An Australian eats Indian food in London

Some time in November 2008, there was an article in the Time Out newsletter about foodie walks in London. Some of them were extortionately expensive at around 80 pounds, but I noticed an Indian Food Walk for a bargain 10 pounds for two hours. I reserved a couple of places, but as the snow fell in London this week, wondered if wandering around outside for two hours was the wisest thing to be doing in February. That being said, it ended up being a cold but beautiful sunny day - perfect for journeying out to Southall in distant West London to meet with Monisha Bharadwaj, our guide for the day. Monisha has had a fabulous, envy-inspiring foodie career - she does cookery classes, has written books, been on TV - and she was a lovely host.

We started off by venturing into Quality Foods, a huge Indian supermarket, where we learnt about some interesting Indian vegetables, such as bitter Gourd and saw some things you rarely see, such as fresh turmeric. We spent some time in the spice aisle, where I was pleasantly surprised to see that the majority of these spices we can get at our local Finsbury Supermarket! Monisha advised us that for the majority of Indian cooking, we should only need seven spices - ground cumin, cumin seeds, ground coriander, chilli, turmeric, black mustard seeds and garam masala. Certainly makes it seem less intimidating! It was interesting to see the massive bulk quantities available at this supermarket - no 500g packets of Basmati here!

After spending some time in the supermarket, we continued on, stopping to watch naan being made in a tandoor (and sampling it - yum! Crispy and light, not heavy and oily like a lot of naan) and to sample some Punjabi Chai tea, which was pink (!) and very sweet and milky. We also sampled some Indian sweets (not sure about them) and had the opportunity to sample pan, which I wasn't really keen to try. Judging from the faces and comments of those who did, I don't think I missed out - this one definitely goes down as an 'acquired taste'.

It was a really interesting experience and a place I would otherwise never have visited. One of the things I really love about London are these pockets of different cultures. You can experience completely different ways of living without leaving the city.

After the tour, we wandered around for a while and eventually stopped at the Glassy Junction pub - the first pub in the UK to accept rupees - and apparently it still does! After a couple of Cobras, we headed to Madhu's Indian Restaurant. I had never heard of this restaurant, but it looked lovely and the menu looked good. Googling it now, it seems to be quite famous and I can definitely understand why. We started with some poppadums, which came with the UK Indian restaurant standard of condiments (a good one that we could adopt in Australian Indian restaurants!). These were the best condiments I had ever had - spicy and tasty mango chutney, a chilli type sauce reminiscent of property barbecue sauce and a green minty paste (I don't know what these were). Across the board, very good.

We shared a starter of Paneer Cheese patties with spinach - light and crispy, these were a reasonable starter, but not necessary in retrospect. Without these, we may have had more room for our mains of Chicken Makhni (Butter Chicken essentially) and Keema Mutter (lamb mince with peas) with rice, peshwari naan and raita. I often find that curries can tend to be either too oily or move past spice into just heat. These curries both had a small amount of heat, but actually had real spice flavour. The unadorned accompaniments of plain basmati rice and raita that was really just natural yoghurt were also a welcome change and helped to put the focus - rightly so - on the curries. While the curries were excellent, it was the naan that was the true star. Always the measure of an Indian restaurant for me, the peshwari naan here was like none I had had before. Sweet from the fruit and coconut, light and crispy bread texture . . . . my mouth is watering now just thinking about it! We washed all this down with a pleasant lemony Pouilly Fume from the Loire, quite similar to a Pinot Grigio.

While Madhu's was fractionally more expensive than most Indian restaurants, it was worth it in every way. Service was excellent - the staff actually talked to you! - and the food was outstanding. The only downside for us, is that it is such a long way away :(