I’m not the biggest fan of Indian cuisine, I’m sorry if that statement have somehow offended your feelings. It’s just that, the last time I ate an Indian meal (I was in Dubai), my stomach didn’t receive it well. I’d spare you the details but the experience traumatized me so I’ve steered myself away from Indian cuisine since then. Lol.
I won’t say no to it though if it’s served to me, it’s just something that I won’t personally seek when deciding where to go for dinner. So when Laguna Restaurant invited me for a meal, I thought I better take someone who knows Indian cuisine more than I do so I dragged my friend K along.
We arrived just in time for lunch and were assisted right away to our table. They served a selection of starters immediately which mostly consisted of vegetarian dishes. I wouldn’t have ordered it myself so I actually loved the fact that they somehow decided on what we’re going to have otherwise, I would have missed everything which would be a shame.
Isn’t that the most colorful dishes you’ve ever seen? I’m normally not very good at flat laying but I think I smashed that game this time. Is it as flavorful as it is colorful? They definitely are!
Starting from the top, we had some Avocado Ke Goele which are deep fried avocado balls. I didn’t realize avocado can be a savoury appetizer, it was definitely the highlight for me. The dish in the middle is Delhi Wali Alu Papri Chaat which is potatoes and chicpeas blended with yogurt, it was a great palate cleanser for us. The dish on the left is Chapati Chili made of cauliflower which was so tasty, I didn’t think cauliflowers could be that good. The dish at the bottom had chicken tandoori and lamb shish, the only meat dish for our appetizers. Meat dishes would normally be the highlight of any course for me but I think the vegetarian dishes were superb and caught me by surprise that I can’t really can’t say that I liked the meat dishes more than the veggie ones in this spread. It’s the other way around this time.
I let K order our mains, she decided on chicken tikka masala which apparently is Britain’s national dish and karahi lamb. We also had some rice and naan bread. Between the two main dishes, I loved karahi lamb more. The meat was so tender and the sauce wasn’t too rich to overpower the taste of the meat. I wanted to like Britain’s national dish but I found chicken tikka masala to be too rich for my liking. I’m not really a big fan of rich, saucy dishes – I want to taste the meat specially if the meat is fresh.
Now dessert has never been my forte and I have no plans of changing that. I’m not a fan of sweets but I did try the gulab jamun that they served which instantly gave me goosebumps for being too sweet. The mango-flavoured icecream was quite nice but I still couldn’t finish it all. I wouldn’t find this as a fault though because I don’t think I will say anything good about any desserts served to me anywhere. Lol.
It was an amazing lunch, even if I’m not the biggest fan of Indian cuisine I actually enjoyed this meal very much. I honestly would consider going back and I’ll definitely bring people here who are into it, might be my go-to Indian restaurant as the first experience was really good. My friend K loved it too, she took our leftovers home and ate it after a drunken nightout. Lol.
Disclaimer: I occasionally receive invitations to try out restaurants on a complimentary basis in exchange for a blog review or Instagram post. Rest assure that I always give my honest opinion in these reviews and will only use my own photos. I also only accept invitations from restaurants or other food establishments that I would personally visit.
Looks so delicious <3