One of the best Indian restaurants in Belo Horizonte
Continuing with my Indian restaurant exploration journey in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, my next stop after
Namaste was Indian Gourmet. The restaurant itself was slightly lesser known than
Namaste among the locals although some of them indicated they had heard the name but never really visited the place. Since I had already been to Namaste twice, I decided to try something new and give it a shot.
Restaurant Location
Indian Gourmet is located less than a kilometer away from Praca da Liberdade and about 2 kms away from Savassi making it easy for me to travel as I stayed in Savassi. I decided to visit on a weekend along with a colleague and booked a cab to get there. The restaurant is on the main road and is properly marked on Google Maps and our cabbie dropped us off almost outside the restaurant. However, we had to look around for a couple of minutes because the board displaying the name of the restaurant was placed in a way that wasn't easy to spot making it difficult to locate at first glance.
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Entrance, with the board on the side wall
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Ambience
We entered the restaurant to find it completely empty and were surprised a bit but the waiter told us we were rather early and it would be another 30 mins or so before guests would start coming in. It did however offer us a chance to look around and pick our spot. The
ambience was undoubtedly better than any other restaurant we had been to until then. I'd say it was a semi fine dining experience given the cutlery, arrangements, service and food presentation.
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Interior and seating
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Food
Coming to the
food, we began with ordering some samosas and strawberry milkshake based on the waiter's suggestions and found them to taste great. The samosas especially looked Indian and had that distinct taste as well. In fact, we decided to get ourselves another serving of the samosas. They were also presented well on the platter and we were provided with a couple different sauces and green chutney to go with them.
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Samosas with sauces and chutney
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Strawberry milkshake
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For the main course, we ordered biryani rather than bread and curry as we had already eaten a bit much with the starters. I must say it was the weirdest looking biryani I've ever seen in my life. Maybe I've always thought of biryani as the layered delicacy, Hyderabadi style. Nevertheless, I can't complain about the taste. With a rich mix of vegetables, dry fruits and curd on the side, it was still delicious.
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Biryani
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Overall Review
Considering the place was relatively unheard of with not too much information available online, we left believing we made the right choice going there. Despite the higher prices compared to other Indian restaurants in the city, I thought the food was worth every penny we spent. I must also mention the waiter (don't remember his name sadly) who hailed from Utter Pradesh, India and gave us the suggestion to go for the samosas and some insights into places to visit around town. If I ever go back to Belo, this is one place I'd surely visit again.
Rating - 4.5/5
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