Winter break has meant marathon eating for me. With no formal plans for dinner I decided to go out to Tandoori Kona! Although I haven’t been until today, I’ve long known that Tandoori Kona is supposed to be the best Indian restaurant in Richmond.
It is located in a strip mall at No. 5 and Cambie in Richmond. It was relatively easy to find and had decent parking (but make sure you don’t park in one of the 15/30/60 min spots). We arrived around 6:30 pm on a Thursday night and took a seat right away. Shortly after we came there was quite a long wait at the door.
Between the two of us, we ordered an appetizer and an entrée. It was more than enough food!
What we ate:
Papadum
- Complimentary Indian crackers with fennel seeds
- These were nice to snack on while we waited for out appetizers but I don’t think I could eat too many due to the strong flavour of fennel
- The sauce was the sweet sauce that was served with the appetizer platter. I really liked how it complemented the spices
Combination Appetizer (pictures didn’t turn out)
- Came with vegetable pakora, chicken pakora, and fish pakora and two sauces
- Pakora are marinated, battered, and deep fried
- My favourite was the vegetable pakora that were made out of potato or cauliflower
- One of the sauces was fairly thin and had a sweet taste. The other was a bit spicier. We never really found out what the sauces were but enjoyed them both
Butter Chicken (mild)
- All entrées could be order mild, medium, or spicy. We chose mild for the butter chicken
- All entrées are served with rice and naan bread!
- This was the best butter chicken I have ever had! The chunks of chicken breast were large and moist and the sauce was extremely rich and flavourful (but not hot-spicy at all)
Lamb Tikka (medium)
- This lamb is cooked inside of a Tandoor oven and comes with a tomato sauce (similar to the butter chicken sauce but not as creamy)
- Next time I will probably order everything medium spicy. The balance between flavour and heat was excellent!
- Lamb was tender, while not fatty, and well spiced
The bill came to around $23 each after tax+tip. The food was so rich that we had leftovers and probably could have done without the appetizers. I definitely understand why this is known as the best Indian restaurant in Richmond now and will be returning many times in the future!
One Response to “Tandoori Kona”