Legacy of India North Adelaide

It’s Friday’s night and it’s night for foodies to hunt for great cuisines in town. Adelaide is renowned for its multi-culture and hence has so many different cuisines from  all over the world. I love curries and oh, yes Indian food.

Legacy of India in North Adelaide is our target tonight. I’ve tried so many Indian restaurants in my years in Adelaide, good or bad. In fact, people may have not known that most of the Indian restaurants are south India cuisine whereas the one that I am going to try tonight is north Indian. The difference is north Indian is warmer in taste and drier than south Indians. Knowing this, it helps me a lot to understand the differences in taste from other ones.

 

We arrived there at 6pm and it’s fully empty. Actually I was a bit worried about the food quality but I soon changed my idea because of a rather welcoming waiter.

 

The inside is a sleek and tidy environment with some framed pictures on its walls and we had a window seat. The waiter was considerable and suggested us to avoid sun light. Anyway, I am very happy with the service throughout dinner. Water is topped up quickly and some recommendations were useful.  The only thing that I suggest the restaurant to change is to monitor flies. Through my 1 hr dinning, 7-8 flies were around my table and some of them event tried to invade our dishes.

 

Papadums come before all dishes as all Indian restaurants do. I should say honestly the papadums of this restaurant is very plain and should have more spices.

 

 

We ordered two main dishes, three naans and a glass of Lemon Lime Bitters at first, hoping it’s enough for two. BUT when the food comes, I sort of wondered why there are not many pieces of chicken or fish in the dish.

 

 

Chicken Madras $17.50, it’s a southern Indian styled dish with mustard seeds and curries. It is tasty, I should say, but does not have a unique character for the dish. The coconut milk taste isn’t fully enhanced in this dish and personally, I think this dish can go a bit better than it is now.

 

 

Fish Mumtaz Mahal, $18.50. This dish is so gooooooooooood and I loved it so much that I can”t help myself to finish it very quickly. It is a favourite dish of emperor Shah Jahan which was created to impress his queen Mumtaz. He also built the Taj Mahal for her and this is a very rare curry with fish fillets. The fish was pre-fried as strips; the curry is medium hot and sharp with chillies, sweet with jaggery and sour with tamrind & lemon juice! IT IS VERY VERY SPECIAL AMONG ALL INDIAN DISHES I’VE EVER TRIED! Highly recommended for foodies to try.

 

While having the above two dishes, I thought they may not be enough for me and my miss so we asked the waiter to recommend me another dish. On their menu, there is a section, “TAWA ITEMS“, which is a hot plate dish. I asked the waiter whether this is a traditional Indian food. He said “no” and from his facial expression I can see that he does not like the “invention” at all. Anyway, I ordered beef vindaloo instead. Again, the  beef vindaloo is not at my expectations. It’s hot but not enough. It has tomato in the blend but I cannot taste anything like that.

 

 

Oh, I ordered one plain naan and two garlic naans as well. They have a very special heart shape and look very good. Standard taste though.

 

 

 

 

The dinner took 1 hour to be finished and we left the restaurant very full. Walked home for the night. Adelaide is surely not big – from North Adelaide to CBD only took us 30 mins by walking. I still can remember the taste of Fish Mumtaz Mahal! Surely a specialty of this restaurant. However, except this dish, nothing else is that special. Overall, as a lunch spot, the food is okay but as a restaurant, Legacy of India has a long way to go.

 

Food: 2.5/5
Service: 4/5
Value: 2/5
Ambience: 2/5

Total: 10.5/20

Legacy of India North Adelaide

116 O’Connell St
Adelaide, 5006

P: 08 8267 6945