Five Rivers Swinger Hill 4-2-2017

Five Rivers Indian Restaurant, Swinger Hill

We headed back to Swinger Hill this week to the Five Rivers Indian Restaurant after Ron realised to his horror that there was a restaurant in town that the group had tried without him.  Was it coincidence that Jim brought the same bottle of wine as last time [a Tyrells Vat 9 Shiraz (2010)] or were we sub-consciously trying to re-create the same meal for him?

Either way, it was a pleasant mid-week summer night and the restaurant was empty apart from our group. Apart from the distraction of a Bollywood movie playing in the background, we were treated to a lovely quiet space and attentive service.

We ordered 2 different entrées – Dehli Chat Papdi (2 serves) and vegetable samosas (3 serves).  Papri chaat is a common (and very tasty) Indian street food and generally made of thin wafers of fried dough, yogurt, tamarind and hari (green) chutneys, chickpeas and potatoes.  It’s a favourite dish of ours – we love the mix of the sweet/sour tamarind chutney with the silky yogurt as well as the textural contrast of the crunchy papdi (fried flour crispies) with the soft potatoes.  The dish had been the highlight of our previous visit but while this version was quite tasty, it wasn’t as good as last time (is anything ever?). The tamarind chutney was still delicious but the dish needed more crunch to contrast with the potatoes.

Our second entrées (vegetable samosas) were really nice.  Well packed with a tasty filling, they were fresh and not too heavy or oily.  The accompanying tamarind chutney was also yummy but we found the contrasting yogurt mint sauce to lack a bit of body and flavour.  

After entrées, we ordered 4 mains (Gosht Saagwala, fish curry, Punjabi chicken curry and Aloo Baingam Masala), plain rice (3 serves)and naan (3 serves) which was more than enough for six people.  The pick of the dishes was the Gosht Saagwaala curry (lamb and spinach).  The sauce was rich, thick and tasty and the meat just melted in your mouth.  

The chicken and fish curries were not as successful.  Without Megan there, we had ordered all our dishes “mild” but even so the chicken curry was still too hot for our taste.  Apart from the level of heat, the fish and chicken curries otherwise looked and tasted very similar making each individual dish seem a bit generic.  This was particularly so for the fish curry because the flavour of the sauce didn’t seem to penetrate the fish.

Most of us liked the final dish (Aloo Baingam Masala) - an eggplant and potato curry.  Everyone enjoyed the texture and flavour of the eggplant in the curry but Karen thought the starchy texture of the potato didn’t quite work with the silken eggplant.

Although there was a lot of food left over from the main course, we felt obliged to test their dessert options  In this case, there was only one choice (mango kulfi) but it was delicious and a nice, refreshing way to finish the meal.