Billu’s, Harris Park

I love little pockets of culture in Sydney e.g. Chinatown, Cabramatta (Vietnamese), Strathfield (Korean)… Harris Park is like Little India. There are numerous Indian restaurants and grocery stores on Wigram Street, and the street is buzzing on a Saturday night.

Billu’s is a bit of a mixed bag. It’s neither fancy or casual, it’s neither gourmet nor cheap. It’s not super unclean but it’s definitely not spotless. You can go in and spend $30 between 2 for dinner, or you can go in and spend $100. The first thing that caught my eye were the cabinets of dessert items near the entrance. My only wish is that for amateurs like myself, that the dessert items were labelled so I could work out or Google what they were.

There’s not much organisation behind the wait staff system but it seems to work. We were asked multiple times by 3 different people if we were ready to order.

My recommendation is to get the grill dishes cooked in the tandoor – our malai tikka chicken was mind-blowing! It was garlicy, a little creamy, served on a hot plate on some cabbage, and had a hint of charcoal. Critically, I would have to say that it was the most tender grilled chicken I’ve had in a long time.

The other dishes were good, but not great.

• Samosas – absolutely huge for $2.50 a piece, I was almost full from eating it as an appetiser. Nice curry flavour with potatoes and peas inside, but could have been spicier

• Goat mugalai – the curry flavour is very mild and very creamy so good for non-spicy eaters. What I didn’t like though was the ratio of goat meat to goat bone
• Mix vegetable korma – again, this is a mild curry and I found it a very generous serving of tofu and a variety of vegetables
• Garlic naan – comes out warm, is crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside, but needed some more garlic (to, you know… scare off the vampires)

By the way, the glasses of wine are cheap ($6 – $10 a glass) and they are served with free pappadum!

Details: 62 Wigram St, Harris Park NSW 2150