Saffron Indian Cuisine

Saffron Indian Cuisine
4300 Kingsway
Burnaby, BC

Another week goes and, once again, I get to meet with other food bloggers for dinner. Just like last time, I got to meet Mijune for some catch-up (let me tell you, she is a busy woman!). Alas, in this, I was caught unprepared in the sense I didn’t really think of a place to eat. Believe it or not, choosing places to eat is not a simple task: there are times where we have way too many ideas; at times, we just draw blanks. Fortunately for me, Mijune remembered Saffron Indian Cuisine, as the name suggests, an Indian restaurant in the Burnaby side of Kingsway. I have been there in the past for their buffet but that was years ago (read: before I started food blogging) so that gave me a reason to revisit it. And who better than with a fellow blogger!

As soon as we arrived, Mijune made an observation about what was next to it: a pizza shop? From what I remember, it seems they are part of the same group, given flyers for one was on one side of the page and the other was on the flip side. But, well, we were there for Indian and there we went.

Here is what I consider to be some issues with Indian issues: if you go by yourself, chances are you will order one dish at most. Probably an appetizer and some naan to eat along. Your could order a second dish but, for the most part, and unlike other cuisines, it starts to get quite expensive. Another issue that I run into is that some dishes are quite similar to each other. For example, butter chicken vs korma vs curry. If not because of an addition of one or other component, you can convert one to the other, which can be counterproductive. OK, it is possible I am oversimplifying things but that’s my feeling and, as a result, I don’t necessarily push to go to Indian restaurants.

I bring this up because a workaround to this (the “solution” at times is to go in a large enough group) is to go to a buffet and Saffron, like a lot of similar Indian restaurants, has a buffet as well. But, having all dishes sitting there for extended periods of time creates issues of its down. Quality down, food sitting there for extended periods of time and so on. Because of this, Mijune and I decided to order a la carte. Alas, being the two of us only meant we can only order that many dishes… And talking about food…

Mango lassi, the somewhat stereotypical drink that appears in almost every Indian restaurant and, what seems to be even freakier, is that, regardless of which Indian restaurant, it tastes pretty much the same. If you had it somehwere else, the one in Saffron won’t be that different. Having said that, the one served at Saffron ran into a small issue as well: I wished it was colder! After it was delivered to our table, I couldn’t help notice this was not that cold. And I am not talking about tolerance, it was almost room temperature. Epic fail? Personal preference? Some could argue it is like this; however, I have had some in a colder form so I had to draw this comparison, unfortunately.

One of those “dishes” ordered in Indian restaurant pretty much every time there is curry or something on those lines is naan – of course, ordering naan with dosa might sound odd. Here we have the garlic and basil naan. While you could taste some garlic, it was really – and I do mean, really – faint. As for the basil, it was visually there but you couldn’t really taste much of its unique taste. As for the texture, these were OK, it was somewhat fluffy and doughy; otherwise, there wasn’t anything really outstanding.

In addition to the garlic and basil naan, we also ordered their Saffron Naan (cook’s special mix), which adds some shredded chicken to the naan (by stuffing it). It was interesting, I will admit; however, that is pretty much it. There wasn’t anything that yelled me I should come back and try this again. Ouch!

As for the entrees, we were shuffling as to how many dishes to order. One of those (yet another) “issues” with Indian food is that you can’t be sure how much food is “enough”. Sometimes, an order can be a really small container, at times, it might be enough. Given that uncertainty, we decided to order two dishes and, depending on how it went, order a third dish. To start off, we ordered something that contained several elements and that ended up being their mixed grill – A celebration of sizzling tandoori delicacies! A melange of Tandoori Chicken, Seekh Kebab, Chicken Tika, Lamb Chops and Jumbo Tandoori Prawn. This was served with a salad, rice and chutney.

The “salad” was just some chunks of iceber lettuce. Pass? The rice was… simple? While there was some fragrancy (basmati, after all), there wasn’t anything else. The highlight though was the mint chutney, which provided some refreshing tones to it.

But back to the meats. While the idea was good, there was a variable that resulted in the overall dish ended up being an epic fail: The sizzling hot plate. What happens is that, as Mijune pointed out, there wasn’t a thick layer of onions and the meats ended up in direct contact. Because of this, they continued to cook and those that came into direct contact ended up charred (not in a good way). As a result, I wasn’t necessarily impressed by the end result. For example, the prawns were bland and borderline chewy not in a good way. The rest of the meats were a bit of a hit and miss, like the chicken tikka which, while still a bit moist, the charred bits took away quite a lot of its unique taste. The one that was able to escape those “issue” was the lamb chops. Probably cooked past a certain level most people would prefer but, otherwise, still some the characteristic were there.

Mijune’s dish of choice: Chicken Madrasi – “Chicken with a South Indian flavour in a coconut and poppy seed sauce“. Here is one of my “issues” – how is this different from a curry? How would I differentiate it? Supposedly, the interesting feature is the use of poppyseeds which we had a hard time finding. Other than that, I will give them some credit that the chicken wasn’t completely dry. As for the sauce, it was a bit tomato-ey but, otherwise, the promised coconut in the description was also MIA.

At this point, I am not sure if is necessary to point out that Saffron didn’t really work for me. Could it be we ordered the wrong dishes (if it is in the menu…)? Could it be it was an off night? Should I have gone for the buffet? Regardless, it goes back to Triple O’s motto: If you are not proud of it. Unfortunately, that seems to cement those general thoughts of Indian food in Vancouver: unless you want “modern” interpretations of Indian food, Surrey is the way to go.

And that brings a topic I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring: Mijune made a brief mention that Saffron was noted to be Burnaby’s best Indian restaurant. If that’s the case, it might be due to lack of competition (I can only recall a handful of such establishments in Burnaby)…

Tagged under: Burnaby • Chicken • Curry • Indian • Lamb