Shahi Maharani North Indian Restaurant (#03–21B Raffles City, 252 North Bridge Road, tel : +65 6235 8840) has been around for more than a couple of decades. I remember wanting to visit them years ago but they've somehow fallen in the cracks of my attention over the years. Anyways, we're here now.
Decor's kind of old school along with the furnishing. Might have spelled prestige or luxury in another time. Today, it's a reminder of that.
Papadums and pickles. Notice that the dip doesn't have yoghurt. It's too coriander-y for me.
Munched on papdi chaat while waiting for the food. Papdi, sev, chickpeas, chunks of boiled potatoes, yoghurt, tamarind sauce, mint chutney...a riot of flavours and textures that made the chaat. Enjoyed it but that didn't stop me from wishing for a bit more generosity with the yoghurt.
A papdi is a cracker - one which the menu described as Indian nachos. Here's an Indian nacho worth of chaat on a spoon.
First to be served was the sarson ka machhli tikka - tandoor baked barramundi with a spice rub. Meat was was firm and flaky. Not bad. The fish packed more heat than we expected.
Their palak paneer appeared to be a class of their own. Nicely done with the taste of the spinach intact, seasoning noticeable and those chunks of tender cottage cheese. While here are myriads of variation to the recipe, I thought this was a good rendition.
We also had a prawn korma - a korma unlike most korma we've had. The texture was more akin to dal than the creamy velvet generally associated with them. For the first time as far as I could tell, I could definitively taste cashews in there. Along with cardamom and a host of other spices which I stopped bothering to identify after the cardamom. 😂 Prawns were meaty, split and deveined into what Chinese cooking calls 虾球. Delicious and not as heavy a curry as it looked.
For a large part, I've lamented over Kashmiri naans having Maraschino cherries and little else to go on with. The majority of them don't have nuts - or at least enough to be identified as nuts. Most don't even have much real dried fruit other than the cherries. This one had mostly crushed nuts mashed with Maraschino cherries slathered across the bread. Nice. 👍🏼
That's a piece of butter naan from the same basket as Kashmiri ones. Noticed that they were shaped like pizzas.
No room for dessert today. Hope to make it back here another time.
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