Demona: We were driving around, and somehow rather, ended up around the Upper East Coast Road area. Dogma decided to have dinner at one of the eateries located in this area. With a palate for something flavourful, curry, gravy, spicy, our choice narrowed down to Indian food.
Chat Masala caught our eyes. It was located at the end of a row of shophouses. While walking towards it, we passed another Indian restaurant, but decided to pursue on our decision with CM because the restaurant looked overly decorated and most tables were empty.
The place was quite packed with we reached. We were quite lucky having only to wait for about 10 minutes or so because a couple just left the restaurant. One thing that we noticed was, the crowd was predominantly Caucasians. Dogma said that the main reason could probably be the location, since this area is "Upper Class". Something like a Bangsar, or a Mont Kiara of Malaysia.
The restaurant was filled with giant framed paintings of objects, symbolic to Indians, ceramic statues, as well as tiny little bits of Indian decoratives by the windows and ceiling tops. Even with nicely decorated Indian themes, The ambience failed to make me feel like as if I was having a meal in India because the background music playing were songs that you would probably hear on Rick Dee's Top 40Countdown. Nevertheless, I "patiently" waited to try out their signature dishes.
BTW, cool fork and spoon eh?
Demona: We ordered a plate of egg plant strips in spicy gravy. SGD 8.80. This dish was very spicy, but sadly, they mashed up the egg plants so much that you could hardly have a solid bite of an egg plant from there. Besides that, it was very oily as well. You need to eat rice or naan along with the egg plant strips to neutralize the oilyness and spicyness of the dish. Dogma ended up dumping big spoonfuls of them on my plate, forcing me to finish them up. GRRRRRRR. I would have enjoyed this dish very much more if the egg plant strips were actually.. visible, rather than totally mashed up. Definitely pricey for the portion we were getting.
Demona: We also ordered a plate of chick peas in masala sauce. The sauce was slightly spicy, and flavourful, but the chick peas were too hard. If they were much more softer, absorbing in the flavours of the sauce, this dish would have given us killer brownie worthy points. SGD 7.80. Again, I found it a little pricey.
Demona: Meateaters like us, could not just live with chick peas and egg plants. We also ordered two pieces of tandoori chicken, which the meat were in fact, quite small. Two or three bites were more than enough to finish up a piece of it. The tandoori chicken was pretty nice actually. A fairly spicy tandoori, yet the meat was tender. I was tempted to ask Dogma to indulge in another two more pieces, but SGD 6 was a little too steep for me to re-order again.
Demona: The garlic naan was a total failure. The naan layer was a little too thin, thus when we added the brinjal or chick peas on the naan, the kick from each bite was not there because you could not taste much of the naan, nor the garlic from the naan. SGD 2.50.
Demona: Here Dogma Dogma, chew the bone!
Verdict: The meal came up to SGD 27.60. I found it pretty expensive for the portion and quality that we had gotten that night. The service was good, the people in charge were friendly, always put up with a smiling face. The food however, was not that fantastic. I meal at Little India's Jaggi's was ten times more satisfying than this meal for the same amount of price that we paid for. However, it is challenging to get a filling meal in a decent Malaysian Indian restaurant for RM 30. It would probably cost another 20% more, and of course, not comparing to mamaks.
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