Restaurant Review: Daawat

DAAWAT AUTHENTIC INDIAN RESTAURANT

10015 82nd Avenue ~ daawat.ca Instagram: @daawatedmonton ~ Twitter: @Daawat Co-Diner: Tim Golem

Edmonton is a city that really loves Indian food and there's a lot of it to be eaten - there's certainly no shortage. Everyone seems to have their favourite place and most people are way into the buffet method of getting that sweet, sweet curry into their mouths. Daawat has been around for many years and occupies a bit of a monopoly when it comes to Indian food in Old Strathcona. Voted #1 Best Curry 2018 and #1 Best East Indian/Tandoori 2018 by VUE Weekly, this restaurant is often spoken of highly by most. I visited on a Saturday evening and was ready to crush an Indian feast! You'll find Daawat in Ritchie on Whyte Ave, which is a great location. When you enter the restaurant you are met with a nice atmosphere with a lot of ornate decor. There's a fountain in the middle of the room (which wasn't working) and a lot of interesting art and vibrant colours that celebrate the liveliness of Indian culture. At first the restaurant was dead-silent but eventually some traditional Indian music began to play, which was nice. We were seated immediately and began to pour over the extensive menu. I was quite surprised to see that chai tea isn't served at all - an early disappointment. Because of this, I didn't order anything to drink at all. Our server left a lot to be desired. She barely said anything, rarely checked in on us, and generally seemed to forget that we were even there. However, we were asked how spicy we wanted all of our dishes to be made, to which we responded "medium." I'm not "new" when it comes to dining in an Indian restaurant and I usually have a fairly good idea of the dishes that I enjoy. This makes ordering off of a large menu like Daawat's somewhat easy and I decided to go straight to my standbys. Once ordered, our food didn't take too long to arrive. From the Chicken Specialties section of the menu, we had to grab some Butter Chicken ($14.95). I also ordered some Plain Yogurt (Homemade yogurt - $2.95) on the side, which I like to drizzle over my various curries for a bit of a play on cool heat.

Original recipe from India, chicken tikka cooked in our famous makhni sauce.

I feel a bit guilty beginning on this note, but this butter chicken was one of the worst dishes of the night. I've had quite a lot of butter chicken in my day and this one was very clearly made by using a can of Campbell's tomato soup... Because that's exactly what it tasted like. I have a hard time believing that this dish is anywhere close to "authentic" or an "original recipe from India" and I'm pretty sure that their "famous makhni sauce" has gone astray and didn't originally involve canned soup. This is like when you go to a bad Thai restaurant and they make the pad thai with ketchup. Aside from this, the chicken itself was acceptable. The pieces were a nice size and had a good tikka flavour, albeit slightly dry. The yogurt was very good and did a great job of serving its purpose as a tart and creamy flavour addition. Next, from the Vegetarian Specialties section of the menu I had to try the Jeera Aloo ($10.95), a new dish to me that I've never tried before. This item is marked as the "Chef's Special" which absolutely meant that I had to try it.

Potatoes cooked with cumin seeds and herbs.

This was the best dish of the night and I loved it! Chef's Special indeed! These ultra-tender potatoes were cooked perfectly and were coated in a beautiful, aromatic mix of spices. The flavour was intricate and bold, a true celebration of Indian cuisine. Relatively simple, this dish offered so much in such an unassuming package. This plate is a definite must and I highly recommend giving it a try! (These basically saved the meal for me.) Staying in the same section of the menu, I also ordered the Vegetable Korma ($12.95), another old favourite.

Mixed vegetables cooked in a creamy sauce with butter, raisins, almonds, herbs and mild spices.

This dish was fine but I've certainly had better. First of all, there were absolutely no raisins or almonds in the sauce whatsoever, as the description implies. On the other hand, I did enjoy the addition of paneer (an Indian cheese) to the plate. I find that in many cases of this dish the vegetables always seem like they came from a frozen bag (the crinkle-cut carrots gives it away) - and I was surprised to see that in this case, the vegetables seemed less so. They were bright and it was nice to have an element like this on the table. Let's talk about rice for one second. As is common with all Asian cuisines, rice is life. Rice is the base for everything. Indian food is no different and you've gotta lay down some rice on your plate and then throw your curry on top. The rice helps to collect all of the delicious sauce and I also find that it helps to prevent the different types of curry on the plate from mixing together too much. From the Rice Specialties section of the menu, I was excited to find Coconut Rice ($4.95). Not all Indian restaurants do coconut rice and it probably isn't very authentic... But I love it nonetheless.

This rice was a little clumpy but sweet, coconutty and enjoyable. I liked that there were actual pieces of shredded coconut within the rice, driving home the overall flavour. All of the curries tasted great on top of this cheery base. I was really happy to find this rice on a menu once again! (However I will always take saffron rice as a very acceptable alternative.) Not finished yet, I ordered one more thing from the Lamb or Beef section of the menu. Lamb Curry ($14.95). (I would choose lamb over beef a million times over.)

Lamb or beef pieces cooked with exotic spices in traditional curry sauce.

This dish was a bit of a let-down as well. First of all, the "meat" was extremely boney and there were more bones than meat. I would expect (tolerate) a boney curry from a buffet but not from ordering directly off of the menu. This curry shouldn't have contained any bones at all. The meat that I was able to pick off did taste very good and was tender and flavourful. However, the curry itself fell a little flat and almost seemed thin and flavourless. I found myself trying to discern what the curry even tasted like and kept coming up with nothing. I really thought that this would've been a much bigger and bolder dish, which it wasn't. Lastly, of course, from the Roti - Bread Specialties section of the menu, we had Plain Naan ($2.25) because Indian food is nothing without it!

Fresh leavened white bread baked in a clay oven.

Used as a utensil, naan is key to Indian food enjoyment. You rip off small pieces and use it to pick up morsels of food, sopping up delicious curry sauces as you go. This naan was quite straight forward and decently good. They gave us a lot of it, which was nice. The bread was warm and slightly chewy, just the way that I like it. I chose not to order any of the other flavours offered (butter, garlic, coconut) because I didn't want them to take anything away from the rest of the food. I really wanted to order dessert. I wanted Kheer. But our server literally never returned. She didn't ask if we wanted anything else. She didn't bring us the bill either... She just disappeared. In the end my husband just went up to the front to pay so that we could leave the restaurant. I feel like Daawat used to be much better years ago and that they've gone downhill. The food wasn't inherently terrible - it was fine. But in a city with so many good options for Indian food you need to be better than "just fine." I would like to see Daawat return to its previous glory, if possible.