Jai Ho is an Indian restaurant situated in a former a pub, the
Coppingham Arms, and has been a local favourite for 9 years. We have visited Jai Ho quite a few times over
the years and it soon became not only our favourite Indian restaurant but our
favourite restaurant full stop. It’s a
great set up - you have the bar area where people generally come in for a drink
whilst waiting to pick up their takeaways and then a pretty large dining area,
which I have to say, every time we have visited, it has always been busy, no
matter what time of day, its therefore always advisable to ring ahead and book
a table.
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| Jai Ho Homemade dips |
As with a lot of people we generally stuck with our safe
dishes, those tried and tested favourites that we would have pretty much every
time we visited. This time we had been
invited along by one of the owners, Sam, to come in and sample some dishes with
him and his partner Jane, after much deliberation we said why not, ok, it took
all of a nano-second!
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| Chilli Naans |
We popped along last Friday and once again the bar area was
pretty busy as was the restaurant. We
sat and had a drink in the bar area before heading through into the restaurant. As with any Indian meal, we had the
obligatory poppadum’s and dips, all of which are made fresh apart from the
mango chutney, however the Chef gives this the Jai Ho twist with the addition
of some spices. I have to say this is one
of my favourite parts of any Indian meal and these dips are no exception, especially the chilli
and tomato relish, I need to get the recipe for this as it is amazing!
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| Paneer Shashlik |
Sam ordered a selection of starters for us, junglee bhajia,
which consists of an assortment of vegetables dipped in the Chef’s special
batter and golden fried. We also had paneer shashlik, Indian cheese to you and I,
which is stir fried with onions, peppers and tomatoes. The vegetables were very tasty and the
paneer, which I had never tried before, is now on my favourites list, a bit
like halloumi and firm cottage cheese but taken to another level with the
vegetables.
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| Tandoori King Prawns |
We were then brought a portion of salmon tikka and tandoori
king prawns. The salmon fillets are
marinated in spices and broiled, the prawns are dipped in a creamy spiced
marinade and grilled until golden in a clay oven along with the salmon. Both dishes were well received and quickly devoured;
they were delicious with a capital D!
By now our tastebuds had really
been given a kick into next week with the flavours. This was soon to move up a
gear when we were brought out portions of chilli garlic cauliflower, chilli
chicken and chicken 65 which are amongst some of the most popular dishes at the
restaurant. Now I have to say, I cannot
stand cauliflower, it’s one of those things that since childhood makes me
retch, so to say I was a little nervous about trying the cauliflower was an
understatement!
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| Chilli Garlic Cauliflower |
Both the chicken dishes were really tasty, something for
everyone, the chicken 65 was mild whereas you guessed it, the chilli chicken
packed a punch, the sort of dish that when coupled with a chilli naan bread left
you feeling like you just had some botox injections in your lips! Tingling and hot but in a very nice way, we
love those two dishes that’s for sure.
Then we came to the dreaded cauliflower - I have to say looking at it I
thought it was small pieces of roast potato, no resemblance to the usual
cauliflower florets, so in I went, first hesitant bite, well, all I can say is
OMG! This was nothing like the cauliflower
I have hated for all these years, it didn’t taste or even smell like that
dreaded white broccoli, it tasted fantastic, a slight crunch and a bit of a
kick from the chilli - could this be my new found favourite dish? Hell yes, I
will be having a large portion of this next time I return that’s for sure!
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| Chicken Dhum Pukht Biryani |
As if we hadn’t eaten enough, we then were presented with
the last three dishes of the evening, tadka dal, chicken kharahi and chicken
dhum pukht biryani. The dal consisted of
yellow lentils cooked with onions, tomatoes and spices. I will be honest, I’m not personally a huge
fan of lentils so for me I could take it or leave it, however my partner loved
it - very mild and creamy and definitely something to mop up with some naan
bread. The chicken kharahi is cooked in
ground Indian spices with onions and peppers tossed in an iron skillet. Once again, another dish full of flavour and
one to add to my “have again” list. The
biryani I have to say was quite surprising, cooked in the traditional way in a
clay pot and covered with bread, this dish is a combination of both rice and
the chicken. Ones I have tried in the
past have been nice but pretty mild, this one however had a nice spicy kick to
it which we loved, so this one is also going onto my list too!
Some 3 hours later we had finished what turned out to be a
feast of fantastic food, packed with flavour, spice and more importantly freshly
cooked. This visit was a real eye opener
in terms of trying different dishes rather than the same old tried and tested,
so many thanks to Sam for his hospitality and for introducing me to some
wonderful new dishes, especially the cauliflower! Sam tells me that they have a new lamb shank
dish on the menu, I think I will be needing to try that the next visit and also
push myself out of my comfort zone and try some more new dishes, there are
plenty to choose from so I’m thinking it is going to take a while to get
through them all.
All in all my partner and I both agreed it was a fantastic
evening, amazing tasty food and great company and service from the staff. I would like to add that having been to Jai
Ho numerous times over the years, the service has always been spot on as has
the food so it wasn’t just a case of who we were eating with!
Jai Ho gets a well deserved 10 out of 10
from me and is certainly somewhere I would recommend, even if you are not a
spice fan, they have something to tempt all palettes so give them a go, again,
I recommend booking a table as they do get rather busy! www.jaihorestaurants.com
01293-782283