SAI Spice is the latest incarnation of the Southern Hotel, the famous pub in the depths of Chorlton’s bikini line. It’s where gigs were poorly attended during a stint as a live venue and The Buzz comedy club ran for what felt like hundreds of years. Later still it became an Irish theme bar.
The green dosa is served with ginger chutney and I was actually moved by this dish.
Needless to say, hopes of a gourmet experience were not high. However, there is more to this average-looking curry house than meets the eye.
It’s not obvious, but behind the bubble tanks and pumped up sofas is a second, vegetarian kitchen, boasting a chef flown over from Karaikudi in Tamil Nadu. He’s been here since they opened last year and the result is a sun-kissed vegetarian menu of South Indian snacks and meals including 17 – count em –dosas.
Nice smile
There are thick, filled pancakes (uttapam), green moong dal dosas and rice savouries galore, not to mention main courses like okra sambar, tomato daal and avial – a mixed vegetable and coconut curry - for less than a fiver a go.
You could probably order the whole lot for the price of a Rusholme curry. Plus they have a house thali too with chapatti, rice, sambar, a traditional tamarind based vegetable curry (kozhambhu), assorted other curries, plus raita, pappadums and pickles (£9.95) making for a nigh on heavenly meal, if our dosa and curry samples were anything to go by.
Completely dippy
The thail was unavailable, but almost everything else was promising. Rava dosai (£3.50) was a hot, hole-pocked pancake made of course-ground semolina and rice, with mixed vegetable (sambar) sauce - and, a sexy first for me, daal chutney, on the side. Plus we had another seaweed green moong dal dosa with finely chopped onions (£4.95) and a portion of aubergine curry (brinjal curry, £4.95).
The green dosa is served with ginger chutney and I was actually moved by this dish. The chutney looked like a simple brownish paste, but in the mouth it soared. This dosa equivalent of Demerara rum and ginger has the kind of flavour that will have you coming back for more. Holding chef’s hand. Crying. All of the above.
The dosa that moved me
Aubergine curry with boiled rice was less of a ride, but well composed and we got a few bits from the ‘main’ Indian menu to complement our veggie feast too, including methi chicken (pictured) (£8.95) and Peshwari lamb chops (£6.95) which were both average curry house fare.
I don’t know if authentic food exists outside of people’s homes, but Indian veggie food is particularly great when you get the feeling that the chefs are cooking for the diaspora of the subcontinent. And that seems to be what’s happening at Sai Spice.
Lamb chops that were ok
The owners have another restaurant in Bolton, a small, 56 cover spot, that does okay for itself. Co-owner, Satish Kumar, whose family comes from South India, hence the veggie bent, also organises Asian weddings and events. So in some ways, it makes sense as what they’ve done to the former Southern Hotel is a bit like a cross between a curry house and function venue, with two restaurants, two kitchens (veg and meat) and a bar.
The catch is that the veggie menu is supposed to be served in an austere ‘veg only’ room off the main restaurant (see image of empty room – it was actually totally empty, while the ‘main’ restaurant was packed).
Aubergine curry...or three turtles in a pan
Fortunately, we persuaded them to let us have both veggie and non-veggie food in the main restaurant – but this is not par for the course. Refreshingly, there’s was also an excellent wine selection – two choice bottles would be the Australian unoaked Chardonnay and a nice Riesling which goes well with curry for under £20. Plus your usual suspects like Cobra on draught.
Sai Spice
I put it to Kumar that having two restaurants doesn’t make sense from a customer point of view. However, he insisted that it’s for the best as the dosas would cool down too much moving from veggie kitchen to main restaurant, rather to the slightly closer veggie restaurant.
“People would think we served cold food,” he said, with a look of horror on his face. Obviously, no one wants a chilly dosa - but the layout doesn’t really work despite what he says.
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Sai Spice Indian Restaurant, Mauldeth Road West, M21 7SP. Tel: 0161 8620123
Rating: 13.5/20
Food: 7.5/10 (rava dosai 9, moong dal dosai 10, aubergine curry 7, methi chicken 5, chops 7)
Service: 4/5
Ambience: 2/5
A naan modelling the surface of Mars
A customer, some lager and an alcoholic piano
The cold space of the bar
