The mix of ethnic restaurants at Emporium in Fortitude Valley just got more interesting with the opening of a new style of southern Indian dining at Roti Chenai.
Choose from noodles, dumplings, Italian, Turkish, Mexican and more but make sure you try this new southern Indian dining which is distinctly different from the more commonly found northern Indian cuisine.
Owned and operated by father and son team Richard and Jayden Rajasekar, Roti Chenai derives its name from the words roti (roti bread) and chenai (South Indian Tamil).
After running the highly successful and award-winning restaurant of the same name in Wellington, New Zealand for the past 21 years, Richard has branched out with this new Emporium operation. It's a casual fit out with not too much Indian flavour in the decor, but the food more than makes up for the so-so atmosphere.
“We have been scouting for the best location in Brisbane for more than 12 months and decided that Emporium was the perfect position for Roti Chenai due to its eclectic range of dining and lifestyle offerings,” Richard says.
“We are looking forward to introducing Brisbane to our authentic dishes handed down through our family for three generations. We have built our success and pride ourselves on our fresh, convenient, competitively priced and, most of all, our delicious food which is sure to deliver a new taste sensation and have you coming back for more.”
I have to agree, Richard. Your food is very well priced and there were no complaints from our table of six Indian food lovers when it came to flavour. We were all interested to try dishes that were new to us including the lamb sukka, a dry type of curry cooked with cashews, curry leaves and spices.
There are also some Malaysian style dishes on the menu including Murtabak - a spicy curry that can feature chicken beef or vegetables stuffed in bread with egg and onion.
My favourite of the nice was the unusual looking Dosai which was a batter of urid (a type of flour, commonly used in India made by grinding black gram pulses or lentils into a fine powder) and rice flour fermented overnight. It is cooked like a pancake and came with lamb or chicken accompanied by samar and chutney.
We finished the meal with a delicious lassi made using rose water.
The restaurant is open seven days a week for dinner and six days a week for lunch (no Sunday lunch).
Best tip: Must tries are the dosai and the sukka.
Bottom line: Prices range between $15 and $18
Kerry Heaney
Disclaimer: Ed+bK paid for this meal.