The Tiffin Box Diner - A Welcome Addition to Chiswick High Road
Indian delivery specialist expands upstairs to offer twenty covers
During the British Raj, the word Tiffin was often used to describe the snack which replaced Afternoon Tea. But it has come to mean several different things in India. For example, in Nepal and South India, tiffin is a snack between meals, but in Mumbai, the word refers to a packed lunch in a stacked tin box, known as a Tiffin Box. Thousands of tiffin boxes are delivered to office workers every day with packed lunches of various hot dishes, with segregated containers for the different foods.
Tiffin Box in Chiswick has built up a loyal customer base in the nearly 20 years it has been operating its delivery service from Chiswick High Road. Of course, it would not be practical to use tiffin boxes for home delivery, but they are now being used to serve food to the table at the restaurant's new Diner.
As that end of the High Road becomes ever more popular for restaurants, it seemed a shame not to capitalise on the upstairs space of the building and that is what they have done. A very clever use of a rather narrow upstairs room, means they now have more than 20 covers available for what they have decided to call a diner.
The prospect of a warming curry was a tempting one when I visited on recent cold Friday evening. It was early and only one other table was occupied in the upstairs Diner. We were warmly greeted and shown a menu which includes the range of favourite dishes, including Chicken Tikka, Rogan Josh and Biriyani. But the menu also includes some Street Food favourites and what they describe as more traditional One Pot (Handi) dishes as well as Gourmet delicacies and the Classic 'Ruby Murray' (curry) favourites, spiced to suit the diner's palate. One favourite is Achari chicken or lamb, slow cooked in Punjabi pickle and ground spices.
We started with a mixed selection- tikka giant prawn, chicken wings, seekh kebab and paneer cheese came in the little Tiffin box. The prawns were some of the best I ever tasted, giant and luscious. We ordered some dips to accompany the starter, along with poppadoms.
For my main course, I chose Butter Chicken, also known as Makhani Chicken, because I am not a fan of spicy curry and my husband, who is able to tolerate a bit of heat, chose a Lamb Rogan Josh. My chicken, a tikka in a thick butter sauce made from almond nut paste, spices and fenugreek, was flavourful and had a little spicy 'kick'. It is styled as Medium, as was the Rogan Josh. Many Indian restaurants fall down with this dish if they use tough stringy lamb, but in this case, the lamb had been marinated and cooked slowly in kashmiri spices and yoghurt, and the result was a succulent and tangy sauce. Rice and bread were alongside to mop up the delicious sauces.
If you want a really hot curry, you can have the Tiffin XXXtreme, a dish prepared with the jokokia chilli which is not for the faint-hearted (the chilli is actually grown in Devon!).
For drinks, we chose a glass of white wine and a coconut juice. You can also have a lassi, the popular yoghurt drink flavoured with mango, which is used to cool down the digestive system after eating spicy food, and there are several choices in beers, wines and soft drinks.
Dessert was difficult to fit in as the portions were so satisfyingly large, but I opted for traditional yoghurt with pureed mango. It was fresh and clean on the palate after the hearty curry.
Tiffin Diner is a welcome new addition to the High Road. With its friendly and attentive service, and an upgraded menu with interesting new additions, it is sure to be a favourite spot for those who want a casual dining experience- and of course if you don't want to venture out of home, the delivery service continues as normal.
Anne Flaherty
February 29, 2016