While the rest of the world baked in the summer sun, I headed for Dhaba Diner, to enact my regular ritual of eating Indian food for lunch when it’s blazing hot outside.
Exterior
Dhaba Diner is an Indian tapas place, featuring a good array of options, including dosas and other street food classics, served in smaller portions, to aid greater sampling.
Edinburgh has a few places offering this approach to Indian dining, including Guchhi and Tuk Tuk.
Butter chicken
The basement setting is pretty smart, and you get a good view of the goings on in the kitchen, from the rear seating section. My helpful and chatty waiter showed me to a table in that section, and asked if this was my first visit to the restaurant.
This question often strikes fear in to my heart, as places (Chop Chop springs to mind) that feel the need to explain their “concept” in painstaking detail really get on my nerves. On this occasion, it quickly became clear that the waiter was just being helpful, which was great news.
Naan
He helped guide me through the structure of the menu, during which time I handed the responsibility for decisions over to him. He suggested that I might like to try two dishes, offering the butter chicken and creamy saag gosht as suggestions. I was happy with that and suggested I might like a naan or paratha to mop up the sauces. He suggested the former would work better.
My dishes were soon with me, and looked rather promising. The naan looked particularly good, so I dived towards it, while it was freshly hot. It proved to be excellently light and crispy, and right up there with the finest naans I’ve tried in the city.
Saag gosht
Both main dishes were very good, too. The butter chicken had a nice warm spicing to it, and the chicken was chunky and tender. The saag gosht was packed with flavour, with really lovely pieces of lamb. Although it’s often the case with me, I did make a comprehensive job of cleaning the plates of every last morsel.
So overall, I was impressed with Dhaba Diner. I thank the good weather for making me go there. It’s definitely attempting a similar project to Tuk Tuk, but is doing so to a conspicuously higher standard. I’d be happy to recommend that you pay it a visit, and look forward to returning with a larger party, so I can try further dishes from their menu.
Scores
Blythe scores Dhaba Diner
4/5 for food
3.5/5 for presentation
3.5/5 for setting
4/5 for service
giving an overall 15/20
Today’s quester was: Blythe
I ate: butter chicken, saag gosht with cream, plain naan
I drank: water
I wore: summer linens
Total bill: £11.35
