Dabbawalla, Robertson Quay

Indian food in the heart of Robertson Quay. These guys - formerly known as Curry Culture are located in between Super Loco and Decker Barbecue (#01-10/11 60 Robertson Quay, tel : +65 6235 6134).

Curries and cocktails are indeed part of their repertoire but we weren't really having any of that in the mid day. We did order a ginger lassi which I kinda liked. The ginger tasted fresh and there's definitely a bunch of other spices in the lassi as well. There's also another one with mango and saffron which I felt was also pretty good because it had a good balance of flavours from both the fruit and the spice.

I've never quite understood the concept of the Indian appetizer or starter which can often be a pretty heavy. Like these hot plated sizzling lamb chops which had been grilled with a nutty spice paste. There was quite a bit of nice tender fat along the rib. I can't say that I didn't enjoy this.

We had masala prawns with a gravy that tasted very much like butter chicken gravy that's been folded with a lot of shredded coconut. Both the coconut and prawns looked to be added at a later stage into that gravy rather than part of its cooking since their flavours were on their own rather than with the gravy. This was delicious though.

The other masala we had was okra. Very firm and fresh lady's fingers that weren't wilted by the cooking as I had imagined.

Some butter naan made their way to help mop up the gravies.

And some pretty awesome Kashmiri naan which were eaten on their own. Other than the very visible cherries and cheese, there were dates and also bits of nuts. I don't remember the last time I've had Kashmiri naan with nuts. Sweet and dangerously addictive.

After seeing the masala Coke served at the neighbouring table, we were suddenly parched and decided we needed one. I definitely liked this. Couldn't recall what were all the spices (like black salt, mango powder, pepper....and ermmmm) that the proprietor mentioned but it tasted very much like those added into buttermilk along with a slice of lemon. This was a pretty robust drink. Very nice.

Masala chai to finish up. The chai was kinda balanced. Not too strong a tea with milk that wasn't too creamy and masala mix that wasn't too intense. I generally prefer something(s) to be stronger but after all the rich food, I didn't mind the low intensity tea at all.