Curry-tastic

13/1/12 - Spice Paradise (www.spiceparadise.co.uk)

Ok, I may have to apologise in advance. This review may be slightly biased as Spice Paradise is probably one of, if not my absolute, favourite restaurants in Norwich. The food is always excellent and, mainly because I have been going so long, the service is exemplory.

A bit of background - Spice Paradise specialises in Southern Indian food. You will still find Northern dishes like Dhansak and Madras but please please please avoid them here. If you don't know what you're ordering (like us the first time we went!) order the Feast menu and you'll get a bit of everything.

It didn't let us down this time. Since we've been going with a (fish-eating) vegetarian friend, we now go almost all vegetarian because the veggie food here is wonderful. The breads (and we've tried them all) are absolutely amazing too. I always go for chipati because I like to eat with my hands - I like to think I'm being 'more Indian' this way - but others will have a chilli bread, or a malabar paratha (that goes amazingly with the Nadan lamb curry). Yes, there's naan but you should really try something new when you come here.

We had our 'usual' selection. A table busting combo of masala dosa (a kind of crepe filled with mild potato curry), Allepy Prawn masala (a saucy, spicy curry made with small prawns), Baigan Bhartha (smoked and mashed spicy aubergines) chana masala (chickpeas in a spicy tomato sauce, cabbage thoran (shredded cabbage with coconut, cumin and chillies), Chicken malabar (mildly spicy pieces of chicken in a creamy sauce), Nadan lamb curry (a saucy, spicy curry flavoured with coconut), pilau rice and lots of different breads. Yes - for 4 of us. We don't do dessert.

I really suggest you give it a visit if you haven't already. You won't like the look of it. The menu is plastic, with pictures on! I HATE that with restaurants. It's really brightly lit. I hate that too. The tables are partitioned off by flimsy portable 'walls'. Ridiculous! If I can forgive it for all this because of the amazing food, then you can too.