2. NE Indian: Darjeeling Express

Twenty years ago the back lanes and courts of Soho were grim spaces -- loading bays, dumpsters and dereliction. Now they have been liberated and filled with new restaurants, bars and fashion outlets. One such area is Kingly Court between Carnaby Street and Regent Street, which offers a wide range of ethnic food on two levels in a busy canopied courtyard.  

Above the ground level food court there are more substantial restaurants, including the Darjeeling Express.  By London standards it has a spacious interior hinting at Indian station cafes in shades of ochre, and focuses on the street food of north-eastern India.  The food (and people) of Darjeeling owe as much to the Himalayan populations of Sikkim and Nepal to the north as to mainstream Indian cooking, but the menu here draws not only on that but on the owner's knowledge of food from Calcutta, where she was brought up, and beyond. 

There are over 1200 'Indian' restaurants in London!  In fact most are from an East Bengali tradition (now Bangla Desh) and the generic name dates back to the years before partition. Indian food has been fashionable in London since the early nineteenth century or even earlier. The first restaurant serving curries, the Hindoostane Coffee House, was established in 1810 in Marylebone, and recipes for curries and pilaus were included in cookbooks in the eighteenth century.  

 

Asma Khan and her 'all-women team of housewives' offer a fixed price thali set menu in the evenings but we came for the a la carte lunchtime offering.  Our starters included toasties, very tasty little white bread toasted sandwiches filled with chilli cheese or mince. They also do momos, steamed filled dumplings, very much a Himalayan dish.  This was followed by badami baingan, beautifully tender aubergine in a coconut, peanut and tamarind sauce, a recipe from Hyderabad; and methi chicken made with tomato and fenugreek (methi) leaves.  We overdid the order with sides of raitha and parathas, feeling well satisfied by the end, and all washed down with shahi ananas, a tropical fruit non alcoholic cocktail; and mango lassi.  The staff were extremely friendly and happy to stop for a chat and to explain the dishes.  Definitely one to return to, perhaps for the thali next time.