Salut! salutes Asian royalty

Just when I had decided that my famous search for a good Indian restaurant in France was a fool's mission, I chanced upon this unexpected gem.

There is a mention in my updated France in Flashes posting - up to version number 8 now with new additions, though these did not quite justify lifting the file to the top of the blog again.

Le Royal Shah Jahan is out in the Parisian suburbs at Enghien-les-Bains, where the intermittently pleasant Val d'Oise meets the often very unpleasant Seine-St-Denis. The well known Enghien lake is just along the road.

It took an age time to find anywhere to park, but everything about
the restaurant itself was right.

My old standby, chicken tandoori, was by a long shot the tastiest I have come across in France. All that was missing was the sizzling onion, but I have given up expecting that here.

My wife and her friend from childhood have both lived in England, so asked for their vindaloos to be hotter than the Pakistani-owned restaurant would normally serve to squeamish French customers. Both expressed delight with the results.

Peter, the friend's British husband, who has lived in Paris far longer than he hasn't, was slightly less impressed with his chicken tikka masala. Maybe that is a dish best sampled only in the place where it was invented - Britain.

But even he was content when the waiter produced some Indian lager, which may be not be that much better than the usual Kronenbergs and Heinekens, lager essentially being lager, but somehow always seem so.


Curiously enough, we dined there only because our friends' first choice was full. Since we're very much in countdown mode now - leaving Paris between Christmas and New Year - there is no time to try the restaurant Peter and his wife had intended to take us, Le Diplomat in Argenteuil.

I already know nothing better awaits me in the Var. So the Le Royal Shah Jahan can take comfort that its new crown, from Salut!, is safe for now.