Moving away from the Balkans for a few posts, I’ve been trying to find someone to take me to Mowgli for a while. After discovering the half-price curry offer running on Mondays this month, I was able to convince my friend James to come along for one of our executive lunches. It’s good practice in advance of the 2027 Norwich market expedition and also a precursor to my new monthly Indian meal which I’m pleased to see has a decent-sized group going this week.
It has a smart, contemporary interior and reminded me of the Dishoom chain, which frequently surprises and delights me.
It was clean and comfortable, but the tables are perhaps a little too close to each other which does take away from the ambience a little.
The lunchtime special menu.
The deal was that any of the curries in this section on the right, other than the biryani, were included in the half-price offer. Unfortunately, the half-price offer was not applied automatically, meaning that customers had to know about it and ask for the reduction. I’m never especially impressed when restaurants operate promotions in this way.
I ordered the mango lassi and it was a small serving for the price, although it looked attractive when presented. Its consistency was thinner than I had expected and neither the yoghurt nor the mango had enough presence to provide the usual richness and freshness.
The main curry I ordered was the Goan fish curry and I opted for that as the menu stated that it was “fiery, tangy, sweet and delicious” but this was devoid of any depth of flavour that I could identify. The fish was tender and served in a generous quantity of sauce, but this element didn’t have any fiery dimension to it. I tried a bit of James’s butter chicken, just visible at the rear of the photo, and the chicken was tender but again there was no discernible complexity to the flavours. Although the two curries were different dishes, neither established a particularly distinctive flavour of its own.
The Mowgli Black Dahl was served as a generous portion, but its consistency was loose and watery rather than rich and velvety. It also lacked the slick of cream promised on the menu, which might have provided some much-needed richness. The Tea Steeped Chickpeas perhaps fared better texturally, with the chickpeas retaining a pleasant firmness, but the flavours again needed greater seasoning. I’m not necessarily expecting a huge punch in terms of spice, but I do want some complexity.
I would say that the dishes were all competent, they were well presented, hot and the server named them carefully when placing them on the table. Nothing tasted bad and I enjoyed all the food, but perhaps they had oversold the experience that I was expecting.
The service was friendly and timely, although I’m not convinced by the need to add both a charity donation and service charge automatically to the bill. The price was reasonable given the half-price main courses, but the quality wasn’t there for me. Indian food needs greater depth and complexity. Overall, it was all too mild and I felt that the food sat closer to supermarket microwave quality than to anything authentic or richly flavoured. I have mentioned before that there is something perhaps a little wrong that JD Wetherspoon, who make no claim of authenticity relating to Indian street-food, are rolling out curries that have a greater depth of taste than a restaurant that is meant to be specialising in Indian cuisine.
Having noted all that, I was pleased to have visited and it’ll be interesting to see how the chain manages its rollout of restaurants across the UK. And James, my external food consultant, who has been before and apparently ordered nearly the entire menu, deserves some praise for taking me as we planned the third biennial tour of every food stall at Norwich Market.