Spiced By Billu's | Barangaroo
Delicious, warm and hearty is something we need right now. Some lamb pieces were slightly overcooked but others were perfect. Rogan Josh is a staple of Kashmiri cuisine - the curry has strong flavours of garlic, ginger, spices and a deep red colour which comes from dried flowers or chillies but it won't burn your mouth. The chilli tastes slightly similar to paprika or cayenne pepper. We dipped our garlic naan to scoop all the sauce up!
Saag is a leaf-based dish mainly made from spinach, mustard leaves or finely chopped broccoli. Saag is from the Odisha region which originated from Punjab. We had our Saag with diced chicken which was flavourful and ever so moist. Saag is also a great option for vegetarians and can be quite healthy - have this with naan or basmati rice.
Basmati rice cooked with onions, garlic, ginger, raisins, spices topped with almond flakes and fried onion - this is exactly what you can see in the picture above. The goat must've been cooked as a whole i.e including the bones and everything because I bit into a few! Just becareful when you're digging into this colourful and amazing smelling biryani. The flavour however from the spiced rice was great - perfect amount of spice and it wasn't too dry. I'm wasn't sure what we're supposed to eat biryani with until the lovely waitress brought out papperdams to serve with it.
One thing that excites me about Indian entree is onion bhaji but I've only ever tried this from a takeaway shop or the food court. I'm familiar with onion bhaji that is super oily which leaves me feeling so shameful but the onion bhaji from Spiced by Billu's were amazing. It didn't leave an oily residue but instead, needed some sauce! You can actually taste the filling as well. We've never had seekh kebab and garlic prawns from an Indian restaurant before so we were very excited to taste them.The kebab is loaded with flavour, herbs and has great texture.
The only Indian sweet we tried is jalebi (the orange looking snail dessert) and that didn't leave a great impression. We know it's supposed to be really sweet but it was sickening sweet. When these fried dumpling balls arrived at our table, we were so excited but secretly hoped it wouldn't be too sweet. These dough were fried golden brown, soaked in sugar syrup and served with ice cream andpistachio. The special dough from memory was made with chickpea flour and other ingredients which gave off a very unique texture. It wasn't doughy like a doughnut instead, it was surprisingly light and oh-so addictive. We wanted MORE even after an amazing feast.
Lassi is a popular yogurt based drink blended with yogurt, water and spices! You are probably more familiar with seeing mango lassi. I love the refreshing start to the meal with mango lassi. It's also a great way to cool down between tasting different spicy curries. It's quite thick but I've never encountered a lassi I didn't enjoy.
Snapshots of Food dined as guests of Spiced by Billu's and CPM Online Marketing