Cilantro's Restaurant & Catering

Cilantro's Restaurant & Catering

725 Gateway Rd 

204-669-9157

cilantros725@gmail.com

September, 2023

 

 

 

Facade Photo credit:  Cilatro's 

For as long as I can remember, this location was home to a true mom-pop kind of diner that would fill with retirees and road workers, looking for a hearty breakfast.  If you peeked in the window, you'd see a loud, cantankerous guy yelling "Flo!" at a flaming redhead.  Who would have thought that this location would eventually become one of the best Indian houses in the city?  What a contrast!

This is as modest a dining room as it gets, barely hold 30 guests at capacity.  I would recommend reserving a table but our email went unanswered and our group was very fortunate to score the largest table in the establishment, and the six of us were still very crowded.  Based on the size of the crowd inside, and the stream of delivery people coming in and out, it's no secret how good the food is here.

We start with the garlic naan, which comes fresh, warm and oozing with the delicious smell of garlic.

I find it a bit greasy for my tastes but everyone else at our table didn't mind the gleaming coat of butter.  The biggest challenge is stop after one piece and avoid filling up before the mains arrive.

Most of us like our Indian very spicy--we've had numerous occasions where the chef came out of the kitchen to see who would order food so insanely hot that it's beyond human normalcy to consume.  With some tamer tongues at our table, we opt for mild-medium for most of our dishes, to be accomodating.

Since everyone loves butter chicken, we double up on this dish, with one mild and one super-spicy.  Except for the amount of cream, we don't see much difference between the two.  The super-spicy (of course) tastes hotter than the mild, but it should still be in reach of most of the population.

Cilantro's version has more tomato than I'm used to, enough where I can pick it out as an ingredient.  Normally, I find individual ingredients difficult to parse in Indian dishes because they blend so thoroughly.  

The big chunks of chicken taste tender and they take on the flavours of the sauce very easily.  The sauce is good enough to drink but fortunately, there's no limit to the amount of rice that comes, so you can sop up to your desire.

The rice tastes fluffy and buttery and would be just fine if you eat it plain the way the Chinese do.  I don't know why you would when you have all this decadent sauce all around you.

The Navratan Korma (vegetables with creamy gravy) tastes so rich, I would never have believed that one dish could have so much complexity.  

There seems to be a tropical edge of the coconut milk but I also sense a zing of tartness, which could be yogurt.  I'm not quite sure what they use as the light thickener but they nailed it.  Many years ago, I had a chicken korma that was one of my favourites.  Today, most restaurants only serve vegetarian korma.  Whatever happened to the chicken?  Who chased the chicken out of the korma?

One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (cottage cheese cooked in a creamed spinach tumeric sauce).

It's very easy to overload on cream in Palak Paneer to give a rich taste; it often overwhelms the taste of the spinach but people rarely complain because--well, how can you complain against whipping cream?  Here, the sauce tastes wonderfully rich, but there is enough spinach to maintain its flavour as the dominent aspect of the dish.  This is such a wonderful dish, even the biggest of meatheads cannot help but like this vegetarian effort.

Also vegetarian, the Amritsari Chole (chickpeas in a thick masala gravy), comes with loads of chickpeas which are cooked slightly south of al dente--just the way I like chickpeas.  

The earthy spices all blend wonderfully in this sauce, highlighted by a zing of ginger.  Good enough to drink on its own but better when either sopped up with the rice or the naan.  I wonder if somewhere, sometime, someone mistook chickpea for chicken, which is why I got the all-elusive chicken korma?

The Goan Prawn Curry has dominant flavour blend of tomato and coconut, augmented by a hint of fishiness.  The giant prawns are plentiful and flavourful, soaking up the essences of the sauce.  You can see a couple of the prawns poking out of the sauce in the photo, and you can tell that's almost as long as the spoon.  Still with a crunch on the bite, the prawns are not overcooked at all, which can easily occur with shellfish sits in sauce too long.  

Normally a spicy dish, the Lamb Vindaloo comes quite mild, even though we ordered it spicy.  It has a bite, for sure, but it's not butt-kicking and can be appreciated by most save the most timid of palates.

The melt-in-your-mouth pieces of lamb shred to the fork, exposing its explosion of flavours, packed with tartness, garlic and earthy spices.  Normally, I'm not a big fan of shred-to-the-fork meat, because it normally means it's overdone.  When people say "falling off the bone ribs," that just means "cooked to death."  There's no secret to meat falling apart--cook it until all the proteins are broken.  In stew however, the shreded meat allows maximum exposure to the wonderful sauces.  I can't get enough of it here.

Hakka:  that's a difficult cuisine to decipher.  In simplest breakdowns, people think of Hakka as Indian-Chinese fusion, but in reality, it's a lot more complicated than that.  The origins of the Hakka people were believed to stem from Northern China, but eventually migrated to Southern China.  Conflict and poor land conditions forced them out of China with a continued march southward.  

True Hakka cuisine is very similar to what you would find in Southern Cantonese dishes, and if you've ever had genuine Cantonese, let's just say it's very challenging to Westerners.  It's very challenging for me and my heartless mother coerced me mercilessly to eat some truly heinous things, despite the ear-shattering shrieks and howls. 

However, as the Hakka people ventured south, more influence came from the locals. The Indians adopted some of the Hakka conventions and incorporated them with their own cuisine.  

As far as Indian-Chinese fusion goes, in China, it's very simple.  It's Cantonese with curry powder.  Fried rice with curry, chow mein with curry, curried beef--all are simply the Chinese staples with added curry powder.

Indian Cuisine is a lot more spice oriented, and much more complex.  Very rarely do you just see curry powder added to plain food.  It's always a combination of dozens of spices blended with standard, basic aromatics.  Take those techniques and apply it to Chinese ingredients and a wok, and you have Indian-based Hakka.

You can see the Indian influence, with the minced cilantro leaves, and the Chinese influence, with the chopped scallions.  Basically, this is a chow mein dish with udon noodles blended with an Indian gravy sauce.  

This blending makes the perfect juxtaposition of the best of both worlds, with the powerful flavour of Indian, with the texture and lightness of Chinese.  It's so different than every other dish we sampled here, but it tastes wonderful.  Next time, it would be fun for our group to share a number of the Hakka offerings.

This unassuming little shop in the middle of residential Kildonan pumps out some genuinely delicious food.  From its modest appearance, you would never think that some of the best Indian in the city hides behind its walls.  As I said earlier, it's no secret.  People know how good it is, and also know how limited the seating is.  The long line of delivery people waiting in the separate delivery lobby tells its own story.  

By the way, don't order delivery--use the restaurant's own ordering and delivery system if they have it.  If not, just phone and pick up.  Disgusting companies like Skip the Dishes gouge 30% of the take, eating virtually all the profit from the restaurants.  Just skip the Skip.

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As usual, thanks for reading and good food to you!

Ray Yuen, Pit Master / Grill Master
Certified Kansas City Barbecue Society Judge – Badge #97736
Certified Steak Cook-off Association Judge – Badge #7788
Canadian Barbecue Society Member