Itihaas

Although the main reason I started a food blog was to build up a family recipe book, another significant reason was that I wanted to keep a record of some of the restaurants we eat at and the experiences we have there.  In reality, I have a bit of a repressed ambition to be a restaurant critic, so I suppose this is a manifestation of that ambition! 

When my mother and father-in-law came to stay over the half term break, we had decided to go out for dinner with them, partially as a belated birthday celebration for them both.  We ultimately settled on going to go to a place called Itihaas, which is an Indian restaurant (not a balti house!) in the centre of Birmingham (http://www.itihaas.co.uk/) which I had been to a couple of times before on work functions; however, this was the first time that I had been with family.

I really love the decor of Itihaas; it's got a colonial theme which makes it feel really warm and snug and is a million miles from the cheap and cheerful Birmingham balti house.  The other thing that I really rate the restaurant on is the attentive service; the waiters were always on hand when needed and were always happy to help.  I've been to restaurants that are far more expensive than Itihaas that have had much worse service.

 

Our food was really fantastic, and the portion sizes were crazy; the starters in particular could have been half the size and would stil have been big!  The stand out dishes of the night were Chilli Paneer (Indian cheese, stir fried with onion, chilli and garlic) and Paapri Chaat (crispy discs of pastry topped with chick peas and potatoes accompanied by yoghurt and tamarind chutney) for starter and Koila Murgh (tandoori chicken) for main.  The presentation of the Koila Murgh was really eye catching:



In reality though, everything we ordered was tasty and well cooked.  I think we could have chosen anything off the menu and had a great meal.

 

 

For dessert, we ordered chilli chocolate indulgence, sweet ginger cheesecake and mango cheesecake.  Unfortunatley, it was all so good that we forgot to take a picture until we had nearly finished!  A real favourite of mine was the kulfi (indian ice cream) that came with each dessert, particularly the pistachio flavoured one.

 

 

So overall, a really enjoyable night out with really good service and great food.  I have a feeling that this is going to become a family favourite of ours for years to come.