Okay so after all these comments about how Bombay Chaat House is the true heir apparent to ICH etc etc we decided to try it out yesterday. I must open by saying it was the most HORRIBLE food we’ve ever eaten – it would be a travesty to call that stuff “food” and an insult to the culinary profession to call the folks that run this place “cooks”. We were fairly frequent visitors of the erstwhile ICH and if anyone says the “food” that BCH purports to “cook” is anywhere close to ICH, I’d love to smoke what they’re on. We are Indian by origin and loved the old ICH (was about as authentic as Portland has to offer).

Now for the details. We picked up 4 items from BCH and brought them home – bhel, papdi chaat, aloo paratha and aloo-matar. The bhel was completely tasteless (akin to eating small pieces of white cardboard). We struggled and finished the bhel and turned to the papdi chaat hoping for some respite. Apparently BCH believes that papdi chaat does not need to include the papdi (the small fried flour discs that give it the taste).. helllloooo!! Even so we tried the first spoonful and promptly spat it out – the item was well past its expiration date – I suspect the yogurt in the chaat had gone bad. I cant believe the ride home (about 15 mins) could have caused this so the dish as served was bad. The aloo paratha, though nothing to write home about, was atleast edible. The aloo matar dish (potato and peas curry in a tomato sauce) was terrible (flavorless and weird tasting) and was placed on a bed of half cooked rice – I swear you could almost hear the crunch of the rice as you tried to eat it. We made a valiant effort but ended up tossing that out as well.

So in summation we had 1 okay, 2 terrible and 1 inedible dish – what a telling strike rate!! Needless to say we wont ever be going to BCH again and to the readers here – caveat emptor!!