Daana Restaurant Curtin

Previously located in the shipping container village at Westside@Acton Park, Daana moved to its current home in Curtin in September 2015. The restaurant specialises in “authentic Southern Indian cuisine” which we were surprised to find quite different to other Indian restaurants in Canberra.  The most obvious difference is that the dishes are not necessarily served with rice–instead we could choose roti or Paratha or a light rice batter crepe known as NeerDosa as a side dish.   The other difference was the combination of rice and lentils in many of the southern specialty dishes such as the lentil-rice based crispy crepe (Dosa) or the more fluffypancake (Uttappam) and the steamed lentil rice cakes served with a vegetable and rice stew (Idli Sambar).

The different style of cuisine together with an oddly structured menu made it difficult for us to choose our dishes. We therefore relied on the excellent advice on our waiter and no doubt benefitted from their knowledge!

Our entrees were from the “Street Chaat” section – PaapdiChaat and Samosa Chaat. The first was similar to Punjabi Chaat(a long time favourite dish) - fried potatoes with papdis (deep fried, rice crisps) served with sweetened yogurt and tamarind chutney sauces. In the Daana verson, bite size pieces of potato were served on top of small crispy fried shortcrust pastry bases (almost tapas style). While this provided some extra “crunch” to the base, it would have been better if that crunch was in the potato mixture itself.

In contrast, we loved the Samosa chaatwhich was a variation of a standard samosa but sooo much nicer (even Karen was a convert!). The pastry casing was light and crisp worked perfectly with the light and tasty lentil vegetable filling. Rather than served whole, the samosa was “smashed” onto the plate and then lavishly covered with the same sweetened yoghurt/tamarind sauces as the PaapdiChaat…yum, scrum…

For mains, we ordered aUttappam (fluffy lentil-rice pancake) with chicken curry, KolambiCheHiraveKalvan(prawns in a coconut and coriander green curry) with steamed rice and Bisibele Bhat(a one pot dish made with rice, veggies and lentils).

The Uttappamwas quite bland and thick and we suspect the thinner crepe (Dosa) version might have been a better choice. Nevertheless the chicken curry was superb - tender and tasty without being oily or overly rich (all the positives of Indian cuisine with none of the negatives!)

The prawn dish (KolambiCheHiraveKalvan) was also very good. Fresh and perfectly cooked, the prawns had a nice chewy texture and were not overpowered by the light style green sauce.  Both the prawn and chicken curries were very mild but still quite flavoursome.

The final dish (Bisibele Bhat)was a lovely textured combination of rice, lentil and vegetables. Healthy food never tasted so good! Our only criticism was that there was a lot of cinnamon in the dish which was a little too strong.

By the end of the main course, we were completely full but the desserts looked too tempting and we ended up sharing 2 between the 5 of us – the Mitahi [a selection of Indian sweets] and the NeiPaysam (slow cooked rice, jagery and ghee garnished with sultanas and cashew nuts).  The Mitahi was lovely  –decadent and very sweet. It was far too much for one person but good to share among 5. In contrast, the slow cooked rice was a little disappointing. Made with basmati rice, it disintegrated with the slow cooking process leaving a very sweet mush with a strong flavour of cardamom.

Despite this, overall the meal was really enjoyable.  We loved the lighter style Indian cuisine and enjoyed exploring the Southern Indian cuisine (it might even be hard to go back to the Northern style!).