Curry tour 3 - International Curry House

When we left for our curry tour, it was only drizzling lightly. The International Curry House was the choice for this week. The place was easy enough to be found, just right across the Southorn Playground in Wanchai. Alice thought the bad luck started right at the moment she stepped into the restaurant.

Our party arrived right before the lunch hour rush. There were only two tables, a young family and another quiet family. The quiet family was great, enjoying their lunch in quiet chatter and munching. The young family was a nightmare from Super Nanny, before the makeover. Then another family came with a woman talking loudly and repeatedly on her Maxim turnip cake. To make things worse, Vasco was being called a rat!

We ordered beef samosa, egg curry, mutton biryani and chicken vindaloo. The beef samosa came with a dish of mysterious green vinegar and something...samosa greasy. The egg curry is served with hard-boiled eggs. Alice gave it an ok, she preferred fried eggs. The mutton in the biryani was tender, and acceptable. But biryani was not quite right, not enough raisin, not the right kind of rice, no cashew nut and not enough spice. The generic curry sauce was topped with fried garlic slices and chewy pineapple. The chicken in the vindaloo was tender but without the taste of curry.

When we left the restaurant, the downpour was so heavy that it was a complete disaster. We were wet to the bone. Alice bumped her head so badly on the taxi door that she was crying. Now there is a big lump of pain on her head.

International Curry House

Food: 7/10...mostly from the two guys

Luck elements: 0/10

Final verdict: 0/10...it's important to have luck after eating at a restaurant!

Curry tour 2 - Ah Lung Pakistan Halal Food

Second trip took us to Ah Lung Pakistan Halal Food in Jordan. This was a choice suggested by a friend, and it's a great choice! We ordered chicken, beef tenderloin and veggie curry. PB was very happy that there was a vegetarian option on the menu (which was missing from Curry a la King). The curry base was spicy and tasty. Beef tenderloin: the meat a bit bland but it's soft and jelly-like (Vasco); chicken: great (KB, he doesn't have much of an opinion); veggie (PB, happy with a selection of local Chinese veggie, he only complained that there was no potato). The sweet roti was a strange surprise: sugary sweet roti with curry! Actually it's not a bad combination. The restaurant is pretty small, but the seating is comfortable and the waitress was really nice.

Ah Lung Pakistan Halal Food: Food, good; service, friendly and helpful; deco, homey diner type.
Final verdict...9/10 (minus 1 for the absence of potato in curry)

Curry tour 1 - Curry a la King

Vasco, Alice, PB and KB decided that the next month is going to be our curry tour month. We are going to at least one curry place every week in search of the best curry. Last week we went to Woodland for vegetarian Indian food. It was fantastic!

Today we went to Curry a la King. They do have a good range of curry choices from Malaysian to Indian. We ordered samosa (thumb's up), the chicken curry (KB said great), mutton curry (Alice's not so thrilled) and mutton biryani (PB not so thrilled, though he did like the rice). The food is not bad, it's actually half way decent (except that the meat was a bit chewy). But Alice and Vasco were not happy with the presentations. The dishes looked worse than they tasted. Another thing that Alice did not like was that there was only one waiter serving the whole restaurant, so the poor guy was practically a character from Diner Dash...just watching him running around like a headless chicken was stressful enough for Alice. The deco was really old, particularly the tables and chairs, they are really not comfortable. The last thing: Vasco had absolutely no idea about the bill, just handwritten papers...

Curry a la King: food, OK; service, stressful; deco, yucky.
Final verdict...6/10, it's not worth a second visit.