Review : Chicago Curry House

While we were in Chicago for the International Home and Housewares show, we decided to hit up the Chicago Curry House, located in Chicago's South Loop.

Chicago Curry House serves authentic Indian and Nepalese cuisine. I've had some Indian inspired dishes before, but this was my first experience with real authentic Indian food. Their food is naturally low fat, packed full of flavor, and they have a lot of vegetarian-friendly dishes.

We decided to start off with two appetizers; Cheese Pakora and Aloo Chat. Cheese Pakora is a home-made cheese marinated in a mix of spices and dipped in a garbanzo batter, then deep fried. I didn't really care much for this. The cheese was dense and had a higher water content and reminded me of a dense tofu. It wasn't a very flavorful cheese either.

Aloo Chat is cubed boiled potatoes, mixed with minced onions, cucumbers, cilantro, green chilies, and chat masala. Chat masala typically consists of amchoor (dried mango powder), cumin, coriander, dried ginger, salt, pepper, and other Indian spices. It has both a sweet and spicy flavor. It was REALLY spicy. It was a little too spicy for me and I was only able to take a few bites. I was very intrigued by all of the flavors I was encountering up to this point. Everything was so different from what I normally eat and played up all of the senses of the tongue.

For dinner I ordered Shrimp Madras. It was shrimp cooked in a mildly spicy gravy and coconut. It came served in a little personal chaffing dish. I'm not quite sure the actual name for this contraption, but it was really neat.

I also ordered some Garlic Naan with my meal. You can't eat Indian without having Naan, it's just too good.

I really enjoyed my meal. The shrimp were huge and very well prepared. One of my favorite flavor combinations is coconut and curry. This had such a slight coconut taste that it read as a very light sweetness. It was the first thing you tasted before the fire of the "mild" gravy set it. This dish was a bit too spicy for my taste buds. I had to constantly stop and try to put the fire out of my mouth. It was very good, but could've used a bit less heat.

I had to take a picture of my friend's Tandoori Lamb Tikka. It was so beautiful when it came out. A tandoor is a cylindrical clay oven used in cooking and baking. Chicago Curry House has an entire tandoori section on their menu. Looking good!

I would very much like to visit here again to expand on and learn about this cuisine. The menu is very expansive, so I would never get bored. The prices are fair for the area too. If you're near South Loop I would definitely recommend it!

I give Chicago Curry House 3.5 stars, out of 5!

★★★½