We’re looking to move house. Not far from where we are now. Just a few doors in fact. At present we live in one of the worst houses in one of the best roads in Harborne, and by worst I really mean a quaint little two-up-two-down with tiny garden and weird mezzanine ensuite/dressing room above our bedroom. Our plan is to buy the one four doors up, stay for five or so years, and continue the process until we can afford the really nice four-story ones in the middle. Just think of the benefits of the move. Same postman. Same polling station. No moving costs. Same lovely neighbours. The negative of being further and further away from The Plough mitigated by being closer and closer to the likes of Waitrose, Tropea, and Harborne Kitchen.
I think Azad has a similar idea. I don’t know where his end goal is – maybe, just thinking aloud, he eventually wants to take over McDonalds – but he has taken Indian Racer Cafe from inside the tired but loveable Wellington and moved it five doors up the Bristol Rd closer to those golden arches. The new site is much nicer in a way that lazy writing might describe as ‘Dishoomy’ but I’ll say is like the Irani cafes in Mumbai that Dishoom have tried so hard to colonise as a look, all dark wooden panelling, poor lighting and vinyl humming in the background. It’s nice, if a little familiar.
It’s our second time here since the move. We came the night before opening when we were invited to a practice run for regulars which involved a free set menu and us picking-up a fairly hefty drinks bill. It was chaos. Total chaos. I knew it was going to be chaos and that deep down I shouldn’t view it like that, but I desperately wanted to come before the liggers did on the PR night whilst we were on holiday. That night, sitting on the terrace in the Domes of Elounda working my way through negroni evening, I watched the usual praise to the PR company for the invite (something I will never ever understand. They are doing their job. It’s weird.) on Instagram, thankful that we’d gone the week prior even if it took an hour to be seated and we missed a book launch.
The first dinner did have its positives. This time around we knew that we had to have the Shaktiman salad, which appears to be an ever-changing dish with chickpeas, lentils, tomatoes, avocado, red onion, coriander, pomegranate, and a bunch of spices appearing in different quantities over both dinners. I told them, and I stand by it, that they should sell it in bulk for those looking for a healthy lunch that packs flavour. And the new paneer dish, full of warming spice and attitude with a genuinely brilliant mint and coriander chutney. Gobi manchurian is the only dish we travel back to the old menus for. It is spicier than I remember and all the better for it.
Mains arrive and it’s clear that the move has been brilliant for them. The star of the table – and one of the stars of Birmingham right now – is the kosa murgh, a traditional dish of West Bengal that is slow cooked chicken on the bone with a gravy from the slow braise. It is fantastic, almost medicinal from the clove, full of ginger and garlic warmth. Two times in the last five weeks and can safely say this is one of my favourite things to eat in the city right now. There is a salmon curry with raw mango that my wife describes as ‘refreshing’, and a black daal finished with butter that I will be lazy and describe as ‘Dishoomy’. Lamb biriyani is superb and that is praise coming from someone who has been eating biriyani all over the UK for three months in work related research.
The bill with a bottle of wine and whisky cocktail is £131, but I reckon we can halve that now that I don’t have to order enough things to write about. Azad is a brilliant operator who exudes charm and passion, whilst the rest of the team appear to genuinely care that this is a success, which it already is. The food loiters between an eight and a nine, and despite my intentions to be less generous with the ratings, I can’t help but love it. I gather they are keeping the old Indian Racer Cafe open, serving-up the less fussier food in the less fussier dining room, but this is the only site I will be eating at. That is until they move six doors down in five years time on that slow march to their dream home.
9/10
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