This posting is out of sequence as I have had so much work to do before going to Texas. I am now stuck at Dallas airport waiting for the plane to be repaired. I did not find time to post this before my trip due to heavy work pressure.

 

Friends recommended the Anokaa Restaurant as not being the typical 'curry house'. Our first impression was of a good decor and good planning. The menu was noticably different from the usual Asian restaurant as the typical Madras, vindaloo, do-piazza and passanda curries were not explicitly listed although available on request. There were more mediterranean ingredients e.g. basil and British ingredients like monkfish on the main menu. The menu looked very interesting though some of the spellings are a bit odd.

We tried the mixed platter starter which was beautifully presented on a long dish.

 

The pakora and samosa were fried at just the right temperature to ensure that they were crisp rather than soggy. For the main course I went for the lamb tawa mossala (it's good to see a lamb dish labelled as 'lamb' rather than the all too often 'meat' which always sounds dodgy to me!). My wife chose the mehti ka murg. Both dishes tasted really good and were presented in a modern way.

We do not often try Indian side dishes but I was attracted to the Jaipur style okra and the roasted aubergine with corriander seeds and shallots. In my view okra, which has a very mild taste, can be rather boring (like the deep fried okra in Green Mesquite) though certainly not bad-tasting. This okra tasted very good indeed - I do not know what the 'Jaipur style' meant but it certainly was good! The aubergine reminded me a lot of a balkan ajvar which is also based on roast aubergine (plus roast peppers). This tasted very good indeed.

So good, in fact, I tried to do something similar at home the following day. Having successfully roasted the aubergine and mixed it with corriander seeds I managed to drop the dish on my kitchen floor. The aubergine spread all over the outside of the oven and kitchen units - it looked like somebody had spewed it up!

The restaurant owner was very friendly and said that he was trying to provide a more contemporary version of Indian cooking. He reckoned that a secret to success was importing spices directly from India.

I can thoroughly recommend Anokaa. Great tasting food!