Locomotoring

Dishoom, dishoom ...	Dishoom with its seventies look
Fried calamari with a set of spicy sauces	Shish Kababs and roomali roti, what else ...
Chicken tikka	Naan with Keema

A few blocks from Seven Dials, is an Indian restaurant named Dishoom. The sound of a punch landing on your opponent in Bollywood movies has the sound “Dishoom“. Kids when mimicking fights do it with the sound effect “dishoom”, “dishoom”, … So there is indeed something endearing and playful in the name. The restaurant exudes hipness, although like any other Indian restaurant the service is a bit languid.  Walls are decorated with an old world charm of mirrors and pictures of Bollywood movies and stars. You can watch the tandoor in action while waiting for food. We ate here a couple times and really enjoyed the “roomali” roti with the shish kababs. Roomal is Hindi word for handkerchief. Yes, sir, these breads are indeed as thin as the handkerchief. The dough is similar to naan/pizza and they are hand rolled like pizza, swirled in air to get the thinness and briefly cooked in the tandoor. I haven’t seen roomali rotis served in Indian restaurants in US. I found the food to be competent but the menu is limited to typical North Indian dishes that westerners associate with Indian food.

Sampler platter at Moolis

Chutneys for the rolls

In the Soho neighborhood, Moolis was very highly rated. They offer an array of rolls that can be best described as extension of your typical kathi roll. All their rolls sounded so mouthwatering that we ended up ordering their sampler. The meats were high quality, perfectly cooked, and spices were distinctly different. We were expecting to be impressed and instead found the tastes to be timid. Given the competency of the chef, I suspect it was timid by choice, result of some “market survey” perhaps. Or a false sense of association between “healthy”and “muted spice expression”. However, I wish that was the only problem. I found the rolls themselves somewhat stale as well as if they were rolled 1/2 hour ago and kept warm, an absolute no-no in my book. I read sometimes that best Indian food is to be had in London. Perhaps we will find those restaurants on our next trip.

Next, a gastro pub that served up some of the best food we ate in London.