Barakah Foods

This food is reputed to be home made and made from fresh on the day. While I believe the claim though, the food must be being cooked on an industrial scale, at least at weekends. As proof of this we phoned our order in about 4pm, to be told it would be about 8:30pm before our food could be delivered. We said OK. It turned out to be after 9pm and on their first delivery attempt our order was incomplete. Dr Who and Wychcraft real ale were taking most of our attention at the time though. After a second attempt at delivery the order still remained incomplete, as my daal main stayed undelivered. We’d ordered three starters & four mains with basmati rice, with a few sides to try and three nan breads. Absolutely dreadful service and simply not good enough, but the chap delivering did realise his repeated error and he was genuinely annoyed at himself, so that’s that we all make mistakes. I ordered the pani puri as my starter of choice. It consisted of 6 round, hollow puri, perfectly fried crisp. I had the delightful task of filling each with a mixture of tamarind flavoured water and spiced chickpeas. I also added some minced coriander & mint mixture. Each puri is small enough to fit completely into one’s mouth. It is a popular street food. In North India it is known as Gol Gappa. The name ‘gol gappa’ refers to the crisp sphere (gol) that is placed in the mouth and eaten (gappa) one at a time. Pani comes from the Hindi word for water and puri (or poori) is the name of an Indian bread made by deep frying in oil. I also tried a piece of vegetable samosa. This was good but not great. I tried a bit of aloo gobi, which is a dry potato & cauliflower dish. It was perfectly cooked not overcooked and again it had just perfect heat. There were wee pots of chickpeas, yoghurt, mint & coriander but one pot contained what looked like preserved lime or lemon. It was sour and hot tasting and really good but it wasn’t either fruit. It had a hairy shell a bit bigger than an apricot kernel but I’ve no idea what it is. Didn’t stop me eating it though. Then I had my main of keema & diced potato curry with peas. This was just delicious, light to medium spiced and wonderfully dry, the best dish really. The basmati rice was overcooked and a bit sticky, I was surprised but not disappointed at this. The rice was not boiled in water only, as there was a delicate flavour to it that I couldn’t discern and which made it quite tasty. The nan breads were fine, but they aren’t cooked in a Tandoor, neither were the chicken tikka pieces (which came at the second delivery attempt; and anything less than tandoor cooking is second best, at best, or put another way if a proper charcoal tandoor was used this food would be stunning. All that said the tikka pieces were also delicious. Do remember that charcoal produces carbon monoxide so it’s not usually a domestic indoor fuel, unless you’ve a fab extraction fan. Charcoal is a near pure carbon, it burns without producing sulphur (so no rotten taste) at intense temperatures, up to 2700 degrees Celsius. By comparison the melting point of iron is about 1200 to 1550 degrees Celsius — the sun creates a nuclear fusion of about 15 million degrees Celsius (though different parts of the sun produces different temperatures.) Finally I tried a bit of the chicken karahi. This too was well spiced, but I detected a bit of sameness in the taste of different dishes. I did not expect this either. I was surprised and disappointed at this. On a good mood day I’d have just about made it four star, but the sameness bugs me. If not for this it likely would have been four stars. If the nan breads were properly tandoored it would be a five. I’ll try it another time.