Treat yourself to something special on Portland (From Dorset Echo)

Treat yourself to something special on Portland

11:00am Monday 4th July 2011 in Features By Catherine Bolado

HIDDEN away on Portland is a curry house that is just a little bit special.

The Balti Island in Chiswell is quite an unassuming venue and one I have inadvertently driven past many times without even realising, but when it was suggested that we take some new friends out to dinner we jumped at the chance to explore somewhere new.

Stepping through the tiny door I was surprised to find how spacious the place seemed. Granted there weren’t a huge number of tables but the owners had made the most of the space and the interior was modern yet welcoming.

The staff were friendly but didn’t rush our meal and didn’t mind when we stayed loitering over drinks until closing time, which was refreshing.

We started off with the traditional poppadoms and chutneys, which you really can’t go wrong with as a starter. We also ordered a vegetarian samosa and meat samosa selection and after a little bit of confusion as to which was which we found them to be very tasty and full of flavour. It would have been better to have them properly labelled as we had a vegetarian in our party.

To go with this we had onion bhaji and chicken chat, which was a chicken breast cooked in a sweet and sour masala.

For main course I went for the king prawn biryani, with was very delicate and tasty and had a chunky vegetable curry on the side, so it was like two dishes for the price of one.

My friend Jo had the king prawn masala which she said was creamy and the prawns were delicious and very meaty.

Our other friends went for chicken in various guises including tikka shashlick, which was marinated and cooked in a clay oven, pathia, a sweet, hot and sour curry with tomato, and tikka Bengal medium hot curry with green peppers and tomato, which made quite an entrance by arriving sizzling.

The portions were generous and we all agreed that we were defiantly not going hungry that evening.

There was no milk for my cup of tea. However, I was offered cream, which I declined and asked for lemon. I was presented with lime, which was a rather interesting tea drinking experience.

My friends agreed that the meal was very nice and that we would recommend it as a relaxed place to eat, where the food is tasty and left to speak for itself, although some vegetarian-friendly labelling wouldn’t go amiss.

The Balti Island is open seven days a week and tables can be booked by calling 01305 822822 or 01305 860990.

The bill

Poppadoms £6.

Onion Bhaji £3.30.

Veggie samosa £3.30.

Meat samosa £3.80.

Chicken chat £3.80.

Chicken shaslick £6.95.

Chicken tikka Bengal £7.50.

Chicken pathia £5.90.

King prawn Massala £10.90.

King prawn biryani £11.50.

Naan £5.

Chapati x2 £2.40.

Rice x4 £9.20.

Coffee and tea £4.50.

TOTAL £92.05.