Aachi’s Indian Cuisine

Hey, Croydon, anything changed since my last review?

There must be some new vape shops in town. I’ve even heard rumours that Westfield isn’t being built in the centre, on Reddit. True?

One thing that hasn’t changed is Indian restaurants with ridiculously long menus – and the subject of this week’s, month’s, season’s review is Aachi’s Indian Cuisine on High Street.

Gosh it’s over 3 months since I went here, that’s how bad I am at finding the time to write, and part of the reason this blog is very, very infrequent.

I’m also very bad at responding to comments, so a public thank you to Kake for some really interesting suggestions of places to visit. No, I haven’t been to one yet. I might do this year, but don’t hold me to it any more than you hold Unibail Radaman Westfieldyson or whatever they are called to actually building anything.

Will my occasional adventures through Croydon’s cuisine improve too? One can hope.

Does The Menu Ever End

So I mentioned the ever-lasting menu at Aachi’s Indian Cuisine (by the way, Aachi means grandmother or respected elderly woman in Tamil, which is cute) – I only photographed the relevant pages to my order, maybe one extra – if you have a spare hour, then you can read their menu here.

But at least the menu was legible. The lighting in the restaurant was bright enough, the font was clear enough – unlike my other Indian restaurant experience in Croydon, Saffron Indian Restaurant. Gosh, the blog must be becoming something if I’m actually linking to other posts.

Anyway, it is an annoyance of mine to have soooooo many things to choose from on a menu. Are you really telling me that a local restaurant in Croydon can do 500 dishes all to an impressive quality on a midweek night?

What to do in such circumstances? I’m always tempted by the new, but such a horrendously humongous menu prods me towards safety too.

For starter I had…actually what did I have?

Ah yes, gobi manchurian (not sure if that should be capitalised?). It did have a mild kick to it, though I kind of expected that “cauliflower fritters” might have some crunch to it – but instead it was quite soft.

A pleasant enough dish but not entirely convincing.

Outside Aachi’s Indian Cuisine, the sign suggests an “ale carte” which alas is nothing to do with beer.

All the usual suspects were on offer, and I don’t remember for sure what I chose, but probably a Cobra. One is fine and almost quite refreshing with a spicy dish, a second was boring.

However, I was quite impressed with them having their name printed on the chunky beer glass – even if it is in a 10 year old’s favourite font.

Mainly Frustrating

The roti was a bit dry and basic – if you told me it had been purchased from Tesco then I wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. However, the naan breads I saw on other tables looked orgasmic, if naan breads can do that. They can to me. Weird? Well, I like living in Croydon so maybe. Quite like living here, anyway.

Finally let’s play a game of what on earth did I order from the main menu? Oh yeah, I remember being tempted by the words, “special southern flavours”.

This was chicken on the bone, which surprised me despite quite clearly being stated on the menu in retrospect – Chicken Chukka.

So, it was annoying to eat – the boned chicken pieces had been chopped so there was random bits of bone, and also not an awful lot of chicken.

Special southern flavours? Not entirely sure what they were, but from the chicken and sauce that I gleaned off the bones (whilst trying not to consume bits of broken bones…ffs) it had a good depth of flavour, only hints of spiciness and a ton of curry leaves.

I wouldn’t order that dish again.

Aachi’s Indian Cuisine

I suspect that you can have a really good meal here – it’s just me spinning the wheel, and hoping what I ordered was some of their best food – and it wasn’t.

The main was annoying – note to self not to order boned chicken in a restaurant with 500 items on their menu. And the cauliflower just didn’t quite have the texture I’d expect from “fritters” yet it did have a half-decent kick to it.

Service was pleasant and the price is pretty affordable – £7.99 for the starter, £8.99 for the main – not sure how much I paid for the beers.

My score is a 5.8 out of 10 – I suspect you can have an 8 out of 10 meal here, but I didn’t. I might persevere and re-visit, as I live opposite, but then again there’s 200 restaurants in Croydon that I’ve never been to.

If ever I get to the rate of writing reviews as often as new vape shops open, that feels like a healthy regularity. For a blog.

I actually have something else to write up in my notes, so a new post might come before the next vape shop opens. Maybe.