Herbs & Spices the Euradian Restaurant, Upper Thomson Road

This was interesting. Herbs & Spices (207 Upper Thomson Road, Yew Lian Park, tel: 6252 9038), which was just a unit down from Miss Clarity at Upper Thomson was the first Euradian restaurant I've come across. Euradian as one of the owners explained, referred to the blend of European and Indian. One of the chefs they had apparently has experience in doing Italian food. So the result was a pretty good selection of Indian and Italian food. The options for both cuisines put together was in fact, overwhelming. They had for Italian food alone more options than some other Italian restaurants which I've been to. I went for some safe bets which I liked from the Indian section, cliche it may be. It's the usual palek paneer, butter chicken, butter and kashmiri naan, lassi, buttermilk (ice blended??) and along the way, tried the deep fried fish roe, chicken pakora (I hope I got this right), gobi manchurian and *drumroll* mushroom risotto with goat cheese.

palek paneer

The palek paneer here was quite enjoyable. The spinach puree wasn't flat tasting as I thought it might have been. Which was a good thing. My only gripe here was that the cottage cheese portions were puny.

butter chicken

The butter chicken here tasted like the one down at Jaggi's - meaning that it was rich and creamy while lacking the edges of spiciness. I liked this. Especially with the naan or rice.

fried fish roe

Fried fish eggs. Who doesn't like these? Freshly fried and still had a bit of the juices. Enough said I suppose.

chicken pakora

These fried pieces of chicken with herb and batter were quite tasty. Would make good beer snacks. The first time I've had these here, they were in much smaller minced portions. This time round, they were larger chunks and much more tender.

gobi manchurian

The gobi manchurian appeared different from what I thought it might have looked like while recalling the ones at Spice Junction. The rendition here looked like a sweet and sour cauliflower dish. Tasted spicy but I thought wasn't as tasty as the ones at Spice Junction.

mushroom risotto with goat cheese

I had expected more out of the risotto. The flavour wasn't as fragrant as I had hoped. I've had much better risotto and the goat cheese barely registered. The restaurant had mentioned that it had been adjusted to a mild level since not everyone liked the pungent taste. There's definitely room for improvement.

As a whole, I quite liked this place. The location is a bonus and now I know that I know that there is an alternative to Race Course Road for me.