Lotus Land is a restaurant specialising in North Indian Cuisine, tucked away in the Tian Zi Fang labyrinth. As far as I know, it has been around for about 5 years, and is run by a indian staff. I had a guest over at Shanghai; My wife and I decided to bring our guest to try something exotic. It was also our first visit to Lotus Land restaurant.
We arrived on a Saturday at 5:30pm, there were a couple of tables occupied, and a couple of diners leaving when we arrived. Thankfully we got to be seated immediately by the window, on the cushioned seating. I must say, sitting cross legged was a little uncomfortable and I had to fidget about a few times to prevent my feet from getting numb throughout the course of dinner.
Service was quite friendly, our Indian server notified us that the grilled prawns were especially good that day, which we ordered.
First dish that came up was the grilled tandoori chicken.
Very tasty. Grilled pretty much to perfection, slight charring on the outside, but moist and flavourful meat on the inside. The large chunky kebabs have been marinated with various spices that included cumin and cardamon, and yoghurt to keep it tender. Portion was sizeable, I would say a good sharing appetiser for 4.
Next came the chicken biryani. Lovely long grained spiced basmati rice, cooked with chicken. The spices were pleasantly overpowering, which is a good thing because the last thing you want to have at an Indian restaurant is bland food. Chicken was a little dry, probably because most of the moisture had been absorbed by the rice. However this cannot be helped as this is the traditional way of cooking biryani. The rice however was moist but not mushy, every grain of rice separated from one another. Perfect.
The chicken tikka masala was a little bit sour. I would have preferred this to be more savoury on the salty side, and a little more heat. Otherwise, the chicken was tender, the spices well balanced. It went with the biryani like a match made in heaven.
I ordered a side of naan bread to soak up the tikka masala. The naan was a little lacking, small serving with way too much air in them. Almost like a pita bread.
Lastly came the grilled prawns. These were the star of the evening, as recommended by our server. We were not lied to. They were incredibly fresh, and grilled absolutely to perfection. Nice char, with a lovely spice marinade, but still retaining the prawns sweet flavour and slight crunch to the bite. All of us sucked the heads dry of pure umami goodness.
For dessert, the ladies ordered the yoghurts with fruit toppings. They were decent, nothing to shout about.
All in all, it was a good authentic Indian cuisine experience, decent price for the quality of food and location, but definitely on the mid-high range.
Total bill for 3:
~¥325 (without drinks)