Terribly disappointing evening out, we went to my favourite old restaurant, Simla Indian, in Mt Eden village… It was, at one point, say around 1999, the head-and-shoulders clear best Indian restaurant in Auckland, now that title is well and truly up for grabs.
They changed owners a few years back, and had a crappy chef, then they got a good chef and restored some of their previous quality, but now they’ve dropped to a new low. It isn’t bad enough that their curries are runny, and where they should taste rich and creamy they taste smokey and weak, but they also have managed to sink to the levels of the bottom 20% of Auckland restaurants in the hygiene rankings. That’s right, they have a B. I won’t be trying them again unless or until they get, and keep, an A rating.
On the other hand, the other day we went out with some friends to Tanuki on Queen St, it’s absolutely wonderful in exactly the way that Dahn wasn’t. The food is fresh, delicious, tender, juicy, and flavoursome, in all the right ways and places. I tried one of their weird cocktails (grape,) and it was great. Grapey in the same wonderful way that a shaved ice champagne grape drink is at pearl milk tea places.
How about you, been to anywhere great lately? Or terrible? Use my beautiful restaurant review system to everyone know.