Shahi, Parnell

Shahi's mixed entree platter. Picture / Dean Purcell

Herald rating: * * *

This is my little Indian mate Amarbir's favourite Indian restaurant so off we went one Saturday night.

When I was little we lived in India and Mum learnt how to cook a mean curry.  When we came home to Auckland the Woman's Weekly interviewed her and she gave them a recipe. That was her 15 minutes of fame.

So I grew up with some fairly eclectic tastes and I like a bit of spice. Unfortunately, my puku doesn't any more, so I explained to Amarbir that whatever he ordered we had to share and I couldn't do chilli.

No sweat, he said, and set about choosing a wide range of food. We started off with two Kingfisher beers ($5.50 each). Kingfisher is one of the the world's biggest-selling beer — like Bollywood in an alcoholic sort of way.

A mixed platter of entrees ($15.50) arrived first. The samosa was predictably tasty and, dipped in the red tamarind sauce, very yum. A spicy sausage (seekh kebab) went well with the yoghurt mint dip and so did the harlyali kebab made from spinach, potato, bread crumbs and cream cheese. A tiny taste sensation.

For the mains we decided to go with seafood washed down with a couple of glasses of Huia gewurztraminer ($36 a bottle). The fish makhanwala ($17.95) was a filet of terakahi, rich in butter with a sauce of ginger, garlic, onions, tomatoes, yoghurt and spices.

And the prawns malabari ($20.50) were cooked in a sauce of coriander, mustard seeds, more spices and cream. Very rich and succulent. I can never cook prawns like that.

We used our fingers to wrap mouthfuls of the combination in naan bread. Which tasted fine to me — I love naan, but Amarbir said it hadn't been worked enough and was uneven in its consistency. Only an aficionado would've known.

Earlier he confessed that he'd worked as a waiter at Shahi. When he first came to Auckland in 1997 from Bombay he needed a job, any job, before he became a film director.

He made a valid comparison between Bollywood versus arthouse — i.e. the kind of food you get in foodhalls (Bollywood) and arthouse movies (restaurants such as Shahi). Restaurant food required more craft, rather than the churn-em-out type of tucker you get in foodhalls where it was tasty but without much finesse.

And although Shahi has been planned along some pretty basic design, its interior is definitely several notches up from any foodhall. Clean white walls give it a fresh feel, a bit like the food. Some of it is prepared in the restaurant itself but the tandoor is out back in the kitchen. We inspected it after our meal and marvelled at the level of heat it produced.

I've never been a great fan of Asian sweets, but we decided to try a couple of desserts and I was prepared to change my mind. A mango kulfi with icecream ($5.50) tasted too much of condensed milk for my liking. Amarbir explained it was a typical pudding from the north of India, but it didn't grab me. We also tried a gulabjamun dumpling ($6) in an extremely sweet syrup with icecream. I didn't change my mind.

The service was efficient but they weren't rushed off their feet that night.

Amarbir has been to Shahi many times and was pretty well catered for when he worked there, so I left the judgement to him. "The food this time didn't really burst with flavour in your mouth," he said. And although he agreed it was a notch up from the foodcourt type of food, he thought it lacked a certain je ne sais quoi that would have given it a better rating.

Overall: Unpretentious Indian food, full of fresh tastes and tangy spices.
Where: 115 Parnell Rd, Parnell
(09) 377 7898 (also Herne Bay and Milford)
Our meal:  $117.45 for two. One entree, two mains, two desserts, one bottle of wine, two beers.
Our wine: From $6.50 by the glass to $40 by the bottle.