Indian Tiffins Belfast,
23 Holywood Road,
Belfast,
BT4 3BA
074 2345 9312
instagram.com/indiantiffinsbelfast
It probably happened at some point or other in the dim and distant past of my dimmer and even more distant youth, but for all the bowls of breakfast cereal I’ve consumed in my life, I can’t ever remember having one for breakfast.
The best time for a bowl of breakfast cereal has always been, will always be, at night. Supper cereal would be more like it.
Similarly, what’s the point in a fry if it isn’t prefaced with ‘all-day’? Something so glorious just shouldn’t be constrained to a small window of the time. I’ll thank you not to put limits on my Crunchy Nut Cornflakes or potato bread and veg roll.
But, more’s the pity, I don’t make the rules in the world at large so just because breakfast food might feel like the right choice on a sunny Saturday evening in east Belfast, that doesn’t mean everyone will agree.
So, on a visit to Indian Tiffins Belfast it was necessary, when asked “what would you like?” to answer that question with a question.
“Are you still doing breakfast?”
“Absolutely.”
Fabulous. And that’s how everything turns out.
This is a Saturday night takeaway breakfast, but the no-frills space has a good number of tables to sit in at and it’s easy to fill those tables with the choices on the extensive menu.
A generous breakfast platter provides large, thin, crepe-like dosa neatly folded like tea towels, pillows of steamed idli rice cakes and a two pairs of piping hot vada fritters because they didn’t have any bonda, little deep fried potato balls. It comes with face blasting chutneys, full of coconut, which provides a little respite, tamarind and lentils, as well as a pot of sambar, a fiery soup-cum-stew-cum-dip crying to be soaked up by all the starchy mops.
Also off the breakfast menu is the poori with channa curry, the deep fried flat bread torn into the form of utensils to dredge through the chickpea curry, everything squashed into one, to be dispatched with maximum efficiency.
Recommendations come from the street food selection and, as good as breakfast was, things are cranked up a level by both the gobi 65 and samosa chaat.
The overcoat on the deep fried bits of cauliflower pulsates red, a clear warning there’s more spice in the way, and it’s smoky and insistent. That crisp coating survives the trip home pretty well and while there was an inevitable loss of crunch due to transit, it was still a joy. Cauliflower as moreish as a bag of cheese and onion.
The samosa chaat was the best of the lot.
The pastry purses, broken open to reveal their potato and pea filling, then slathered in more powerful chickpea curry, tempered by yogurt and sweet-sour bites of onion. The balance to it is really the whole place in a foil container. Massive flavour, no mis-steps, nothing out of place.
The menu beyond breakfast and street food is full of the biryanis and curries you’d expect, as well as shawarma and a few Chinese dishes. There’s nothing to suggest it wouldn’t be executed just as well, but the especially interesting stuff is carried off with real aplomb.
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The best thing about breakfast at not-breakfast time is that dessert is socially acceptable. After all that heat, the immense sweetness of the gulab jamun – little fried dumplings bobbing in a cardamom-scented syrup – and apricot delight – a slab of light sponge doused in custard and fruit puree – are welcome bowls of comfort.
No better way to round off the most important meal of the day – whenever you decide to have it.
The bill
- Breakfast platter £14.99
- Poori with channa curry £7.99
- Samosa chaat £6.99
- Gobi 65 £6.99
- Gulab jamun £3.99
- Apricot delight £5.99
