I had a chance to explore some of the curry houses of Brick Lane before my wife arrived. However, she wanted to try some Indian while in London, so we hit some review sites and found a place very close to a theatre we were going to see a show at. That place was Chowki.

The decor at Chowki was a little on the hip-for-the-sake-of-hip side for me, but it doesn’t matter. I would highly recommend the place, especially if you are out for a night of theatre. It’s less than a block off Picadilly Circus, so it’s very convenient to an amazing number of theaters and it’s also some of the most unique Indian food I’ve had.
For reasons I won’t go into here *cough*imperialism*cough* London is swimming with Indian/Bangladeshi restaurants. I couldn’t find decent Mexican there to save my life, but man, the variety of food from the Asian subcontinent was amazing.

Chowki features a rotating menu that showcases different regions of India each month. So there were only a few dishes on the menu that I recognized from the traditional Indian fare we get around Chicago. The August menu featured cuisine from Bangladesh, Gujarat and Karnataka.

We began with starters from Karnataka that featured a chili-chicken dish with onions and coconut that was so flavorful, with just a little kick. For our main course, we went hog wild, with some Chicken Kori Gassi, and another dish of flageolet beans and peagon peas, all rounded out with a “meat” kebab selection. We left very full and very satisfied.