Poznan – Thali Indian Restaurant
I very much like Indian food and have enjoyed tracking how it is served in countries around the world. I mean, it’s fairly obvious to say that the best Indian food that I’ve had is in India, but the service style and quality varies enormously by country and watching that evolution is interesting. There are some locations, such as when I went to Carcassonne with my friend Liam earlier this year, where there were no Indian restaurants at all (there had been one but it shut), but the situation has been improving in Poland for the years that I’ve been coming here.
It was a welcoming and cosy environment, some effort has been made here to do something nice without needing to spend a fortune. I was initially surprised that the English spoken by the staff was fluent, but then I realised that the staff actually don’t really speak a great deal of Polish. Three Polish groups came in during my time there and they switched to speaking English, with a number of reviews commenting on this. It’s an interesting dynamic, I know there is concern from some people in the UK that the British culture is being eroded through migration. I don’t happen to agree with that, but I don’t want to dwell on that here, but in Poznan it surprises me just how much is in English.
This is the chicken Kadai, with peshwari naan and rice, alongside a small Cobra. It was served quickly, after five minutes, which is usually not really a good sign but it was relatively quiet when I visited so it makes that more understandable. The chicken was tender, the sauce had some depth of flavour and the portion size was generous. The rice clumped slightly which is marginally sub-optimal, but tasted fine, whilst the naan was a little bit drab if I’m being honest although again served as a generous portion.
I thought that this was all quite agreeable, and it came to a total of £12 which is hardly unreasonable for curry, rice, naan and a beer. The service was polite without being over-attentive, which isn’t something that I particularly enjoy, although my friend Richard loves that kind of attention. The curry could have had a greater depth of flavour perhaps, but the chicken had some taste and it all came together well. The restaurant is one of a small chain across Poland, I’m not sure whether it’s a franchise type arrangement or they’re managed restaurants, but they’ve got a fair number of these.
Anyway, it was a welcoming and comfortable experience, good value for the money and everything felt efficient. The restaurant was clean and organised, with the thalis themselves looking interesting but it appeared that the curries they served as part of that were random and I try and avoid lamb. The reviews for restaurants are all generally positive and they seemed to be serving a fair few meals that were going out to takeaway drivers (to take to customers I mean, not eat themselves), so they seem to be doing well.
After that I popped to the Christmas market in Poznan, but my phone hasn’t dealt with this very well, but it was raining. I’m not really one for Christmas markets, so I didn’t linger for very long. Poznan isn’t far from the German border, so there was something of a degree of authenticity to this arrangement that I didn’t see in Preston last week…..
