HERALD ON SUNDAY RATING: * * *
Address: 711 Mt Albert Rd, Royal Oak
Phone: 625 9888
Email: charestaurant.co.nz
Dinner: from 5.30pm
Lunch: Wed-Fri 11am-2.30pm
KEY POINTS:
Americans do parking well. And when American fast-food franchises set up shop here, they brought the parking with them. I suspect that the secret of such places is that it is always so easy to park. The only other possibility is that the food appeals to some people, which is an idea I find too hideous to contemplate.
Just east of the Royal Oak roundabout, the distinctive chalet shape marks what was once a Pizza Hut, although the corporate colours have been replaced by a lurid orange and red paint job and it's now an Indian and Thai restaurant. It goes without saying that parking is a breeze.
The Blonde and I were joined by my son, freshly back from the Andes where he endured some pretty rugged food at the back-packer gringo end of the food chain - he says his staple diet was "rice and fried pancreas", which sounds remarkably unappetising particularly since he's a vegetarian. So he was perhaps relishing the prospect of a decent feed. I know I was.
But, like the Blonde, I was sceptical. We both take the view that the larger a menu, the larger the likelihood of diner disappointment. Cha has about 2000 dishes.
All right, not 2000: it's probably not even half that. But you get reader's cramp just leafing through the menu, which comprises North and South Indian (if you don't know the difference, you've probably only had the former) and Thai.
The management recommends you come in a group so as to be able to sample widely, which would probably work ("OK, this side of the table, you take the first five pages"), but I can't help feeling I'd be just as bewildered.
I suppose it's a bit churlish to complain there's too much to choose from at a restaurant, but part of the experience of eating out is the sense of being taken care of. At Cha, I felt a little deluged.
Having issued instructions that nobody was to order butter chicken (which I've always thought of as the Indian-restaurant equivalent of losing the will to live), I battled through the menu - a task made considerably easier by a glass of Blackenbrook gewurztraminer.
We settled on half a dozen starters and three mains, all to be served at once. What arrived was perfectly fine and nothing more, but, perhaps because we were all hungry, everything looked much better on paper than it tasted. Kadalaka pakora, for example, were brown peanut patties (fashioned in a shape best described as unfortunate) which were so dry as to be palatable only after being dipped in the sauce from other dishes. Pan fried okra in a masala sauce was pretty good but a prawn dish described as "dry and best served spicy" was swamped with a thick gravy and as hot as hell.
Some paneer (cottage cheese) patties were more impressive, and a South Indian lamb curry was excellent, but the desserts were basic and, at $11.50, wildly overpriced. The Blonde regretted her decision to order a Thai chicken curry. The fact that I could see no Thai person in the kitchen may have had something to do with this.
In the end, Cha is a place to eat rather than a restaurant.
It's indisputably better than Pizza Hut, but is unlikely to impress as much as your favourite neighbourhood Indian or Thai.
Wine list: Pretty good - and well-priced.
Vegetarians: The "non-vegetarian" dishes are marked.
Watch out for: that iconic architecture.
Sound check: Conversation-friendly.
Bottom line: Spoiled for choice.
THE BILL
$183.50 for three
Entrees $7.50-$13.50
Mains $16.50-$25
Desserts $11.50
Wines $7.50-$8.50
- Detours, HoS
