Mrs Oregano and I have just returned from a long weekend in Inverness and the NE Highlands. We decided this time to go by train - one of the reasons being that we could dine at Diwani close to Euston Station before getting the Caledonian Sleeper train to Inverness.

When I worked in Wembley in the 1980s a colleague from Madras said that we should go to Drummond Street near Euston to get "real Southern Indian food" as opposed to the typical "curryhouse fare". At that time I was not disappointed and I wanted my wife to experience it.

We arrived at about seven o'clock which gave us almost two hours before boarding our train. Diwani is a mere five minutes walk away from Euston station.

 

Inside Diwani looks like a glorified cafe with wooden pine seating. Some of the seats with individual chairs look OK for comfort, such as those shown below.

 

However quite a large section is of wooden benches and tables that are very cramped indeed. We sat in one of these 4-seater tables, the waiters being very reasonable about the large amount of luggage we took with us for the train; in fact I do not think we were the only people eating before a late night train journey. The cramped conditions are my excuse too for rather poor food photos further on  . Service was helpful and friendly.

For anybody wanting to drink alcohol with food a point to note is that Diwana is unlicensed. However nextdoor is a very good Indian licensed grocer so it is possible to bring your own beer, wine, etc to eat with your food. If - like I do - you live in a town without S. Asian shops, the grocer was a real treat offering rarer spices like asefetida and black cumin.

The Diwana menu is purely vegetarian and combines Gujurati and S Indian dishes; a waiter said that the guv was Gujurati. Unlike most Indian restaurants I have visited outside of Southall or Wembley, a significant proportion of the customers were S Asian which I take to be a positive sign. We were served complimentary popadoms and pickles. Unlike many curry houses near my town the mango chutney looked like it was served out of the jar with good-sized chunks of mango. (I have nothing against restaurants using a blender with pickles but too often water is added too!).

For our starter we ordered the Diwana platter.

 

This consisted of a "spring roll", a bhaji, a skewer, a potato tube, a hot tomato-based sauce and salad. The potato tube on the bottom left was deep fried. The skewer did not appear to have been used on a grill but merely as a means of displaying the food. About half the skewer items were deep fried potato discs covered with gram flour. The rest was grilled pepper. We shared and enjoyed this combination.

For the main course Mrs Oregano went for the Thali Annupurna Special.

 

This consisted of a variety of vegetable curries, dall and raita served with puris and rice. The curries were great but the puris seem rather hard.

I went for a paper dosa. I recall these from the trip I did many years ago as they look quite spectacular.

 

This was served with coconut chutney, a sort of  thin dal (sambar) and mashed potato with mustard and tumeric. It seemed a shame to disturb the dosa as it seemed a work of art. However I succumbed and enjoyed the accompanying dishes very much.

We ordered espressos - which were definitely not the best I have had - but perhaps this was not the smartest choice of drink in this type of restaurant. The bill came to about £27.92 for two of us which we thought was very good value for a central London location and very special food.

I should point out that by eight o'clock the place was completely packed with a queue outside. The waiters were certainly kind to give us benches capable of seating 4 (albeit in a cramped way) for two of us and our luggage.

Summary:

 starters & main course taste & presentation, service, price
 seating & coffee

Yesterday I did this vaguely Iberian fish stew. I love raw fennel in a salad with fish, but have often been disappointed when cooking fennel as the aniseed taste goes if cooked too long. A stew is a good place to combine white fish with oily fish. I had hoped to buy coley (more sustainable than cod) but did not find it at my local fish counter

Serves 4

200 g chorizo
mackerel fillets (about 350 g)
one cod fillet (about 150 g)
two medium onions
one fennel bulb
1 tsp fennel seed
1 large sprig thyme
2 tbsp wild garlic oil (alternatively 3 large cloves of garlic)
2 bay leaves
1 tsp paprika
500 g passata
olive oil
salt & pepper
100 ml water

Method

1. Cover the bottom of a saucepan with sufficient olive oil to just cover it and heat it
2. Finely chop the chorizo and fry gently in the pan
3. Add the fennel seed
4. Once the chorizo fat is released, chop the onions and sweat with the chorizo for 5 minutes
5. Add the passata, bay leaves, paprika, wild garlic oil, water, salt and pepper and simmer for 15 minutes
6. Chop the fennel bulb into thin slices and add to stew
7. Simmer for a further 15 minutes
8. Scale the mackerel and slice into bite size pieces, slice cod into bite size pieces and add both to stew
9. Serve after 5 minutes

The stew could be served with potatoes or couscous but we served it with boiled rice. I boiled 400 g in the rice cooker then just before serving mixed 50 ml white wine, 25 ml white wine vinegar and 1 tsp sugar and folded this through the rice.