Bombay Choupati

There might be a Little India in Montreal, and it's on Des Sources / Pierrefonds. Around the same corner, we can count at least three Indian restaurants. There are also other ethnic restaurants and grocery stores (Chinese, and Arabic/Mediterranean - as the Adonis Supermarket is just a bit down on Des Sources), which seems much less White as the area where I live in.

(As an aside, the mini shopping strip nearby where I live does happen to have a "Chinese Restaurant", probably held by Cantonese, that serves the usual combo of "Thai-Szechuan", with a back kitchen that smells like any Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, but with prices and setting that is more suitable for business types and impressionable suburbanites. There's also a sushi restaurant.)

I went with my parents to eat at Bombay Choupati, which is located in the commercial strip at the opposite corner than the Super C's, and facing the Tim's, on Gouin-Des Sources. Went there a few months before for a small high school gang get-together, as my friends wanted something in the West Island, while I wanted something "special". But in the West Island, if you don't look, all you're going to find are Italian restaurants with servings that are too big and which make you feel as if you've eaten an anchor with diced tomatoes on it. So, while remembering eating at an Indian restaurants a few years ago (which was closed), my mother suggested "Bombay Choupati", which her coworker suggested.

Last time, we had stuff from the combo menu. It wasn't a very busy day - a Sunday maybe, 5-ish, and since my friends and I didn't know anything about Indian food, we got the usual stuff, combo-ified (butter chicken, curry, or chicken tandori). This time around, with my parents, the restaurant (maybe 30-35 seats at most) was fully packed, and we had to stand for 20 minutes. The good thing, is that we had the chance to visually sample what people took, which, besides the usu stews, also included giant folded pancakes, chip-like appetizers, and shells of various sizes. I forgot the name of the crepe, but according to this review, it's called a "masala", and it's lentils based! We ordered some of the shells, the bite-sized ones, which you have to break the top and put filling in it (potatoes, fresh coriander and chick peas) with a bit of tamarind water.

It's worth going back (the day I decide to pass my license - which is another story, but yesterday, I spent an hour or so in an Canada-Day-empty parking lot in my second time ever behind the wheel, practicing manual transmission...), as the lady cunningly points out, because there's always something new to try on the menu (perhaps a different shell, different combo of filling?).

For the main dish, I tried the chicken tandoori, while my parents went for the chicken and goat curry (I also had a veg curry on the side). The combos are served in those metallic trays, which I've seen at Jolee - a constant at Indian subcontinental restaurants? The naan bread was great, with what seems to be liquid butter spread on it for the addiction factor. I had a sweet yogurt drink - homemade (it's lassi).

Around $60 for three, with taxes/tips. Credit cards accepted, but no Interac.