Islamic Restaurant, North Bridge Road
A couple of my gal pals brought me to Islamic Restaurant, a hole-in-the-wall Indian eatery along
North Bridge Road specialising in biryani. According to the gals, this is "the best biryani place in town". It's funny that I've frequented the nasi padang restaurants around the same area as Islamic Restaurant for years, and yet never even knew this place existed!
Please note that it's best to dine during the off-peak hours because the place is so tiny.All the tables are crammed pretty tightly so you inadvertently end up hearing the next table's conversation. While the restaurant is air-conditioned, a (slight) downside of the cool surroundings is that your hair does end up smelling of Indian spices by the time you leave the restaurant.
Save for the coriander, the Aloo Gobi ($5) was delicious! The vegetable retained its crunchy texture and the mildly spiced, cumin-accented sauce managed to complement the natural sweetness of the cauliflower stalks.
The thick spice paste in the Mutton Mysore ($7) had a delectably smoky tinge to it. While the mutton was fresh (no gamey taste or smell here), it could do with a couple of hours more on the stove. Some of the pieces were definitely a tad tough when it should have been fork-tender.
We all ordered 3 different varieties of biryani to share communally. The Chicken Biryani ($7.50) was yummilicious, flavoursome and moist and fluffy. The humongous hunk of a chicken was, despite being breast meat, super moist and tasty, with the spice rub totally absorbed into the inner recesses of the white meat.
The Prawn Biryani ($10) was my favourite, the rice was the most concentrated in flavour compared to the other 2 biryanis, and the deshelled prawns were fresh, sweet and thoroughly flavourful.
The Fish Biryani ($7.50) was fairly similar to the chicken version, with a huge chunk of fresh batang(?) fillet buried in the middle of the aromatic rice mound.
Islamic serves up a bowl of mild, lentil-thickened Curry together with their biryanis, a perfect accompaniment if you like it gravylicious, but seriously, the rice is so tasty on its own that we didn't really think of ladling this on.
Islamic Restaurant
745 North Bridge Road
Tel: 6298 7563
Open daily from 10am to 10pm
North Bridge Road specialising in biryani. According to the gals, this is "the best biryani place in town". It's funny that I've frequented the nasi padang restaurants around the same area as Islamic Restaurant for years, and yet never even knew this place existed!
Please note that it's best to dine during the off-peak hours because the place is so tiny.All the tables are crammed pretty tightly so you inadvertently end up hearing the next table's conversation. While the restaurant is air-conditioned, a (slight) downside of the cool surroundings is that your hair does end up smelling of Indian spices by the time you leave the restaurant.
Save for the coriander, the Aloo Gobi ($5) was delicious! The vegetable retained its crunchy texture and the mildly spiced, cumin-accented sauce managed to complement the natural sweetness of the cauliflower stalks.
The thick spice paste in the Mutton Mysore ($7) had a delectably smoky tinge to it. While the mutton was fresh (no gamey taste or smell here), it could do with a couple of hours more on the stove. Some of the pieces were definitely a tad tough when it should have been fork-tender.
We all ordered 3 different varieties of biryani to share communally. The Chicken Biryani ($7.50) was yummilicious, flavoursome and moist and fluffy. The humongous hunk of a chicken was, despite being breast meat, super moist and tasty, with the spice rub totally absorbed into the inner recesses of the white meat.
The Prawn Biryani ($10) was my favourite, the rice was the most concentrated in flavour compared to the other 2 biryanis, and the deshelled prawns were fresh, sweet and thoroughly flavourful.
The Fish Biryani ($7.50) was fairly similar to the chicken version, with a huge chunk of fresh batang(?) fillet buried in the middle of the aromatic rice mound.
Islamic serves up a bowl of mild, lentil-thickened Curry together with their biryanis, a perfect accompaniment if you like it gravylicious, but seriously, the rice is so tasty on its own that we didn't really think of ladling this on.
Islamic Restaurant
745 North Bridge Road
Tel: 6298 7563
Open daily from 10am to 10pm
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