Indian Lunch Review Day 4: Chana Dabalroti

Submitted by India Week on Thu 08/03/12

As part of India Week, we are trying a different Indian dish for lunch every day this week. Each day we will be eating something from the menu at Masala Zone and will be reviewing it for you. Today's dish is Chana Dabalroti.

For Day 4 of the most curry-tastic week ever, we had Chana Dabalroti on the lunch menu. This was the first dish of the week where we didn't really know what to expect. It had been described as a curried sandwich, but other than that, we went in pretty blind.

What we got was a wet medley of tangy chickpea curry, lotus root and big hearty chunks of bread all mixed in to each other, and topped with small bits of dry sev (a type of rice noodle). This unusual dish is apparently a speciality from the Sindh province of Pakistan and is unlike any other curry I've tried before. For just £4.10 it is also a bit of a bargain.

Chana Dabalroti

The thick sauce was surprisingly spicy, but not too hot (even for my relatively sensitive mouth). The bread used is far more like the Western bread we are used to than the flat breads you would usually associate with Indian cuisine. This meant that it soaked up the sauce, forming lovely juicy, chunks of bread.

Equally, it was nice, after quite a meat-heavy week, to have a vegetarian dish. By using chickpeas to replace the meat and fluffy bread to replace the heavier rice of more 'normal' curry dishes, it is quite a light dish. This makes the Chana Dabalroti a perfect light lunch, snack or evening starter.

Overall, when it is all too easy to order your favourite meaty curry, the Chana Dabalroti is something a little bit different and well worth trying. We always like to prove we're not lying about our enjoyment of the dishes, which I think is certainly shown by the picture below.

If you fancy trying the Chana Dabalroti, then you can visit a Masala Zone at one of seven different locations in London. What's more, if you are a student then you can get 10% off the bill with student ID on Sunday to Thursday before 6.30pm or after 10pm.

Finished!