Nataraja Indian Restauran

Just ordered with eat now for delivery. Food was really average. My beef was fatty and chewy with some tender pieces scattered throughout the dish. The Vindaloo sauce was lovely but not enjoyable with the poor quality/cooking of the meat. The garlic naan was dry with very little garlic flavor. The sauce for the pakora was all liquid, not chunky like the usual chutney they serve. Very disappointing. I remember our last experience was much more enjoyable. I wonder if there was a different Chef today.

More or less the local for the inner-north area of Brisbane, it is Indian, it does it all including takeaway and somehow it is available to go a long distance to the inner-south. An unusual blip, but if it a chance for a new place, I will take it. Another WWE PPV, this time Hell in a Cell, so it was high time to get the usual arrangement: order some delivery to eat while watching it. Somehow, with the "hell" gimmick, or the associated aspect with Halloween and horror, it only made sense in my head to get something that is spicy. It was a toss-up between Thai and Indian, and Indian won in the end.

Again, for the few following both - previous PPVs did get the same treatment, however with Clash of the Champions and No Mercy there was not anything new for me delivering at the time that I was available so I went with something I had before. With the week-to-week scheduling I have, this was a chance for it to be dinner which opened up more possibilities.

Now that we have that out of the way, its time to get onto the review. It was all through the usual process of getting onto MenuLog, finding somewhere that delivers in the area, and logging the order in. That was about it. Noted, like several previous deliveries like this, I did get a phone call in the meantime which was to check on the order, and ask if a bit sooner than what I requested would be okay. With the first aspect, fantastic customer service and something that can really help with delivery (a rare chance on top being in the flesh), and the second - what kind of idiot would not want his food earlier than expected? If anything, that leads into the quality of customer service to show that it is efficient. Well, it landed somewhere between the proposed time and the original time, so.... good enough for punctuality I reckon.

Well, I have already said that this place is Indian. Most of it consists of the usual kind that you could find at any Indian restaurant - they have all the pakoras to start off the menu along with tandoori meats. Next up are a lot of curries, a mixture of the general kind as well as less usual types of curry mixed in. This goes for chicken (which alone as a separate and exclusive section), lamb, beef and prawn (where, along with other seafood, has its own separate section on the menu). That is not to forget that there are vegetarian curries plus biriyanis. And after those are the accompaniments, plus naans, and beverages and desserts. What they really have going for them is the sheer variety of choices.

In commencing the meal, I got a few pakoras as starters. These starters were a potato bonda, prawn pakora and chicken pakora. The chicken pakora was possibly the best of the lot, since in the end it simply being another form of fried chicken and little can go wrong with fried chicken. Especially when it is as readily spiced as it was here. Tender chicken, big bits of it, and a lovely spicy coating all combine to be an enticing start to the meal. The prawns were also good, with a sweet taste and solid flesh to go with them. The coating was just as good with it. As for the potato bonda, in the end it was simply globs of mashed potato that were fried - nothing too special either way.

Getting just one curry seems a bit odd to me when ordering takeaway, so there is always two (especially in the rare case my housemate partakes - not this time around, but it is a matter of time ... ). The two curries I got, having a desire to breaking from the usual choices that often occur (we all know them) I managed to scout out a couple that were as such. There was the chicken zelfrezie - which is creamy, cashew-based and cooked with fried onions, capsicum and tomatoes - and a mushroom and pea curry - that is self-explanatory. Granted, mushroom curries have been one that I have seen before many times on Indian menus, but a first time for everything with trying it ... so this is possibly that first time.

The chicken curry was ordered hot, and they did a great job with it. The mushroom and pea one was ordered medium, and it still had a decent amount of spice to it. Give this place the credit it deserves, when it comes to introducing spice to different levels. That chicken dish was fiery, which blended itself well into the creamy sauce and there were bits of vegetable put into the mix as well. Kudos goes to it aplenty. Next, onto the mushroom curry - just as good.  The texture was kind of creamy, the mushrooms blended into the sauce and made the crunchy peas more prominent, and it was among the better vegetable curries that I have eaten.

As with any kind of Indian meal, particularly with curries, it is incomplete without some naan. What else are you going to use to wipe up the sauce, and pick up bits of meat with and eat? The type of naan that I got for this meal was their house specialty - named after their restaurant nonetheless. It was stuffed with cheese, with dry fruits, with onions, capsicum and dried herbs. If it is different and bizarre enough, I am certainly game. It was a giant piece of bread, and was cut into quarters. The bits of fruit added a sweet touch to the hot bread - which was light on butter surprisingly - and the cheese was a bit spotty throughout the dough, but a nice touch each time I bit into a bit of it. Soft texture that was perfect for doing what needs to be done, it is all good here. Another thumbs up can be chalked to Red Hill's local Indian joint.

The reasons behind this mind-set might come down to the fact I ordered curries outside of the normal range, or it was at least a big factor in deciding my thought process about how good it was, but Nataraja was an an unusual place as far as Indian cuisine goes. In their curries, these were not the normal creamy curries that are all too familiar with the local Indian takeaway and they had a decent level of spice - it heated me up, but didn't overpower any of the flavours or ingredients. From the mere taste of getting it delivered, this place was still a fair bit better than a lot of competitors around town; assuming that it was eating out at the location, I bet that this would rank among some of Brisbane's best Indian fare.

If it were eating in the restaurant, it could well have been a 4.5 or a 5.0 even if everything came together as it should. Delivery, even with some of the tastiest fare, loses a bit of ambiance, so realistically a 4.0 is the right rating for this place.

The best Indian I have eaten at in a long while.  I ordered a takeaway and was delighted.  The receptionist was delightful, so friendly and so helpful. This will definitely become a regular for me.

One of the oldest Red Hill Icon have done it again, The Buffet is back at Nataraja after Years. And it’s better and has more options we loved the new looks, it’s like a Royal feast last week. The Buffet is well priced at $20, compared to other Indian restaurants around. Well done Nataraja ....Love your food as always