Curry for Two

Have you met me?  Brown hair.  Brown eyes.  You wouldn't know it, but I am a second generation Canadian of Dutch descent.  My grandmother, born in the Netherlands in 1917, turned one-hundred last year.  Born during a war, starting married life during the depression, surviving Nazi occupation, and moving to Canada with four young children including my mom, my grandmother has seen it all.

Arie and Jeneke Schering with four of
their children: Tony, Jack, Maria (my mom),
and Elly (1949).

Growing up, I remember having a range of Dutch foods: homemade soup, speculoos cookies, buttered white bread with chocolate sprinkles (for breakfast!).  And a dish my mom simply called nasi: cabbage, meat, rice, and curry.  Wait, what?!  What are the Dutch doing with curry?  Like any European nation with a seasoning more extravagant than salt, the answer is coloniztion.  During the height of imperialism, the Dutch went to the East Indies, settled, stole a bunch of stuff, and eventually left, taking the spices with them.  Nutmeg is originally from Indonesia which is why it's in so much of Dutch baking.  And, that's where the curry comes from, too.  Alright, history lesson over.  But this little Dutch girl was very excited to find an Indonesian restaurant, Dragonfly Bistro, that offers foods that reminded me of my childhood. 

Jeneke and Arie Schering riding bikes in
Nieuw Vennep, Netherlands (1983).

Dragonfly Bistro, located on Richmond Row,  serves an ecclectic mix of European and Indonesian food.  The Indonesian menu is served family style--meaning they bring out different dishes and you serve yourself.  While you can order for just one I would recommend two people ordering this dish--the “family” experience is better when shared.  We had Daging Rendang which is a stewed beef in coconut milk, galangal, chilli, coriander, turmeric, pepper, and garlic (I told you there were spices). The stewed beef comes with nasi--which in this case is fragrant jasmine rice, cooked to sticky perfection--and sweet chili green beans.  Others at the table didn’t enjoy the beans as much--but I liked them. Utensils are there, but the meal also comes with krupuk--which are prawn chips.  On their own, krupuk have that addictive quality of most chips--crunchy and salty--but they definitely taste like prawns.  You can use these to scoop up the food if you want to. For me, the prawn chips were a perfect balance to rich sweet and spicy Daging--which really was the star.  The beef was tender, the balance of sweet and spicy was spot on--it was the one dish that the plate would’ve been licked clean had I been at home. While the authentic Indonesian food wasn't quite what my mom made (she's not a fan of curry and would use ground beef rather than stewed beef), there was something still very familiar about the meal.

Location: Dragonfly Bistro (715 Richmond St. London, ON)

Entree Cost: $18-$30

Number of Reviewers: 4

Value: $ $ $

Overall: * * * 

Alright, Indonesia offers a sweet curry (thank you, coconut milk) so let's move over into mainland India and a little taste of Curry's, located on Wellington Rd. Curry’s offers a range of set-price lunch combinations--you can have the small lunch which comes with fewer appetizers, or you can have the full-lunch.  I had the full lunch which starts with a garden salad and a tomato cumin soup. The garden salad was fresh and crisp... but not all that Indian. The soup, unfortunately, was odd--while the cumin flavour was nice, the soup itself was a bit on the acidic side because it was not cream-based.  That would have been fine, but the real problem was the texture--it was not a fine puree. It seemed like they did not remove the tomatoe skins or cook down the tomatoes long enough; it was neither smooth nor hearty. It was grainy--that odd in-between texture where you’re not sure if you should just drink it or if you should try to chew and you end up making weird Hannibal Lecter mouth movements and sounds as your teeth act as an impromptu sieve (you're making the sounds now, aren't you?!).

Next comes the main lunch--served in a partitioned stainless steel plate--all of the flatware, by the way, is stainless steel--which is a reflection of socio-economic traditions in India--only the very wealthy eat off of porcelain in an effort to mimic the west.  In the first section was an onion Bhaji--shredded onion rolled in a spiced chickpea batter then deep-fried. Although it was slightly over-cooked, it still tasted excellent... so good, in fact, that it was dismaying to have only one. Beside the Bhaji, was Channa Masala--spiced chickpeas with roasted cumin and onion.  For me, this one was rather bland.

Curry's Bhaji, Channa Masala, and Chicken Tandori.

The real star of the meal is the butter chicken. Tandori spiced chicken in a green chili and coriander sauce served on a bed of cumin-infused basmati rice which tasted like Rice-a-Roni... and not in a good way. The chicken was succulent and the sauce was rich and well-spiced. However, there was no heat to the spice and I ordered a medium heat. I've been told that perhaps it was my fault for not ordering the hot, but I would argue that there should be a palpable heat at medium. The plate also comes with a cilantro chutney to cool or balance the spices of the dish (no cooling necessary).  It seemed like a Westernized cop-out. I am fully prepared, as Lisa Simpson once said, to "see through time" when eating Indian food. So when I ask for some heat, give me heat!

So, if you're looking to try some curry in London, maybe skip Curry's and head over to Dragonfly Bistro and try some of the sweeter Indonesian-style curry.  You may not see through time on that one either, but at least you get what you're asking for.  

Location: Curry's (118 Wellington Rd. London, ON)

Entree Cost: $12-$18

Number of Reviewers: 2

Value: $ $ $

Overall: * *