After a mornings sightseeing around New Delhi we found ourselves at The Chicken Inn at Pandara Road Market in New Delhi.  It is located in a small shopping square surrounded with other similar restaurants, we walked in, or were we guided in? with instruction to the owners that we needed to be in and out within 20 minutes. This is one of those places that your tour guide will have on his list, we kind of knew that he had been here before and that he was probably on more than first name terms with the place.

We didn’t really care though, we just wanted some quick lunch, a bit of decent food. It was too early in the trip to be too adventurous with our food choices. So we sat, we ordered a beer, and we perused the menu looking for something familiar and something without risk.

Haryali Chicken Tikka

I fancied some sort of tandoori skewer so I chose the Haryali Chicken Tikka. This was something a little different, the chicken pieces seemed to have been rubbed in some sort of mixture before grilling and the whole thing arrived somewhat dramatically on a sizzling hot plate. I wasn’t sure just how excited the salad was to be dumped on that hot cast iron plate, probably about as excited as I was to eat the salad (I didn’t, I left it).

The flavour of the coating was quite subtle and the chicken pieces were really quite moist. The predominant flavour I was picking up was mint, ginger, coriander and lemon. There was also a bit of spice but not that much. It was actually quite a refreshing hit to the taste buds. I quite liked this dish and would probably order it again. Having said that I wasn’t that keen on the salad bits that it came with, I would really just have liked a skewer of the meat on it’s own. I will be looking to see if I can find this dish again when I get back home.

Saag Chicken

To go with that dish we fancied something with sauce, and we thought one of the spinach dishes would be a good choice, so we ordered the Saag Chicken. Not that adventurous I know, but it was familiar so we felt that it was a solid choice. We didn’t appreciate that we were getting a half chicken chopped up into pieces.

I ended up with a bit of breast on the bone, and a bit of a drumstick. It didn’t matter it was all very tasty, and the thick gravy was really fresh and really green in an over vibrant kind of way. It was quite a spicy gravy as well, perhaps we would have been advised to have ordered some plain rice as an accompaniment. I was really feeling the desire for a second beer to quench the heat.

We were sharing so ended up with quite a decent little mixture of food on the plate, which we mopped up with a rather excellent Naan bread. It was a little bit random flavour wise with that thick spicy spinach gravy and the mild minty lemony chicken skewer, but I think that it worked out OK.

Chicken Inn describe themselves as “the most trusted and revered place for authentic Indian, Mughlai & Tandoori delicacies for over five decades.”

Chicken Inn Restaurant
13,14,15 Pandara Road Market
New Delhi-110003 (INDIA)