Honest Indian Restaurant
Located in T1 Norwest Medical Practise
123/14 Lexington Drive
Bella Vista, Sydney
To experience really tasty fresh vegetarian Indian food which includes a varied Indo Chinese menu, Honest Indian Restaurant ticks the boxes. The servings are substantial and you certainly won’t leave hungry. Now some of you may hesitate at vegetarian food - we get that. However this food is so good you really won’t notice or miss that there’s no meat! We completely forgot it was vegetarian - and for Sir to do that is huge!
To start with, Sir had a lovely refreshing Mango Lassi which he enjoyed and complimented his meal. It’s such a traditional Indian drink that goes so well with the spicy food. It’s also so pretty too with its bright yellow colour.
Mlady had something a bit different. She had the Masala Thumps Up - yes Thumps not Thumbs!. This was a variation of cola and if you like spices, you will like this drink as it has both. It’s basically a slightly saltier and spicier version of cola and both unique and very refreshing. We’re always keen to try something new and this was well worth it!
We started with Masala Papad. This vibrant dish is very similar to bruschetta. It had crisp fried Papads as the base and was topped with coriander, tomatoes and Spanish onion. The spicy condiment added even greater flavour to this fresh vibrant dish and we both found it very tasty and moreish to eat.
Next we tried Dahl Puri. These were puffed crispy wheat shells stuffed with potato and sweet yogurt. There was a lot of great things going on with this dish. They had so many different textures and it all combined into an incredibly flavoursome mix. The yoghurt really gave this a lovely taste sensation as did the crunchy pomegranate which also added to the lovely colour of this dish. It comes served cold and we both really enjoyed this.
Bhaji Pav was next. Basically this is a thick vegetable curry that’s a staple in India. It’s also a signature dish here at Honest Indian. You put the spiced vegetable and potato mash on to the warm buttered pavs (buns) and add a bit of Spanish onion to create a tasty type of spicy curry sandwich. They’re hard to stop eating!
We like pizza - who doesn’t - so we just had to try the Indian style Bhakri pizza. We’d never had Indian pizza before! It was crunchy round flatbread topped with spicy tangy tomato sauce and onion, capsicum and cheese. The base was beautifully crunchy and the topping was subtle and not overpowering. It had nice flavours and there was plenty of cheese. This dish was a good size to share or just right for one.
From the Indo Chinese menu, Mlady had to have the Gobi Manchurian (Dry) and she ordered this mild. This very scrumptious dish was deep fried vegetable (cauliflower) dumplings, stir fried with Indo Chinese spices. It was beautifully fried outside and very tasty inside. It was again a very moreish dish with a nice kick that we both thoroughly enjoyed.
Sir really wanted the Paneer 65 and had this ‘medium’ (you can choose the heat settings!). Paneer is an Indian cottage cheese and this was tossed with mustard seeds, curry leaves and a spicy tangy sauce. This was very tasty. We loved the colour. It was so well cooked and for the carnivores the texture was almost ‘meat like’. It was yet another dish with a good kick. Mlady did try this and she really enjoyed it too.
Our last dish was Chinese Brel. What an amazing, vibrant dish! This had soft and crispy noodles stir fried with Manchurian cauliflower and paneer in a sweet and sour sauce. There was a lot going on with this and all the flavours and textures complimented each other so well. This dish was one of our favourites!
The food at Honest Indian is fresh and colourful with great flavours and combinations. We were so full that we even asked if we could take our leftovers home - and we rarely do this! We had the leftovers for dinner the next day and would like to add that Sir heated his up and Mlady had hers cold - yes she’s odd. Even though Mlady did not heat hers up, she really enjoyed it as it was still full of flavour. Isn’t “yesterdays takeaway” such a great treat!
Sir and Mlady dined as guests of Honest Indian Restaurant. Special Thank you to owners Vikram, Umang and Rohan for their hospitality. We had a good chat with Rohan and the passion was so evident. Thank you to Chef Vinay for taking time from his busy schedule to talk with us too. Thanks also to Parth and Shivani for looking after us. Finally, special thanks to the amazing Jason from Spooning Australia for arranging this visit.