28.5/40
Our September visit was an excursion into an alternative Indian cuisine where most of our members sampled Indian Street Food for the first time during our experience at Mowgli Street Food Restaurant in St Martin’s in the centre of Leicester.
The location in St Martin’s has a charming ambience due to the redevelopment that has taken place in this part of the city centre over many years and which continues to attract further investment in the area due to the commercial success of businesses that have established themselves there.
The restaurant is lavishly designed, furnished and laid out making it more than suitable for any special occasion when such an event is required.
We managed to find on street parking within a two-minute walk, but this could be an issue at busier times of the week, as we were there fairly early on a Monday evening. Despite our off-peak visit, it was pleasing to see that the restaurant was relatively busy.
Once that our drinks were ordered and provided along came the papadoms and pickle trays, which were up to the standard that we’ve come to expect for these.
We had recommendations from the waiter and from one of our members that had been there previously and we ordered a selection of dishes from the extensive menu starting with a taster of Chat Bombs, which were well received by all and proved to be a different and pleasing variety of flavours.
Our selection of main courses was chosen to share and we ordered more than we would usually, as we were told by our member that had been previously that the portions are smaller reminiscent to some extent of a Tapas meal.
We chose Ma’s Lamb Chops & Turmeric Chips: Marinated in aromatic spiced yoghurt, ginger & garlic with tomato coriander & mint chutney;
Angry Bird: Succulent chicken thighs marinated & roasted in tandoor spices, yoghurt, ginger & garlic, served with popped mustard Mowgli Slaw;
Bunny Chow: A fruity, hot, chicken & potato curry served inside a bread loaf;
Gunpowder: Chicken poppers, ginger, garlic, garam masala & golden fried in a chickpea batter;
Three Lamb Curries: Long simmered Lamb with anise, plums and chickpeas.
The main dishes were supported by one Puri Vegan Milan Roti and two Mowgli Basmati Rice portions.
We all thoroughly enjoyed this excursion away from the traditional dishes that we are used to in our monthly forages into the extensive variety of restaurants scattered throughout the length and breadth of Leicestershire and we concluded that it was well worth the visit.
We did find that the bill was a little pricier than we are used to, but maybe this is reflected in the location, the decoration and furnishings of the establishment. Finally, we rated the overall score highly in the table of this year’s results, so we have no hesitation in recommending a visit to our readers if they feel like pushing the boat out one evening or making an impression.