Ganesha

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Ganesha

The last time I ate at Ganesha it was up the road in smaller premises, so the large scope of the new restaurant is immediately impressive. The eponymous elephant god is still there in his glass case and, as Lord of Removing Obstacles, maybe he was behind the move. The original Ganesha opened about three years ago and almost at once a bigger and swankier rival appeared in the shape of Kolkatta Kitchen. Food-wise, both were good and roughly comparable in price but it became clear that the local community preferred to cramp into the smaller Ganesha than its more spacious competitor. Somewhere along the line Kolkatta Kitchen closed up their business and Ganesha moved into the big room. Nice one, trunky!

Surprisingly Queen of the South hadn’t been to either incarnation before so I was interested in her response to the place. As a local resident she’d written to Venue advocating more coverage of restaurants south of the river so it had seemed right to invite her along. It turned out she’d spent some months in India after graduating so Ganesha’s claim to make ‘authentic Indian cuisine’ provoked a wry smile and some tales of dodgy dinners had on the road. She approved the modern décor and layout and the agreeable bustle of customers, a nicely distributed crowd not as packed as the old place. We did the papadom thing with a glass of wine and a pint of Kingfisher and slowly shaped up an order from the selection on the contemporary-style menu.

We’d picked out most of the meal before, happily, I noticed the ‘special tiffins’ section – basically a choice of dosa pancakes and a sign of good South Indian cooking. I went for the classic masala dosa, the Queen ordered vegetable samosa and they both turned out well, the folded triangle of crisp pancake stuffed with lightly spiced potato had an excellent spicy sambhar gravy, the samosas a pair of generously plumped-out patties with a tasty salad alongside. It was a promising start and things stayed that way as the main courses arrived promptly and filled the table.

We’d done the classic – chicken (murgh mughlai), lamg (gosht kadhai), daal (palak daal) and veg (navratan korma), with saffron rice and tandoori roti – and after the rather filling starters the quantity looked a little daunting. But the range of smells and colours was tempting enough and the flavours proved to have variety and subtlety with an admirable absence of greasiness or stodge. The garlic-rich lamb was great, and the chicken’s creamy softness matched its tasty sauce. The only disappointment was the vegetables in the navratan, the neatly diced carrots suggesting a packet from the freezer rather than the ‘nine jewels’. But it was an enjoyably balanced meal, served with careful (but unobtrusive) attention and while they ‘doggy-bagged’ the leftovers we enjoyed sharing a not-too-sticky gulab jamun with pistachio ice-cream. Fifty quid, all in, for a satisfying and tasty meal (with tomorrow’s lunch to take away) and both of us agreed we’d return. Fellow southerners might like to know they also do free home delivery within a four-mile radius – good call, that. (Tony Benjamin)

GANESHA 74 BEDMINSTER PARADE, BRISTOL, BS3 4HL. TEL: 0117 953 3990, WEB: WWW.GANESHAINDIANCUISINE.COM

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