Stingy Indian /IndianAccent

Y (May '23)

SCORE: Suck it and see

HIGHLIGHTS: 100 Layer Paneer, kanyakumari crab

VALUE: meh, 470 S$ including a stingy wine pairing

Since Mandala unfortunately removed the delightful restaurant Kin from their premises, they have gone down the route of cycling through famous restaurants as "pop-up"s. Thus far, that has included: Mirazur, Central, Narisawa and Gaggan to name a few. My thoughts have been that it's an excuse for the chefs to overcharge and underserve the diners because they're not working with the produce and the environment that they're ordinarily accustomed to. Nonetheless, I do try to go to see what certain chefs are able to offer while "on a holiday" as it were.

With that background in mind, I went to Indian accent's pop up at mandala expecting to leave hungry, but being given a nice introduction to what the restaurant ordinarily does. This was a good idea for me anyway, as even though I go to India quite often (once a month) I rarely go to New Delhi. I was going with a group of friends, two of whom are more alcoholics than foodies, and a third who had a good interest in both.

On being seated the weirdness with portioning had already started. I was presented with 3 menu options - a vegetarian (meh), a 7 course and a 9 course menu. One of the two additional courses was a dessert. My thought was who adds an extra dessert to increase the size of the menu? I thought that was weird. I asked them if I could have an a serving of the savory course that was added on in the 9 course menu by itself, and that I would be willing to pay for it if I could. Not only did they say I wasn't able to, but that the whole table would have to get the 9 course menu if even one of us wanted to try that one savory dish. We elected not to, and I managed to nudge them into giving me the 100 layer paneer tikka instead, which I totally didn't regret shamelessly asking for

I feel a bit guilty for potentially being too aggressive when I judge Indian restaurants. While I don't necessarily have any experience cooking or for that matter judging formally Indian cuisines, being a brown person I feel this sense of entitlement when assessing what comes beforeme. Some of it colours my opinion (usually negatively) of the dish that is before me, and then I need to take a step back and try to assess the food for what it is, rather than what "this thing is supposed to be". The first example of this was their 5 pani puri dish. Now they called them puchkas, and I definitely appreciated the much more managable size of these pani puris. The waters that went in went all the way from a traditional pani puri water that was cuminy, minty and spicy, through the tamarind sweet-and-sour water all the way to a buttermilk. At first thought my mind was going why is this. this is not what pani puri is. pani puri should just have a mix of the first two to the proportion that someone wants their pani puri sweet or savory. But then I took a step back, and realized this was actually quite an interesting play on pani puri as a canvas to show off different sauces that are common in starters in indian food, and I was really quite grateful for that. Some of them (like the pineapple one) were a bit weird, and potentially ill conceived, but overall the dish was quite a nice and refreshing start.

The next highlight for me was the kanyakumari crab which was atop a sago pongal. The pongal was done like a beautiful risotto, with more of a fluid pudding like texture. The sweetness of the sago pongal beautifully played with the spice in the crab. There was chilli, peppercorns and curryleaves in the rub that went on the crab, and the crab itself was still soft, sweet and juicy. I thought this was easily one of the highlights of the evening, and could easily have gone for 4 more servings of this

My last highlight was the 100 layer paneer tikka which was on the vegetarian menu. Paneer tikka is one of those dishes that I love and adore, and I will have at any restaurant to taste test their basics. It's something that'll give you a good indication on whether they're handling the tandoor right, and whether they're putting in the slightyl higher amount of effort to source or make softer creamier paneer. For this version, not only had they done that, but they had essentially sliced it into thin slivers, and layered it with layers of a tomato reduction before searing it. It was delightfully creamy, smokey and tangy all at once. The sauce that accompanied the paneer almost felt like a Nihari gravy, but being from the vegetarian menu, it was even more impressive that they were able to get that richness without the meat!

Now I have to address the main problem I've been having with these pop ups. I understand that their primary clientele are probably people with well controlled appetites that look like stick figures, but the rest of us exist to. We like to eat, I mean hell, that's why we go to great lengths to find stuff to eat from all over the world that's interesting. Why the hell are their portions so small? As with a number of these modern Indian restaurants (looking at Ahara, Revolver, Gaggan), Indian Accent also finished with a "hearty" course of dal, butter chicken naan... But they were all just one tiny bowl of each. Why?! Why not give me more food and let me leave happy and full! This irks me to no end, and it's even worse when I've dropped a good deal of money, enjoyed a really tasty meal, only to have to go across the street to shake shack to get some nuggets to be able to fill me up. This pop-up wasn't the most guilty of this, but still to a large extent it was.

all in all, a mixed bag of tastes, some of which were interesting, some curious. If you go in with an open mind, or perhaps less of a background in tasting indian food, you may well come out loving the restaurant more than I did.