Any Dublin readers who were intrigued by our recipe for chicken karahi, featured on these pages a few weeks back, but who remain somewhat shy of getting out the karahi pan and doing it for themselves, have reason to be very grateful to The Bombay Pantry.
This is because the Bombay Pantry produces the best chicken karahi I have eaten outside of Pakistan, and what's more, a decent portion of it costs just £5.25. A little bit of culinary heaven, for the price of a glossy magazine.
Mind you, you might not think the Pantry would be the sort of place to produce culinary heaven. It's a little shop tucked in amid the tiny collection of places which make up the Glenageary Shopping Centre (a Spar, a video shop, a chemist) and it has changed hands and directions a few times over the years, while remaining a cooked-food-to-go operation.
But the wild activity and bustle on the Monday night when I drove there to order dinner suggests that the local gossip on the Pantry is hot. In the space of deciding what I wanted and actually ordering it, the chef, Vivek Sahni, who cooks with his fellow proprietor, Ronan Fleming, came out of the kitchen on several occasions, each time increasing the length of time which he needed in order to prepare the orders which were coming in over the telephone as well as from punters in the shop.
This is a reassuring thing, I think, for it shows a chef and an operation determined to get things right and not to hurry them, and our dinner, delivered to my friend's house in Glasthule, was a real cracker. In fact, given that the food can be ordered by telephone and then delivered to your door for only £1 or £2 extra, I very much doubt if anyone on the southside in the vicinity of the Bombay Pantry will ever cook Indian again.
What is interesting about the selection of dishes offered is the very unclicheed way in which they are described. Prawns Bhuna, which carries a "recommended" tag, is described as "Prawns fried with curry leaves, black pepper and cumin finished in a medium hot Bengali sauce", which tells you everything you need to know about the dish. "Goan Fire House Lamb", meanwhile, is described as "A fiery hot dish from the west coast of India, laced with fresh green chillies, similar in taste to the vindaloo". This is very precise and informative writing, and the only problem it poses is that you end up wanting to order every one of the 30 dishes they sell.
And so, after much agonising, I settled on traditional samosas and a dish called Batata Vada, as starters, and then chicken karahi and two vegetarian choices as main dishes - Karahi Paneer ("This home-made Indian cheese curry is chilli-hot, semi-dry and colourful"), and Rajmah Punjabi, a dish of kidney beans, described as from a recipe from the roadside stalls of Punjab, which is a vegan choice. I asked also for two naan breads, paid the bill of £20.15, added £1 for the delivery charge, and went home to chill the wine.
Forty-five minutes later, my friend and I were at the table, as happy as could be. Both the samosas - stuffed with potato, peas and peanuts and very delicately spiced - and the batata vada - a potato dumpling stuffed with cashews, peanuts and lemon, ginger and coriander which is deep fried in a gram batter - were spot on: delicate, subtle, not at all greasy and extremely pleasing, with the note of coriander coming through strongly in the batata vada. Best of all, the food was fresh and vivid in taste and very enlivening, the sign of careful cooking.
The starters were good, but they were merely a warm-up act for the star of the evening, the chicken karahi. We drooled over this, its expert sweetness and succulence enrapturing, the lovely meld of tomatoes, chillies, peppers, fenugreek and coriander matched by very tender and flavourful chicken. The nicest way to eat the karahi is to break off a piece of naan bread and to use it as a utensil to eat the chicken.
I was reminded of the letter from B.R. of Dalkey, who wrote and tipped me off about the Pantry, and who said she and her husband "have eaten from there a dozen times because most often we are happy not to dress up or drive and to celebrate at home". Wisdom indeed.
The celebration continued with the Rajmah Punjabi. The red kidney beans had been cooked perfectly, and this allowed them to absorb the spicing and made for a dish with brisk, fresh flavours. The Karahi Paneer was very spicy, hot, and excellent, the cheese just terrific. The naan breads were torn apart and dunked and chewed and used to mop up and they were just as delicious as everything else.
It was a faultless dinner, cooking which showed great pride and care, and we enjoyed it with utter relish, feeling very grateful indeed for a blissful Monday supper.
The Bombay Pantry, Unit 2, Glenageary Shopping Centre, Co Dublin, tel: 01 285 6683.