Nu Delhi,
68-72 Great Victoria Street,
Belfast,
BT2 7AF.
028 9024 4747
[ nu-delhilounge.comOpens in new window ]
GOING upstairs to a restaurant has always felt to me like the start of something good.
I've no idea why, and have no evidence whatsoever to back this up apart from a few happy experiences, but there is something about ascending from the street and through a door that adds to proceedings.
Again, no clue why this is the case. Maybe the elevation, all 30ft or whatever of it, does something to the blood.
Maybe it's the anticipation or feeling that somewhere is more exclusive because it's not at ground level.
Maybe I just like looking down on people.
It shouldn't need to be noted, but having a restaurant upstairs also means making sure everyone who wants to access it can.
This is no problem at Nu Delhi in Belfast city centre where, when you step in off Great Victoria Street, a flight of stairs or lift will take you where you want to go.
When you get there, the neon sign by the door at the top of the stairs, outside the lift, buzzes 'This Must Be The Place', and the buzz doesn't stop until your feet are back on the ground.
And it's not just the well made cocktails, especially a mango daiquiri that hums and dings. It's not just the sleek surroundings. It's not just the service, which is bright, friendly and altogether textbook.
It's everything, with the food leading the way.
The menu is as extensive as you'd expect from any Indian restaurant, but as well as ticking the usual boxes it heads off into slightly, but not too wildly, different directions. But it starts with the foundations and they're more than solid.
A selection of starters are hot and crisp and, despite the solitary chilli beside it on the menu, start to build some heat for the meal ahead. The tangle of an onion bhaji is a fine example of the form, but the best is the aloo bonda potato dumpling, zipping with ginger.
Tandoori king prawns are plump and sweet, with their fire taken up a notch as well, though at £9.95 they're not cheap for starter.
Similarly, poppadoms and chutney come in at just under a fiver, the fusion mixed grill is £24.95 and most of the 'traditional' curries are around the £18 mark when you add rice or bread.
But portions are generous and it's fair to note that you get what you pay for, Nu Delhi is aiming a bit higher than most places and with that comes a bit of a higher price point for certain dishes.
That said, the £24.95 banquet menu offering poppadoms, a starter, main and rice or bread stands out as as good a deal as you'll find anywhere.
That fusion mixed grill includes bone-in chicken thighs, slices of lamb, a sheekh kebab of lamb mince and a piece of tandoori monkfish.
Everything is cooked perfectly and piled next to spiced potatoes and a fresh onion salad. It's a lot to get stuck into, with the chicken the best of all of it.
The seafood feels like an interloper, like a fish finger that's found its way onto a fry. Lovely in its own right, but not necessary. Everything else is more than good enough.
The same goes for the lamb tikka masala, with hefty chunks of fall-apart meat in a sweet, ruby red sauce, that's a gentle, retro hug of a thing, with all that sauce made to be mopped up with pillowy perfect garlic naan.
The sweeter stuff is good here, with a methi matar malai – peas in a melon seed and cashew nut sauce and perfumed with fenugreek, addictive. A bucket of peas and pile of bread would make for an entirely worthwhile, entirely memorable visit, which is saying something.
The online dessert menu teased with pistachio and mango kulfis, but in the event it was a line-up of usual suspects from cheesecake and sticky toffee pudding to fudge cake and ice cream.
A lemon roulade is pleasingly balanced, though the ice cream with it is full of ice crystals.
But you're not climbing those stairs for dessert. It's for everything else. And you'll be glad you did.
THE BILL
Poppadoms x2 £2.40
Chutneys £2.50
Vegetable starter platter £5.45
Tandoori king prawns £9.95
Lamb tikka masala £14.95
Fusion mixed grill £24.95
Methi matar malai £6.95
Pilau rice £2.95
Garlic naan £3.50
Lemon roulade £5.50
Elderflower tonic £2.50
Espresso martini £9.75
Mango daiquiri £9.50
Total £101.10
