I had dinner in a very good Indian/ Pakistani restaurant called Old Jawad last night .
My Tunisian friend told me that Jawad means a Horse in Arabic .
Well , Javed is a very common Indian name . I dont know if Javed and Jawad are the same .Why will any one name their child as a horse. Hmmm yes but we do have Ashwini as a Hindu name too.
Sorry to start on a negative note but my impression about these so called " Indian "
restaurants outside India is not that good .
Most of them claim to be Indian but are usually Pakistani , Bangladeshi or Sri Lankan.They use the same sauces and spices for all dishes .Most of them use ready made / shop brought masalas in fact.
The very very few rare authentic Indian ones are very costly and run by 5 star chefs .
RATN in Champs Elysee is one such restaurant . Its was good no doubt but was also Super Costly.
We ( Sri and myself ) had gone there way back in 2008 .Just the main course and red wine without any starters and dessert cost us nearly 100 Euros then .
Well this is about Old Jawad in Opera ( Auber ) so I will stick to that .
Hmm so we started at 7 30 and reached around 8:00 PM . We were nearly 9 of us .
It was bang in the Centre of Paris near Opera (Auber) .Nice area . In front of the restaurant stood a theater for plays .
The restaurant itself is quite big by 'Foreign' standards.
It has seating capacity for more than 100 at a time .
Well decorated with thick red velvet curtains ,it had a very sophisticated air The chairs were lined with thick cushions .
All done with white and light brown it gave a very 'rich' air .
In the center there stood a big huge ' flower pot ' with lights coming out of stems like flowers in a vase .
The waiters were quick and brisk .
We were served some free drinks .We were served some kind of alcohol in blue color .Never tasted it before . It smelt and tasted good . Of course no one knew what it was.It has lemon pieces swimming in it .Some of us took beer . I am wary of drinking alcohol while alone . So I stopped with one glass of blue something .
After taking our orders , the dishes started coming within minutes.
Whew what a relief from restaurants which make us wait more than 30 mins .
The starter ( for me ) was veg bhajia . Vegetarians don't have many options anyway .
It was oily as expected. I could not eat much. As expected it had a lot of soda to make it crunchy and fluffy . Soda absorbs a lot of oil .The starter came with a naan bread .Some of my friends took 'Fromage Naan ' -Cheese naan. Actually Cheese naan should be made of Panner but here , there and every where except my home town they make Cheese Naan with English Cheese . No wonder its all runny and heavy .
The main course was heaven .
I have never seen such thin slim basmati in my life .gosh it looked like small needles . U know praise is genuine when it comes from me . I rarely praise .
Very fluffy very tasty. They served mix veg with that rice . It should have been dal ( lentils ) of some kind .
It went with the menu and we were not allowed to change it .
For 20.00 Euros it was a good menu -Starter Bhajji ( or Bhajiya as some Northerners call it ) with naan ,
main course fluffy needle like basmatic spiced rice with mixed veg and kulfi as dessert . Yummmmy .
The free drinks, papads and the liqueur at the end were great too .The ambiance was good and simple. No heavy so called ethnic paintings no loud music , no jarring murals about semi clad women by the riverside . It did have some paintings hung on the wall but it was simple , in not very bright colors and few in number .
All served quickly , nicely , promptly by no nonsense waiters who were good at just small chit chat and did not linger long to talk about how they miss their home towns way back in whichever part of the world or how their grandparents were from India blah blah ...
The food was filling but not heavy . I decided to take the train for a change. Usually I am a bit wary and end up taking a taxi at night. Our dinner finished at 11;00 PM and gosh the trains were so full .I was pleasantly surprised .I reached home at 11 ; 30 pm.
Old Jawad is worth a visit .
