Wined, dined and rested.

Bandook, the name of this restaurant, apparently comes from both the Hindi and the Arabic word for a rifle. When the owners of the Mint Room, a fine dining Indian restaurant based in Bristol, decided to open a more informal establishment to sell Indian street food to the good folk of the south west of England they chose to call it Bandook. Their menu explains that British soldiers used this kind of rifle against Indian troops during the days of the Raj, and a little voice inside me whispers “should you really be condoning that kind of behaviour by eating here?”.

Fortunately, dear readers, the lure of interesting food won out and we made it a lunch stop during our mini-break in Bath. That turned out to be a very good thing.

The restaurant is right in the middle of the main shopping street in Bath, in a little complex between Milsom Street and Broad Street. It is light and airy with lots of cream walls and dark wood, actually quite sophisticated for a restaurant that claims to sell street food. A nice touch though is the discreet black and white photos of famous Indian people, including an intriguing one of Indira Gandhi with Fidel Castro.

The menu is amusing and informative, with comments like “The 1^st Bombay Grenadiers expect large so give them large!” (above the two “large plates” on offer), but we were here for lunch and trying to keep it light (most amusing, m’lud – in how many of my posts thus far have we ever been able to resist good food?).

We headed straight to the “chaat” section and went for kale pakora chaat, then from the “small plates” we had Bombay prawns and squid koliwada with a side plate of Kukurit Bhindi. The chaats are meant to be the smaller plates. Someone needs to tell Bandook’s chef this vital but clearly missing piece of information – here is a picture of the really not very small at all kale pakora chaat, with really interesting battered and crispy kale:

Kale is good for us, and in so many different ways. Eating it, however, can so often EITHER be like chewing your way through a plate of particularly tough weeds OR the stuff has been overcooked and it’s like trying to eat a J cloth that’s not been washed for a month. I have to tell you that Bandook has nailed the production of delicious kale; the coating is based on gram flour, maybe that is what makes the difference, or maybe you have to be skilled at deep frying. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn – chapeau to the Bandook chef!

The Bombay prawns and the Koliwada squid were both equally beautifully cooked, with attractive details like narrow shreds of coconut that just hit the spot as you bite into a prawn.

But the star of the show for me was the Kurkurit Bhindi – now I’ve done my research I see that kurkurit in various Indian languages means “crispy” or “crunchy”, and with my first mouthful of it I realised what had been wrong with most of the okra I’ve tried before. It’s one of those vegetables I’ve tried very hard to like; it’s common in many cuisines that I enjoy, so I really SHOULD love it. But somehow there is always an element of sliminess to it, a feeling of “oh my goodness did someone just swap in a baby slug instead of that green vegetable I thought I was eating”.

Well chapeau again to the Bandook cook – THESE bhindi are absolutely right. They feel good, their gram flour coating really does make them crunch but they are also soft vegetable and not a suspicion of a baby slug anywhere.

So thank you, Bandook – I loved eating in your restaurant, and you have convinced me with two foods that haven’t always been my favourites. I wonder if your location in Bath is not the best for you because I was surprised that the restaurant was not heaving with enthusiastic diners; however not everyone has the luxury of eating out at lunchtime during the week, so I hope you are stuffed full of fans of your excellent cooking every evening.