#4 Sitara

On a rainy Sunday afternoon in Seoul sometimes all you want is a reminder of home and to be warmed all the way through and for us that means curry! With our British-Indian Friend (B-IF) in tow we decided to check out the Indian over the road from the bar we found ourselves in whiling away the hours avoiding the rain.

JGirl had been to Sitara before but was slightly inebriated. After a few cocktails with B-IF in Hapjeong's Bali Superstore it was time to give the place a second go. We were initially deterred by a waiting list but in the end it proved worth it (and the wait turned out to be only ten, rather than twenty minutes - a trend we've noticed quite a bit in Seoul)...

We ordered aloo pakoras to share to start and a curry and naan each. Everything came super-promptly (often a worrying sign of microwave scariness - in this case a totally neurotic worry because a little lean over the counter into the semi-open-plan kitchen proved that everything was being freshly prepared)...

Pakoras: light, cute

Curries: JGirl tried the Kerala 'shrimp' masala (Brits - that's 'prawn' to you and us) which was "nice, spicy, most of the time a bearable heat but at one stage I did bite into a chilli and lose the power of speech"...

B-IF had a palak (spinach) curry which she called "the best spinach curry she had ever had in Seoul" - quite the accolade from someone who grew up, as she put it, waving a glass of Chardonnay around, with "fingers smelling of curry!"

JBoy sampled the Delhi Chicken Curry and was put off only by the few bones he found "when you get curried chicken you expect legs and wings and drumsticks but when something is being sold as chicken curry, diced, you don't expect bones". Some of out pickier friends would have been put off but JBoy was three cocktails and a third of a bottle of Chardonnay to the wind by that stage, so soldiered on, unfazed.

NAANS WERE AMAZING

We sampled three of the seven different kinds and, dear reader, they were all delicious and they were all HUGE. Perhaps it was the aforementioned booze we had consumed by then but as far as we are concerned curry should always be eaten with naan instead of rice! 

Ambiance was beautiful, tiled, blue-green, hazy, just lovely. To be honest, dear reader, it didn't matter by this stage we were just so happy to be well fed.

Service was, as mentioned, speedy, friendly and smiley. In fact, as we left it seemed like one of the chefs took a particular liking to JGirl! BONUS

Basically, if they did dial-up takeaway like at home we'd need a second mortgage to fund our habit.

THE VERDICT (all marks are out of ten)

FOOD

Originality: tough to rate this menu on originality; we weren't looking for anything flouncy fancy schmancy

Taste: 9

Quality Of Ingredients: 7 (seafood: great, chicken: not so much)

SERVICE: 9

VALUE FOR MONEY: 8.5

OVERALL EXPERIENCE: 9