Our Latest Great Place To Eat - Daata Tandoori Bray
Tuesday 20 November 2018
Having already visited Daata in Greystones, and loved their traditional cuisine, I had the perfect excuse for round two at their seafront restaurant in Bray.
The atmosphere at Daata is contemporary and cool, but with lots of retro call backs to the classic look. Think antique decorative touches along with old Bollywood-style movie posters presented like a pop art collage. Rich furnishings, but an airy open room.
To start, the Small Bites menu had a great variety of dishes to sink your teeth into, from a spicy battered spinach and chilli pakora to the longtime fave of onion bhaji. Slow-cooked lamb chops were there in garlic, turmeric and chilli, as were some tender chicken wings grilled in garlic, ginger, pepper, lemon, rock salt and mustard oil, but I was in the mood to try the tandoori prawns from their clay oven. Perfectly seasoned in a deeply delicious blend of Indian spice, they were superb. Rena went for a classic lamb seekh kebab which she thoroughly enjoyed.
For the mains, all of which are served with pilau rice or plain naan, it was just so hard to choose. There’s lots of familiar and beloved dishes on the cards with chicken tikka masala, tandoori chicken or a biryani, which could be had with a choice of meats, along with some less well known dishes like Lahori spiced lamb, slow-cooked in ginger and Karahi masala and served on the bone with crispy onion on top. I seriously considered the Mughali prawn dish, cooked with cashew nuts, tomato, fenugreek and a touch of cream, but, having already gobbled my share of gambas, I went instead for their signature Famous Afghani Chicken which was just as spicy and delicious as the menu had promised – a creamy chicken curry with tomato, fenugreek, black pepper and a hint of lemon. A devilishly hot garlic chilli chicken dish with fresh tomatoes, ginger and crushed chillies for Rena, went down a treat as she joined me in a foodie inferno.