LUMBINI
Verdict: 7/10 (Nice and different food for affordable price)
On 19 April 2008 (Saturday), I and an adventurous eater friend went all the way to Studley, near Redditch, to visit the Nepalese restaurant Lumbini. It took us about 30 min. drive from Birmingham south.
The restaurant took its name from the place of pilgrimage in Nepal where Buddha was thought to be born.
We entered the place at 10 past noon. There were one waiter and a barman inside, and they looked surprised and perplexed to see us. Later we were told that that it is usually not busy during lunch service, but as we had a reservation, they should not have been surprised that much.
The dining area is roughly divided into two sections by the bar counter. As I did not go beyond the bar area, I cannot say how many tables are there, but it is not a small restaurant. Notice a poster with Gurkha soldiers on the pillar, on the left side of the photo. We saw also several Gurkha knives decorating the walls.
As we made this trip just to visit the restaurant, we decided to order starters, too. Although we did not order papadoms, we were given a small bowl of salad without any seasoning whatsoever. I guess it should have gone with papadom dips, but as we did not order papadom, it was weird.
Here are Momo, famous Nepalese dumplings (£ 3.20). The momo I have seen in my life had round shape, but these ones had the same shape as Chinese dumplings, albeit that the skin was thicker than the one normally used for Chinese ones. The sauce in the middle is tomato chutney. They were like Chinese dumplings with curry spice and tasted good.
This is the other starter, Chili chicken (£ 3.20): chicken breast stir-fried with onion, capsicum peppers and fresh green chili with spicy tomato sauce, sprinkled with chopped fresh coriander.
When we ordered this, the waiter made a complexion as if he was worrying for us, but if large pieces of fresh green chili were removed, the sauce itself wasn't hot, indeed was rather sweet.
The chicken was very tender. My dining companion suggested the use of pressure cooker. As it is not possible to cook whole this dish in a pressure cooker, they might have tenderised chicken breasts in pressure cooker, and then chopped and mixed with various sauces. Just a guess.
Then, main course. To not eat only curries, we had one tandoori dish. But the tandoori is not called tandoori, but chulo in Nepalese, so this is a Chulo dish, Malai Khasi (£ 5.75). According to the menu description, it is lamb pieces marinated in cashewnuts, ginger, garlic and herb, and baked in oven. The plate was made of iron and it arrived sizzling. On top of the meat were sliced spring onion and garnished with some leaves: good presentation, and looked pretty appetizing.
The meat was not cut into cubes but 0.5 cm slices, and then skewered. This meat was again very tender. It was fine, but personally I prefer juicier lamb with stronger meat taste.
This is a side dish that we chose from the Vegetable side dish section, Nepali Tarkari (£ 2.80). Very good value for money, as in quantity wise it is almost as much as main dish curries. It is somehow unfortunate that all the curries look same in photo.
It is a curry of yellow split peas, with various vegetables including okra, cauliflower, spinach etc. Peas have completely lost shape, and the texture is very creamy. At first, I though it needed more kick, but while I was eating, I appreciated more and more the goodness. As there are many types of veggie, you won't get bored. This is the dish I like the most on that day.
We had also a curry dish, of course. This is Khasi Gurkhali chose from the Lumbini specialties section on the menu (£ 6.50). (By the way, Lumbini offers more familiar 'Indian' curries, too). It contains onions, capsicum peppers, as well as lamb cubes.
As same as the chili chicken, the sauce itself is mild but there are several sliced fresh green chili, so if you bite in the chili, it is obviously hot.
Probably you can tell from how it looks that it is not as oily as normal balti type curries. The restaurant website says that they use cholesterol free vegetable oil, and careful in using oil and salt.
To accompany the main dishes we had a bowl of basmati rice (£ 2), and an oven-baked roti (£1.20).
As roti isn't fermented, it is thinner, crispier and less dough-ey in texture than nan. This one was cooked very nicely and we liked it.
I cannot resist writing about the service we had. At that occasion, there was only one waiter and we were the only customers. As drink, one of us ordered lassi and the other a bottle of mineral water. He could not remember which ordered which and gave wrong items twice. At the second time, he started laughing and said "Oh, I keep on mistaking all afternoon!". We laughed as well.
While we were eating main course, he came to our table twice to ask if everything was all right. As I was visited by the barman, we were asked three times in total. My dining companion suggested it was how the Gurkhas patrol. Another laugh.
He came to chat with us when we finished eating. And when we stand up to leave, he dashed to the door to open it for us. But we need to get our coats that we had handed in to him when we arrived, so we went to take them on our own from the coat hanger. He rushed back saying "Sorry, sorry", and helped us with coats. We had a big laugh again. I am not complaining here; it was just a big fun.
Lastly, the bill. With one lassi (£ 2.95) and one mineral water (£ 3.25), the total came to £ 30.95 (£ 34 with service). We thought it was a good value for 2 course meal x 2, 1 side, and 2 soft drinks. The distance is a major problem for me, but it there is any chance, I would like to go back.
Lumbini Nepalese Restaurant
31 Alcester Road, Studley, Warwickshire, B80 7LL. (Google Map)
Opening Hours: Mon.-Sat. 12.00-2.30, 18.00-23.00
(Reservation recommended for weekend evening. Open also Bank Holidays)
http://www.lumbini-restaurant.co.uk/
