Biryani Express is a railway-themed Indian restaurant at the new Pavilion Mall in the French Cluster of International City. Its interior is a modern mishmash of urban and rural, with exposed red brick walls (one of which is decorated with some interesting graffiti) and orange, red and brown furniture giving it a welcoming warmth. Trainspotters and railway enthusiasts will appreciate the numerous model trains they have strewn all over the restaurant. So, the “Express” in this case does not mean a condensed version of a bigger restaurant chain, it’s like an express train…the Orient Express, Pony Express…only for Biryani.
I’m still in my first (fanatical) week of this new, unforgiving no carb, no sugar (no bloody anything) diet. So, walking into a restaurant claiming to specialise in biryani was like sending a chocoholic into a Lindt & Sprungli Chocolate Factory outlet shop and saying, you can look at everything and smell everything, but you can’t eat. Thankfully, Biryani Express has many, many items on their menu which do not include rice. I chose the non-veg kabab platter, replacing the red meat items with chicken (yeah, I’ve got to stay away from red meat too). My companion, a heartless comedian, thought it would be really funny to try their mutton biryani. We also ordered a daal with spinach.
My chicken platter, which comprised of a couple of pieces of Boti, Tikka and two Tandoori Wings, and the daal were okay, nothing to write home about. But my funny-sadistic friend’s biryani, which he insisted I taste, was really good. How much of this had to do with my salivating taste buds I don’t know but I’m pretty sure it was good. What I missed, however, was the Quinoa Biryani. I will go back to try this for sure. It could offer me a compromise.
Service at Biryani Express is friendly and accommodating. The experience, in general, is very different to what one typically gets in International City. In fact, you’d have to drive all the way across this value-for-money oriented neighbourhood, to Dragon Mart (1 or 2) to get anything similar. That in itself makes this fun little Indian restaurant well worth a visit.
Waste NOT. Want NOT.
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