Charisma of India
83D Sherbrook Street
Tel: (204) 222-7878 / 999-8297
Fax: (204) 222-7373
http://www.charismaofindia.com/index.html
April, 2010
The West End stretch of Sherbrook Street in the Broadway neighbourhood was a run-down, beat-up area that you likely don’t want to visit when the sun sets. The last few years saw a real rejuvenation effort with the addition and upgrade of numerous establishments. Charisma of India sits among those, nestled in a strip-mall, surrounded by several new area restaurants.
The friendly staff greets you as soon as you enter and brings you into the dark, open dining room. A few Indian-themed adornments decorate the walls, but largely, the room appears quite austere, but clean and welcoming.
I eschew buffets, period. Buffets offer you the opportunity to gorge on mass-produced, heat-lamp burnt, generic slop. No thanks. I prefer ordering off the menu and specially ordering my food done to my exact degrees of preference. Since I’m a chilli-head, that means getting at least a couple of screaming hot dishes that cause smoke to blow out your ears.
We ask for menus but the host insistently urges us to dine from the buffet. He explains that they replenish the buffet items constantly; they only put out the popular dishes and food turnaround goes quickly and often. Constant refreshing ensures that the food does not get stale or overheated. I bring up the spiciness issue and the host points out the spicy condiments; moreover, if they’re happy to special-serve dishes from the kitchen in addition to the buffet, with no extra charge—nice. All right, I’m sold—buffet it is.
The host leads us to the buffet area to introduce the food to us. He points at the salad greens and tells us,
“This is the same salad that you make at home—don’t eat this. If you want it, eat it at home, but don’t eat it here. It’s just grass.”
Okay.
He recommends the Indian salad, which comes with chick peas and a melange of other ingredients, none of which I can easily discern. I find most Indian dishes difficult to deconstruct since they use so many spices and herbs. With Indian food, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts and deconstructing the ingredients does no justice to the dish as a whole. In all, the salad tastes rich and creamy with a crunchy ingredient that adds texture. Delicious. A very sour and pungent pickled condiment is available but I recommend that you stay away from this option unless you truly enjoy fermented foods (think Korean kimchi taste).
Every meal comes with naan, also with no extra charge. I find plain naan often greasy and not worth the stomach space if it’s not all jazzed-up. A garlic naan would have been nice but the regular naan still tastes perfectly acceptable.
Charisma offers the usual pakora and samosa appetisers, and both have similar stuffings. The potato and vegetable filling have nice, earthy flavours, and the covering tastes crisp and crunchy. The entire package tastes fine but a little dry. I would skip the naan and the appetisers and dig straight into the mains.
As well as plain basmati rice, Charisma offers fried rice with assorted vegetables. Alone, the fried rice has nice flavours but the powerful essence of the sauces completely drowns out the rice’s essence. You can eat the fried rice without the sauce, but why would you? The buffet also features a fried noodle, similar to the Chinese chow mein. The pungent noodles have an acidic and spicy body but again, the noodles would be completely lost in the strength of the sauces. I can’t imagine not dowsing everything in the wonderful sauces. I salute Charisma for offering these dishes to appeal to all preferences but if you’re a true Indian fan, grab some plain basmati and dig deep into the sauce dishes.
The sauce dishes include: spicy chicken, curried goat, butter chicken, palak paneer (spinach), chicken korma, and chick peas. The spicy chicken tastes like a kicked-up butter chicken. While the heat won’t send you screaming, it delivers a nice punch. This red dish swims in tomato sauce and the tangy taste of the tomatoes overwhelms the dish a little. If you’re not a follower of tomato, you might not like this dish, but as a person who likes extra tomato sauce on his pizza, I love it.
By contrast, the butter chicken achieves the perfect combination of cream and spices with the tomato. Spectacular. As I said earlier, to break down what makes this a superior meal would take away from the wholeness of the presentation—just relax, eat it, and melt in its deliciousness.
The palak paneer tastes equally as rich and creamy as the butter chicken. The firm cubes of cottage cheese give nice contrast to the wonderful spinach heart. Even our most staunch carnivores enjoy this traditional, Northern, Indian staple. Trust me when I tell you that my company have similar carnivorous tendencies to those of cave people chasing down mastodons. The fact that these same cave people voraciously gulp down the spinach should give you a good indication to the quality of the food.
Finally, the creamy chicken korma continues the rich, pungent and flavourful assault. At first, I thought that the pieces of chicken were a little small and few, until one of our party members admitted to fishing out all of the chicken pieces. True to their word, Charisma replenished the bin without much wait. If you must look for a comparison, I would say that the korma tastes remotely like a delicious homemade cream of mushroom sauce, not out of a can, but painstakingly stewed. Add a hint of coconut and two dozen spices and voila, you have korma. Again, let’s not overanalyse it and just enjoy the food.
Because of the nature of cream, the creamed dishes don’t come too spicy; thus I like interspersing the creamed dishes with the butt-burning, tongue scorching, ear-smoking dishes. Our host explains that Indians don’t eat fiery dishes, just flavourful. People often confuse the two. Personally, I hear conflicting reports; I also hear that some Indians eat food so hot that non-Indians would spontaneously combust at the taste. Regardless, I like a good burn and a good burn can only come from the non-creamed dishes.
The non-creamed dishes include curried goat, curried chick peas and the ubiquitous tandoori chicken. I normally don’t order goat as you often find lots of bone and little meat in goat concoctions. If you work at it, you’ll find some goat meat but a considerable amount of bone dominates this dish. If you don’t want to fight through the bone, just ladle the delicious sauce onto your rice; the tangy sauce reminds me (only a bit) of the Asian black bean sauce.
The curried chick pea sauce has an earthy, deep and complex taste that works wonderfully with the chick pea texture. By now, my taste buds, numbed from spicy (both in the flavourful and hot sense) siege, can hardly discern between—well anything really. Again, let’s just eat and enjoy.
If you want a break from the meat onslaught, the buffet offers a light, curried vegetable mixture. Feeling heavy or bloated from the array of sauces, this is a good way to finish off the buffet.
The only disappointment I find with the buffet comes from the tandoori chicken. Every Indian restaurant I visit offers a dried-out, over-cooked tandoori chicken, sitting under a heat lamp and continuing to roast. Although Charisma’s chicken isn’t as dried-out as some, there’s no evidence of juices flowing from the meat. Considering how difficult it is to dry-out dark meat, this drumstick has seen quite a bit of heat (temperature, not spice).
The buffet doesn’t have any vindaloo dishes and Charisma is happy to make it for us. We ask for extra spicy but no smoke comes out of our ears. I’m sure if we emphasise how torturous we want it, they would oblige. Next time. Spiciness aside, the vindaloo tastes rich, earthy and full.
Trying to pair Indian food with wine can be very challenging, again because of their liberal use of spices and flavours. The simplest and best combination is to simply have an Indian beer with your Indian food. Charisma offers at least one or two types of Indian beers, including the common Kingfisher. They also bring in other brewers, depending on availability. Today, they also have Cougar and Cobra. The acidic nature of Cobra cuts through the heavy cream nicely and the crispness counteracts the spiciness. Alas, a paucity of stomach space limits me from trying the other intriguing Indian beers.
Winnipeg has some good Indian but hasn’t boasted great Indian in a long time. Charisma changes all that as they combine great food with friendly and attentive service in a nice atmosphere. Most importantly, they have a genuine interest in your enjoyment of the meal. You won’t often hear me say “have the buffet,” but here it is. Go to Charisma and have the buffet.
****½ /5
This is a free product that I'm happy to bring to you. If you enjoyed reading this, please consider clicking on the accompanying ads. This is the only payment I receive for offering this public service. Thank you as always for reading.
83D Sherbrook Street
Tel: (204) 222-7878 / 999-8297
Fax: (204) 222-7373
http://www.charismaofindia.com/index.html
April, 2010
The West End stretch of Sherbrook Street in the Broadway neighbourhood was a run-down, beat-up area that you likely don’t want to visit when the sun sets. The last few years saw a real rejuvenation effort with the addition and upgrade of numerous establishments. Charisma of India sits among those, nestled in a strip-mall, surrounded by several new area restaurants.
The friendly staff greets you as soon as you enter and brings you into the dark, open dining room. A few Indian-themed adornments decorate the walls, but largely, the room appears quite austere, but clean and welcoming.
I eschew buffets, period. Buffets offer you the opportunity to gorge on mass-produced, heat-lamp burnt, generic slop. No thanks. I prefer ordering off the menu and specially ordering my food done to my exact degrees of preference. Since I’m a chilli-head, that means getting at least a couple of screaming hot dishes that cause smoke to blow out your ears.
We ask for menus but the host insistently urges us to dine from the buffet. He explains that they replenish the buffet items constantly; they only put out the popular dishes and food turnaround goes quickly and often. Constant refreshing ensures that the food does not get stale or overheated. I bring up the spiciness issue and the host points out the spicy condiments; moreover, if they’re happy to special-serve dishes from the kitchen in addition to the buffet, with no extra charge—nice. All right, I’m sold—buffet it is.
The host leads us to the buffet area to introduce the food to us. He points at the salad greens and tells us,
“This is the same salad that you make at home—don’t eat this. If you want it, eat it at home, but don’t eat it here. It’s just grass.”
Okay.
He recommends the Indian salad, which comes with chick peas and a melange of other ingredients, none of which I can easily discern. I find most Indian dishes difficult to deconstruct since they use so many spices and herbs. With Indian food, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts and deconstructing the ingredients does no justice to the dish as a whole. In all, the salad tastes rich and creamy with a crunchy ingredient that adds texture. Delicious. A very sour and pungent pickled condiment is available but I recommend that you stay away from this option unless you truly enjoy fermented foods (think Korean kimchi taste).
Every meal comes with naan, also with no extra charge. I find plain naan often greasy and not worth the stomach space if it’s not all jazzed-up. A garlic naan would have been nice but the regular naan still tastes perfectly acceptable.
Charisma offers the usual pakora and samosa appetisers, and both have similar stuffings. The potato and vegetable filling have nice, earthy flavours, and the covering tastes crisp and crunchy. The entire package tastes fine but a little dry. I would skip the naan and the appetisers and dig straight into the mains.
As well as plain basmati rice, Charisma offers fried rice with assorted vegetables. Alone, the fried rice has nice flavours but the powerful essence of the sauces completely drowns out the rice’s essence. You can eat the fried rice without the sauce, but why would you? The buffet also features a fried noodle, similar to the Chinese chow mein. The pungent noodles have an acidic and spicy body but again, the noodles would be completely lost in the strength of the sauces. I can’t imagine not dowsing everything in the wonderful sauces. I salute Charisma for offering these dishes to appeal to all preferences but if you’re a true Indian fan, grab some plain basmati and dig deep into the sauce dishes.
The sauce dishes include: spicy chicken, curried goat, butter chicken, palak paneer (spinach), chicken korma, and chick peas. The spicy chicken tastes like a kicked-up butter chicken. While the heat won’t send you screaming, it delivers a nice punch. This red dish swims in tomato sauce and the tangy taste of the tomatoes overwhelms the dish a little. If you’re not a follower of tomato, you might not like this dish, but as a person who likes extra tomato sauce on his pizza, I love it.
By contrast, the butter chicken achieves the perfect combination of cream and spices with the tomato. Spectacular. As I said earlier, to break down what makes this a superior meal would take away from the wholeness of the presentation—just relax, eat it, and melt in its deliciousness.
The palak paneer tastes equally as rich and creamy as the butter chicken. The firm cubes of cottage cheese give nice contrast to the wonderful spinach heart. Even our most staunch carnivores enjoy this traditional, Northern, Indian staple. Trust me when I tell you that my company have similar carnivorous tendencies to those of cave people chasing down mastodons. The fact that these same cave people voraciously gulp down the spinach should give you a good indication to the quality of the food.
Finally, the creamy chicken korma continues the rich, pungent and flavourful assault. At first, I thought that the pieces of chicken were a little small and few, until one of our party members admitted to fishing out all of the chicken pieces. True to their word, Charisma replenished the bin without much wait. If you must look for a comparison, I would say that the korma tastes remotely like a delicious homemade cream of mushroom sauce, not out of a can, but painstakingly stewed. Add a hint of coconut and two dozen spices and voila, you have korma. Again, let’s not overanalyse it and just enjoy the food.
Because of the nature of cream, the creamed dishes don’t come too spicy; thus I like interspersing the creamed dishes with the butt-burning, tongue scorching, ear-smoking dishes. Our host explains that Indians don’t eat fiery dishes, just flavourful. People often confuse the two. Personally, I hear conflicting reports; I also hear that some Indians eat food so hot that non-Indians would spontaneously combust at the taste. Regardless, I like a good burn and a good burn can only come from the non-creamed dishes.
The non-creamed dishes include curried goat, curried chick peas and the ubiquitous tandoori chicken. I normally don’t order goat as you often find lots of bone and little meat in goat concoctions. If you work at it, you’ll find some goat meat but a considerable amount of bone dominates this dish. If you don’t want to fight through the bone, just ladle the delicious sauce onto your rice; the tangy sauce reminds me (only a bit) of the Asian black bean sauce.
The curried chick pea sauce has an earthy, deep and complex taste that works wonderfully with the chick pea texture. By now, my taste buds, numbed from spicy (both in the flavourful and hot sense) siege, can hardly discern between—well anything really. Again, let’s just eat and enjoy.
If you want a break from the meat onslaught, the buffet offers a light, curried vegetable mixture. Feeling heavy or bloated from the array of sauces, this is a good way to finish off the buffet.
The only disappointment I find with the buffet comes from the tandoori chicken. Every Indian restaurant I visit offers a dried-out, over-cooked tandoori chicken, sitting under a heat lamp and continuing to roast. Although Charisma’s chicken isn’t as dried-out as some, there’s no evidence of juices flowing from the meat. Considering how difficult it is to dry-out dark meat, this drumstick has seen quite a bit of heat (temperature, not spice).
The buffet doesn’t have any vindaloo dishes and Charisma is happy to make it for us. We ask for extra spicy but no smoke comes out of our ears. I’m sure if we emphasise how torturous we want it, they would oblige. Next time. Spiciness aside, the vindaloo tastes rich, earthy and full.
Trying to pair Indian food with wine can be very challenging, again because of their liberal use of spices and flavours. The simplest and best combination is to simply have an Indian beer with your Indian food. Charisma offers at least one or two types of Indian beers, including the common Kingfisher. They also bring in other brewers, depending on availability. Today, they also have Cougar and Cobra. The acidic nature of Cobra cuts through the heavy cream nicely and the crispness counteracts the spiciness. Alas, a paucity of stomach space limits me from trying the other intriguing Indian beers.
Winnipeg has some good Indian but hasn’t boasted great Indian in a long time. Charisma changes all that as they combine great food with friendly and attentive service in a nice atmosphere. Most importantly, they have a genuine interest in your enjoyment of the meal. You won’t often hear me say “have the buffet,” but here it is. Go to Charisma and have the buffet.
****½ /5
This is a free product that I'm happy to bring to you. If you enjoyed reading this, please consider clicking on the accompanying ads. This is the only payment I receive for offering this public service. Thank you as always for reading.
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