http://www.halimsindiantaj.com.au/
I'm a bit surprised there isn't already a post about Halims on my blog. If I rewind back a few years, I can recall going to this Rosalie establishment fairly frequently. It left a really solid impression in my mind for tasty and affordable Indian food. Marc and I went for dinner a few weeks ago and so I can now give a recent review.
We arrived on a weeknight and it was quite busy at Halims. We managed to get a table out on the large front deck but later on, we noticed some other diners waiting for a table. The menu is your typical Aussie-Indian affair with special mention of biriyani that we didn't order but I'm curious to try one day.
To keep things simple, we went for a banquet. This included a platter of starters, choice of one curry each, rice and naan.
Entrees and dipping sauce
The starters arrived fairly quickly. We were surprised with how much food there was. Everything was of the similar deep-fried, crunchy ilk so it was quite filling. I had to hold back to ensure there was still room for mains.
Waiting for our curry and rice took a fair bit longer. There was a hiccup wherein Marc's Coke took several repeated inquiries to be finally brought out. He suffered with the aftermath of being parched from all the fried entries for way too long.
The curries were again large servings. I've been to Indian restaurants where the curry mains are brought out in what appear to be little sauce dishes. These were proper deep bowls full of curry. The rice was served at the same time but we had another long wait for naan bread. I think they just got a bit overwhelmed with the amount of people that night.
Rice, butter chicken and lamb vindaloo
Marc and I always order butter chicken because it's so delicious. I have tried butter chicken that wasn't to my liking and it leaves such a poor impression of a restaurant, I would never, ever go back there. The butter chicken at Halims was probably the best I've tasted in a long time. It was so thick, creamy and flavoursome. The sauce was amazing and there were plenty of succulent chicken pieces.
Another perspective
Our other curry was the lamb vindaloo. This provided a nice contrast to the rich butter chicken and had a good amount of kick to it. Vindaloo is supposed to be hot and that's how we like it. Like the chicken curry, there was a lot of lamb here and the flavour was infused well.
Garlic naan
We had to wait for the naan but it was good when it arrived. You can probably see from my photo that it was literally glistening with butter. This is bound to turn some people off but from my perspective, I don't go out for Indian to be healthy so if I'm going to indulge, it may as well be tasty. The naan was freshly cooked and dosed in garlic butter; it was simply irresistible. We were quite full with the heavy curries and hefty starter platter but managed to scoff down the naan almost without blinking. There is always extra space for delicious food.
Despite some service issues at Halims (forgotten/delayed orders), we had a delicious and satisfying dinner. The servings were so huge we had trouble walking back to the car. The butter chicken and naan were the standouts of the night. I would definitely not class this under 'clean eating' but for an indulgent dinner, this is high on my list.
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