I sampled the best Street Food offering by a Coseley Indian restaurant known for top quality meals

Let’s start out with stating an obvious fact about myself: I love a good curry.

Over the years, I have dined at some very good Indian, Bangladeshi, Nepalese and even Sri Lankan restaurants and enjoyed the wares they’ve had to offer.

Put some mango chutney, chilli pickle and mint yogurt in front of me with chopped, seasoned onions and crispy poppadums', then follow it up with soft, fluffy rice, herby roti and a nicely spiced chicken curry with pilau rice and I’m a happy boy.

Living in the Black Country, I’m surrounded by quality places offering exactly that and I’ve enjoyed plenty of good meals as a result.

What’s nice is when a place thinks outside of the box and provides a combination meal or platter that gives a flavour of what the restaurant cooks and provides enough to make you want to go back.

One place which has taken on this challenge and produced a rich combination meal is Chutney in Coseley, who have taken a range of dishes on their menu and put together an Indian Street Food Platter cooked by a high quality chef and full of different dishes.

It sounded like a winner to me, so on a wet, windy and wintry night, I entered the brightly coloured restaurant in search of a good meal and, to be honest, just to get warm, and I found a brightly coloured and very modern looking restaurant.

The manager Jubel Ahmed met me at the door and gave me a brief tour of the restaurant, telling me about a recent refurbishment which had seen the place painted and decorated and new furniture added, while also mentioning a past story about the restaurant in the Express and Star around providing emergency workers with meals during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This community spirit clearly lends itself to the restaurant as you get a warm welcome on the way in and you feel like you’re arriving at a family home for a meal.

As well as that, the smells emanating from the kitchen were divine, full of spice and other smells which stimulate the senses and make your mouth water.

After an excellent starting offering of poppadums' with a fine combination of a homemade chilli sauce (the recipe of which remains a secret), mango chutney, mint yogurt and a tangy pot of chopped vegetables, Jubel brought over what appeared to be a platter of food which would feed at least three or four people.

It came with a plethora of colourful, spiced and aromatic dishes in bowls, with crispy and seasoned naan bread on the inside and was described by Jubel as bottomless dining.

Going around the circle, the first bowl had aubergine pakora and a vegetable samosa, then homemade paratha, Indian-style Chow Mein (a Chutneys speciality), boiled rice, Chicken Achari, Chicken Jhall Masala, Tarka Dhal with a Mexican twist, homemade chips, a mixture of tikka dishes and a bowl of different salad items.

It was a mighty selection, full of different flavours and tastes, so I decided not to stand on ceremony and threw my fork into the first bowl in front of me, which was the unusual idea of aubergine pakora.

I am not a big fan of the purple, odd-looking vegetable, but deep fry it in a spice batter and I will sing its praises to anyone who will listen, crunchy and with a rich taste, plus you can’t mess up a samosa, so that was a good start.

The tikka dishes were Malay Tikka (cooked with Greek Yogurt and Philadelphia Cream Cheese), a traditional Chicken Tikka and another one which, while the name escapes me, the taste was very rich and full of spice, so this dish did not last long.

The Chow Mein was fabulous, containing small amounts of green chillis which delivered a kick, as well as crunchy and seasoned vegetables and lovely, soft and tangy noodles, while the Chicken Achari was spicy and had a potent kick to it, but not sacrificing taste as a result.

You can’t go wrong with a Tikka Masala and this one was excellent, going well with the rice and neatly parcelled in the paratha, while the Tarka Dhal was pungent and zinged with a sour, but very flavourful taste, with a hint of coriander at the back of my throat while eating it.

It was a wonderful combination of flavours and tastes, with the homemade chips a wonderful addition to the meal as they were not something you always find in an Indian restaurant, but which added a unique counterpoint to the spices.

I had a good go at it, but still had more than half the meal left over, which lent to my previous point that a good few people could order this and very happily enjoy their meal.

Chutney will be doing this Street Food Platter on December 18 for £25.95 per person and have plans to do it on regular intervals during the next year. 

I would happily recommend doing this or, in general, just having a meal there as the place is welcoming and warm, the service is top notch and the food is extremely good.

To find out more about Chutney, go to chutneyindiancoseley.com/