When I heard about the vegetarian options available at a particular Indian restaurant, my interest was piqued and I headed on over to try out the dishes and decide if they were as good as promised. So, we decided to visit ‘Indian Sweet Master’ in Brampton to check out their fare. As it was around 6.30pm the place was packed with people standing in line to place their order/ pick it up and the line zigzagged and reached the entrance door. Looking at how busy they were we almost walked away but the tantalizing aroma of the food made me rethink our decision and we decided to place our order. We did however change our minds regarding wanting to sit and enjoy a relaxing meal at the restaurant and instead decided to do a take-out. We placed the order for ‘Veggie Fish Pakora’, ‘Veggie Platter’ and ‘Veggie Chicken Biryani’ and were told that the wait time would be 30 minutes.
With time to spare we decided to browse the desi stores in the complex and do some grocery shopping too. When we returned to the restaurant in 30 mins, our order was ready and as we took it and sat in the car to head back home the aroma of the pakoras, tikkas, biryani was heavenly and it is a mystery how we didn’t gobble everything in the parking lot but managed to bring it home all in one pieceJ.
First up on our menu was the fish pakora which was soya wrapped in seaweed and besan and deep fried. One bite into it and I was stunned how close in texture it was to a fish pakora. The chutney that accompanied the fish pakora was okay, no great shakes, however just the pakora was great and it needed no accompaniment. A word of caution, if you don’t like the ‘fishy’ smell then don’t heat up the fish pakora too much in the microwave / toaster over as otherwise the fishy smell is overbearing and you won’t be able to eat it. (Learned that the hard way after toasting the leftover pakoras the next day and almost choking on the intense fishy smell, which did disappear after the pakoras cooled down).
Next we opened the box that contained the Veggie platter and boy was their portion size generous. There were 3 different kinds of veggie soy tikkas which resembled the chicken tikkas so closely that I was scared to take a bite, in case they had made an error and given me chicken tikkas instead of veggie. There were 6 pieces of soy tikkas (3 different marinades – plain yogurt and spices a.k.a seekh kebab +red color, yogurt and spices a.k.a. chicken tikka + green chutney a.k.a haryali kebab) , 3 pieces of paneer tikka, 1 piece of cauliflower, 1 piece tomato, 1 bell pepper and 1 large piece of onion ( all marinated in yogurt and spices and grilled). Each and every soy tikka, paneer tikka, tandoori vegetable was perfectly marinated and cooked. The paneer was soft and cooked to perfection and one could taste the marination when you bit into it instead of being bland. The tikkas were moist and flavorful and a treat for our mouths.
Even though we were stuffed after having ½ portion of the fish pakoras and ½ portion of the veggie platter we decided to taste the veggie chicken biryani. N boy am I glad that I did as it was yummy. The mix of the spices to the proportion of veggie chicken (soy chicken) was good. However there were a few things I didn’t like about the biryani, one of them being that it had too much of mint leaves and it seemed the kitchen staff had chopped up the leaves and stems all together or used dried mint leaves along with their stems and these stems and excessive leaves were a pain in the butt. We had whole stems chopped into pieces which were hard and if you bit into one just ruined the taste of the biryani. And I also think that they should have given a raita with the biryani as an accompaniment. The veggie soy chicken pieces were moist though the rice seemed a little undercooked (I guess to keep the rice fluffy/ khila-khila they undercook the rice which doesn’t seem necessary to me as have made biryani and have managed to make the rice fluffy yet soft).
We ended our delicious dinner by biting into ‘Petha’ which was succulent and melted in our mouths and was the perfect level of sweetness and end to our delicious meal.
I would say that a visit to ‘Indian Sweet Master’ is a must for all vegetarians who want to try tikkas, kebabs, biryani and pakoras. Their other menu items are also tasty though wouldn’t say very different from other Indian restaurants. A word of caution though, if you want to do a takeout then give them approx 30 mins as they are a very busy restaurant and you might be window shopping till your food is ready, which can be a good thing too ;-). Their prices are competitive; it was $6.99 for the Veggie Biryani, $5.99 for the Veggie Platter and $5.99 for the Fish Pakoras. If you want to go and have your meal in the restaurant, you can be sure you will get finger licking delicious food that will make up for the lack of peace and quiet. Parking is free and there are a lot of parking slots so finding one shouldn’t be a problem. The staff is courteous and very efficient ensuring all orders are handled in a professional manner.
Indian Sweet Master is located at 503 Ray Lawson Blvd Unit #7, Brampton, ON L6Y 0N2 and is open from 10am – 10.30pm daily.
The restaurant receives 4 stars in SRM’s book
Veggie Love Notes 