Charleston is well-known as the foodie hub of the Southern USA. In fact, it boasts 3 restaurants out of the top 40 in the US, according to this list from Business Insider, and there are new ones popping up every week – not bad for a city of just 130,000 people.
But of course I’m not going to write about any of the restaurants that make this list. Nor am I going to write about any of the new, and achingly trendy, restaurants that keep appearing downtown.
No. The subject of tonight’s review, ladies and gentlemen, is the Bombay Bazar.
Luckily I’ve been to enough different restaurants in different places to know that the outside is not always a reflection of the quality of the food within. (This holds particularly true in Tokyo, or Hong Kong.) And let’s be honest, Indian food is pretty much a rarity in the US.
I’ve been to the Bombay Bazar twice now, both times with Jools, another displaced Englishman. And despite the exterior, the food isn’t bad at all.
We started with an unusual beer. Firstly, it was called Godfather. Closer examination of the bottle revealed that it was indeed brewed in India – in Rajasthan – but this did not explain the picture of the gentleman on the bottle, who looks like some sort of bastard cross between Lenin and Brian Blessed.
As for the meal, I had a lamb sag. It wasn’t much to look at (I can’t possibly put here what Jools said it looked like) but it tasted pretty good. The sauce was creamy, and the meat tender. Jools had a chicken madras – a slightly unusual colour, but tasting just the right mix of fiery and flavoursome.
As far as I know, the Bombay Bazar is one of only two Indian restaurants in Charleston, so I am sure I’ll be back. Though Charlie keeps inviting people over and saying “Chris will cook curry for you” so maybe I will end up opening Charleston’s third Indian restaurant myself…
South of the Mason-Dixon line 