Be back soon…

Ever since I watched Gordon Ramsey’s Great Escape, the episode where he went to India and cooked biryani rice and caught a glimpse of the butter chicken curry (nothing like the ones in the UK, he said) and the tandoori chicken there, I had been wanting to go back here for those exotic Indian culinary delights.

Finally, we managed to drop by for lunch that day but unfortunately, the authentic North Indian chef had gone home to India on holiday. He used to go back around the Muslim fasting month every year (or was it every two years?) to see his family and come back after Hari Raya but of course, he was not able to do that all this time owing to the pandemic. According to the boss, he will only be back around the middle of next month (May).

My girl insisted on having the biryani rice with mutton masala…

We were told that the Indian chef did teach the Indonesian chef how to cook some of the dishes on the Indian menu but not the ones where the traditional tandoori oven would have to be used so the tandoori chicken and the butter chicken curry were temporarily unavailable.

Much to my girl’s delight, the mutton masala…

…turned out to be very good, unlike that time when I had the fish curry in his absence and it turned out to be quite different, not what I was expecting.

My missus ordered this version of the Indonesian ayam penyet…

…which was a bit different from what we had before…

The chicken…

…was the same and she commented that she liked how it was actually clobbered unlike some of those Malay places where they just serve it, deep fried.

The sides that came with the dish were different – there was the kerabu (pickles)…

…and this lovely eggplant/brinjal with peanut sauce…

…the same as what one would get with their ikan sumbat (stuffed fish) dish…

…and yes, my missus enjoyed her order very much.

I went for their ayam opor…

…their Indonesian version of the Malay korma chicken but I prefer how they would serve it before…

…not in a bowl like that!

They were very generous with the chicken…

…three huge chunks, with one hard boiled egg and half a potato, cut into two so I only got two quarters of the latter. I sure wouldn’t mind just two pieces of the chicken and more potatoes instead.

The total for our lunch that day came up to RM64.00 but the boss just rounded it up to RM60.00. Ain’t that nice?

THE CAFE IND (2.290813, 111.829294) is located along Laichee Lane, right behind one block of shops facing the main road (Jalan Kampung Nyabor) where the Bank Simpanan Nasional, Sibu branch (2.290561, 111.829071), is located