Hot, hot, hot

Another late return this evening after being invited along to a friend's girlfriend's birthday dinner (I really need to work out how to refer to people around here...) at the last minute. It was supposed to take place at an Italian restaurant, just around the corner from Picadilly, but a error with the booking left us seated at a small vegetarian Indian place a couple of doors along instead. I'll admit that I don't eat Indian food often - a mishap involving the confusion of green beans and chilli peppers some years ago means that I now approach dishes from the sub-continent with a considerable amount of trepidation. Fortunately tonight's repast proved a pleasant surprise.

Lentil donoughts accompanied with a mint sauce to start with, followed by a stuffed pancakey... thing. It tasted considerably better than you might imagine from that description. The company was in a jovial mood and everyone soon began passing their dishes around for everyone else to sample. Luckily for me the majority of it was relatively mild, though I did encounter one hairy moment when I tried something that looked as though it contained a quantity of green beans in yogurt... which turned out to be chilli peppers. How many times must I learn that lesson...?

Though everybody was quite stuffed by the end of the main course, curiosity got the better of us, and we had to order a portion of an odd sounding concoction of carrots, condensed milk and cardamon. I wouldn't go so far as to describe it as delicious, but it was an... interesting new taste. Pleasantly edible, although I suspect it would have gone well with some ice cream (but then, doesn't everything).

Perhaps next time...