Chai Thali

Chai Thali is a newly opened Indian restaurant that’s keeping the trend of serving up Indian Street food and small dishes.

The location is an odd one, totally off any main road, it’s in the middle of a residential and business area. Visiting on a Tuesday I found myself and a group of 2 others to be the only people in a restaurant that can easily hold 100. So the ambiance was totally dead. I guess it made my catch up with friends easy as there was no noise from any other diners. After going over the big menu we decided to get a couple of items..

Menu – http://chaithali.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Chai_Thali_Food.pdf

Bhaaji Pao Fondue £5.50

Mashed vegetables with grated cheese topping, served with a brioche bun. Not much taste or interesting flavours from this dish, the accompanying brioche bun was served deliberately stale and hard. I don’t get it. I found it too salty and was left mostly uneaten. 4/10

Paapdi Chaat £5.00

Crispy savoury snacks topped with potatoes, chickpeas, drizzled with yoghurt, crunchy sev & a blend of chutneys. A classic small plate but made very basic and simple here. The sev was a bit too hard and crunchy and didn’t mix well with the other textures of the items. But the flavours of the chutneys were decent. 6/10

Bullet Wings £5.00

Chicken wings cooked in bullet powder. I was hoping for good things from chicken wings, but these had very little taste from spices and suffered from being overcooked that dried out the chicken and limited the chance of any mosit or tenderness.

Lamb Ki Chaampe £9.00

Lamb chops marinated overnight in spices & cooked in the tandoor, served with kachumber. 3 chops but these were similar to the chicken wings, in the sense that the spices lacked depth and flavour. They were also cooked medium well, which didn’t make them as juicy or tender as they could have been. 6.5/10

Kurkuri Bhindi £5.00

Thinly sliced okra fried in corn flour batter, sprinkled with chilli masala. Way too much salt, but if I was lucky to find a bit with no salt it tasted good, with a good texture and crunch. 6/10

Pindi Chole Kulche £6.50

Punjabi style chickpeas cooked in a thick gravy accompanied with Amritsari kulcha. Went on the recommendation of the waitress. Big mistake. Not good at all and not to my taste. The accompanying bread was good. 4.5/10

Dhaaba Murg (On the Bone) £8.00

A delicious chicken curry until now only at the G.T.Road side dhabas of Punjab. 

As a main curry we all decided on this. Again, like with other dishes it was too salty. Also, being on the bone I found myself picking tiny bits of bone that had been cut off, it made it really unpleasant to eat as every mouthful had a bit of chipped bone. As for flavours, im writing this only 2 days after my visit and even looking at pictures doesn’t remind me of this dish. Very forgettable and as with most items I had on the night very average.

Overall, I was not impressed with the food here. It was all very average and nothing i ate here would ever want me to visit again. The lack of atmosphere and people at the restaurant surely didn’t help. Food also came out at different times which didn’t flow right. Odd, as we were the only ones there! Another group of 7 showed up after an hour of our arrival.

Total cost was under £60 between 3, with no drinks. I definitely could have eaten more, but was really reluctant to try any more dishes with fear of being disappointed further.

Location means this place will only get people going here if they now about it.

I really was expecting better. It’s a shame really. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend this place based off my experience.