If interesting wines and delicate samosas are what you’re after, you’ll be very happy here.
Guys, why didn’t you tell me about this place? It’s just my sort of thing.
It is an Indian restaurant as most of us first experienced them – neither the flash, Cassia-style reinvention of
the wheel nor the draughty, wooden-everything eateries of Sandringham Rd (of course I love both of these genres too).
It is a restaurant with carpet and white tablecloths and neon signage, employing dozens of staff and presided over by an assured couple who’ve been hosting Parnell’s fox fur-draped locals for 32 years.
It is much more a Wellington sort of restaurant than an Auckland one. I have such happy memories of eating at places like The Curry Club and Tulsi and Great India in the 90s.
Those places did, of course, sacrifice some authenticity to achieve commerciality. (I remember the owner of Tulsi once coming over to welcome our table of 10 and saying, “evening gents, how many Heinekens, and how many butter chickens?”; the answer was 10 of each), but they helped so many of us fall in love with Indian masala.
The dining room of Oh Calcutta in Parnell. Photo / Babiche Martens
Back at Oh Calcutta, they were busy with a big, presumably corporate group of their own when we arrived (sample dialogue “Do you like Westerns?” “No”), so we had to wait a little longer than expected to get in our drinks order, but after that, the service was swift and elegant.
Their slightly higher menu price point allows them to employ plenty of waiters for the grunt work while the owner, Meena, oversees everyone, as her husband Anand wanders the floor in his white sneakers, kissing babies and pressing the flesh in a manner that would impress his most famous regular, the Right Honourable John Key.
I enjoyed probably the best gin and tonic I’ve ever had in a restaurant – the brilliant Little Biddy of Reefton with just a splash of good tonic rather than the industrial quantities usually supplied with this cocktail. The wine list is very decent too, with lots of craft beer and enough interesting wines (there is a section literally called “interesting wines”) that you’ll find something to love.
A restaurant that’s been around this long gives you an interesting look at prices over time. A review in the Herald from 2005 reported that a bottle of Allan Scott sauvignon blanc cost $34. The slightly more premium Nautilus sauvignon is currently on offer at $45 which seems like very decent management of inflation, particularly given liquor levies in that time have doubled (even tagged to CPI the price should have been $57).
Food costs are predictably more depressing – saag gosht is exactly twice as expensive as 20 years ago, while dal makhani has increased by 150%. I hope you enjoyed this rare foray into economic analysis as much as I did.
The delicate samosas are served with tamarind chutney. Photo / Babiche Martens
The food is so very good. There are enough great options here that you could visit three or four times and not run out of things you’re delighted to eat.
After huge amounts of discussion with my pescatarian dining partner, I chose samosas, onion bhaji, garlic naan, black lentil dahl, paneer curry and mutton (everything is seafood, I told her, if you go back far enough).
Helpfully, the menu highlights specialties of the house, so if you’re on a first visit like I was, you have a nice little guide – or you can get the tasting menu and leave all the thinking to them.
The samosa was much more delicate than the ones you’ll sometimes see in a dairy pie warmer, with none of that telltale pocket of air between filling and pastry. Here it is sliced in two through the middle and served with a tamarind chutney and it’s just perfect.
Onion bhaji is their own take on the classic, with individual pieces of onion battered in chickpea flour, fried until rusty-brown and tossed in moreish spices.
All three curries were distinct – the dark meaty gravy of the mutton, the delicately soft paneer in a bright, sweet-savoury sauce and an intensely buttery, smooth dal makhani that was almost a soup.
The only criticism you could make is that one did feel they’d turned up the butter, cream and sugar to an 11 to appeal to the basic palate.
This used to always be the way – and you don’t find it so often now – the result is indulgent, for sure, but you tend to hate yourself a little bit by the time you eat your final few mouthfuls.
Oh Calcutta in Parnell. Photo / Babiche Martens
I should alert you that the low light can make it very difficult to read a menu, but the acoustics are fantastic, thanks to a ceiling makeover a few years ago designed in part to cut down on echoey noise in the dining room. It worked.
Oh Calcutta may not be the hippest place in Auckland, but you don’t survive 32 years by being fashionable.
It is simply a restaurant with very high standards, where you feel good as soon as you walk in; where curry-obsessives and butter-chicken eaters can break bread together in a room that will make both feel happy and comfortable.
Address: 149–155 Parnell Rd, Parnell
Contact: 09 377 9090, ohcalcutta.co.nz
Hours: Mon closed, Tue–Wed noon–9:30pm, Thu noon–10pm, Fri noon–10:30pm, Sat 5–10:30pm, Sun 5–9pm
From the menu: Aloo Samosa $14.50, Spiced Onion Bhaji $15, Garlic Naan $7.50, Awadhi Mutton Curry $37, Saag Malai Paneer $35, Kaju Paneer Masala $35.50, House Black Dahl $35
Score: 0-7 Steer clear.8-12 Disappointing, give it a miss. 13-15 Good, give it a go. 16-18 Great, plan a visit. 19-20 Outstanding, don’t delay.
According to dining-out editor Jesse Mulligan.