getting used to but I always find that with paneer, even in savoury dishes. It is much lighter than other options and a nice palate cleanser before you head off for the evening.
The National Curry Week dishes are available until Sunday, either in the restaurant or for take away. You don’t want to miss them, especially the Methi Matar Malai! Massive thanks to the staff at Bombay to Mumbai for the tour of India and the unique dishes both due to flavour and presentation. You won’t find anything else like this in the area so you should really check it out. I’ll see you there, no doubt with that brownie in front of me bubbling away!
You can book a table or order your take away on the Bombay to Mumbai website.
I was invited to dine as a guest of Bombay to Mumbai and as not asked to pay.
No Comments