A few weeks ago we were invited to dine at Dhamaka on Corn Street in Bristol. Dave and I were actually planning to go anyway, having heard great things and walk past it most days, so the timing was great!
Our table was booked early on a weekday so we arrived to a quiet restaurant. We knew that it was Indian food but that Dhamaka specialises in street food style dishes. I have to admit I was unsure what Indian street food actually was – beyond Pani Puri which I love and was delighted to see on the menu. Dishes on the menu come from all over India with “the Kebabs of Lucknow, chat food from Bombay, the Hyderabadi biryanis, Keralan cheman mappa” and more on the menu.
Tapas style dining
Vinay, our host and the restaurant’s owner (with a formidable culinary background), was friendly and knowledgeable. He explained that his vision with Dhamaka is to serve casual small plates rather than the big filling curry dishes we’re used to in the UK. You eat these in same way you would tapas. The type of food you’d eat after work with friends rather than in a formal setting. He recommended 3-4 dishes per person although being the greedy types that we are, we ended up with 11 between two of us! Ooooops!
We tried a whole range of dishes from their ‘streets of India’ and ‘Indo-Chinese’ menus. They are all designed to be eaten either as sharers or as small plates and oh my goodness, everything was delicious.
Dishes came out as it was ready so at any one point we had 4-5 plates on the table to graze from. First out were the Pani Puri. These little hollow crispy balls are filled with things like potato, chickpeas and onions and before eating, you add zesty flavoured water. Such a fun way to start a meal.
From there on in, we ate until we very nearly burst, sampling what felt like hundreds of dishes as we went! Here’s the low down on our favourites of the day:
Aloo tikki chaat
Potato patties smothered in yoghurt, spinach, chickpeas and pomegranate seeds. This was my favourite dish of the day. The sharpness of the yoghurt and pomegranate seeds with the spiced chickpeas was just heavenly. I could have eaten the whole lot to myself.
Vegan katacos
A kind of fusion between Mexican tacos and Indian Khati rolls. These were messy to eat but very flavourful with avocado, tomatoes, salad, mint and tamarind. I loved the freshness and incase you hadn’t noticed from the dishes name, they are vegan. There is plenty for vegetarians and vegans on the Dhamaka menu and we enjoyed the vegan dishes we tried as much as those with meat.
Gobi Manchurian
Dave loved this so much that he’s since had it twice more on Deliveroo orders! This vegan dish, from the Indo-Chinese selection is made with crispy cauliflower coated in soya garlic sauce. It was delicious although hard to explain how or what it tasted like. The cauliflower had almost taken on a meaty quality and we both loved it.
Masala dosa
I love dosa and this was a fantastic example. Light and crispy around the edges but strong enough to hold the potato filling intact during the eating. Again, this one is vegan although there is also an option with chicken. Once we’d finished the dosa, we used the dipping sauces for everything else on the table, including some fluffy and very delicious garlic naan which was served with a spiced lentil dhal.
Hara paneer tikka
Cooked in the clay oven, this paneer tikka was just delicious. Smothered in coriander, onions and green peppers, it had a firmness which you don’t often find in paneer. It was miles away from those rubbery tasteless white squares you sometimes get in curries. We also loved the chicken tikka which was succulent and just all round yummy. Again, some of the best I’ve ever eaten.
I’ve not got room to list everything we ate but I think you can gather from what I’ve said that we really enjoyed our food at Dhamaka. We’ve already had delivery twice since visiting and will be going again soon.
A word of warning, the portions are big. For a feast, I’d recommend maybe. 6-7 dishes between two with a masala chai to wash everything down with. We had 11 and it was too much food.
Vinay and his team are producing delicious Indian food in a style we don’t see often here in the UK. Sharing dishes over a casual meal with friends is so the way forward…