Urban Choola Restaurant Review

Urban Choola has been open just three weeks. As soon as I saw the sign I was intrigued. This cosy little spot has been host to many restaurants / cafe's over the years, Amigos and Bohans are the previous two and I enjoyed eating at both of them. Amigos has moved furthur down London road to a bigger and shinier venue. I've no idea what happened to Bohans but their vegetarian breakfast sandwiches rid me of many a hangover.

The theme for this place is Indian street food, once inside you can see this reflected on the exposed brick walls - colourful prints illustrating various people enjoying street food in India.

The menu is short, a good sign and has sections such as "small bites", "all time favourites" and "tandoori and the grill". I order chicken masala dosa, lamb seekh kebab for my mum and masala chicken wings.

A short while later my wings arrived on their own, so me and my mum ended up sharing them. They were accompanied by "khacumber" salad which consisted of chopped carrot, cabbage, lemon, red onion and fresh coriander. This was nice and seen as they'd salted the onions, they weren't too pungent, as raw onions usually are.
There was also a coriander lime dressing and the nine wings were covered in a thick tasty marinade.

The dosa and kebab arrived ten minutes after we'd finished the wings. My mum's masala fries which accompanied her kebab were so good! I could have eaten all those but she wouldn't have been happy about that. My dosa was tangy from the fermented lentils in the batter, with a rich masala filling and chunky chicken breast pieces. The chicken was dry, which is typical of authentic Asian chicken dishes. Some people might object to this overcooking of chicken but I ate chicken like this when I was growing up so this is how I personally prefer it.

 

It doesn't take much persuasion for me to agree to share a gujwa halwa (carrot pudding) with Ma.
Warm, sweet and buttery, with flavours of cardamon and almond, this pudding evokes lovely memories of my childhood. Didn't manage to snap a pic of this as we were almost finished it before I realised. It basically looks like a squishy orange pulp, topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream! What it lacks in appearance it makes up for in taste though. I'll be back again for their delicious sounding creme brulee with a twist.
Our meal, with a pepsi, came to £20.20



Food - 8/10
Service - 9/10
Value - 9/10