Beaufort Street Blog: Jolly Good Indian

18 January 2008

Jolly Good Indian

According to our extensive research, Jolly Good Indian is the restaurant on Beaufort Street with the highest street number (1004 Beaufort Street), which gave it the honour of being the first restaurant on our culinary tour.

Jolly Good Indian is in a cute and colourful 1940s house. There are a number of separate rooms to eat in, which gives the place a cosy and homey feel. The fact that it is not a purpose built restaurant is a great change to eating in one cavernous and loud dining room. The toilet is a fascinating trip back to the 1960s when brown swirly tiles were the height of sophistication.

The menu is reasonably short, but every curry lover will find a favourite. It is also extremely well priced - dinner for 4 cost under $100, with plenty of starters. This is a great price for Indian in Perth, as you often pay around $25 for one curry. The other cost saving factor is that the restaurant is BYO, which is brilliant for booze lovers like ourselves. Any place that you feel comfortable taking a 6 pack of VB to gets our thumbs up.

We ordered meat samosas, onion bhaji's and poppadums to start. The Samosas were good, but not brilliant like the samosas you get at Mela in Northbridge (which is an unfair comparison, because they are incredible). The Bhaji's were the perfect crispiness and quite tasty. A poppadum is a poppadum. The odd thing about the starters is that they came with sweet chilli sauce, which is not something we've seen in and Indian restaurant before. A bit of raita or chutney would have been much better.

We had four curries - lamb bhuna marsala, butter chicken, beef vindaloo and chicken madras. They were all very good. The ingrediants were fresh, they were not too salty and the sauces were delicious. We were hoping the beef vindaloo would be hotter than it was, but we did order it '75 per cent hot'. Next time we will definitely go 100% hot. We were given plenty of rice, and when one bowl ran it out it was quickly replaced by another. When the second bowl ran out, we were offered another but by that stage we had eaten ourselves stupid and had to decline.

In summary:

Service: A little slow to start, but then very efficient and friendly all night. We were very well looked after.

Food: Samosas and onion bhajis for starter were nice, although could have done with some more condiments (raita, chutney, pickle etc) for the poppadums. Curries were all very good, although, while tasty, they could possibly have done with a little more heat. (This could have been our fault though for asking for a slightly milder version of the Vindaloo).

Ambience: Cosy converted house with nice lighting. Had a nice feel to it.

Highlight: The talking poppadum.

Lowlight: Sweet chilli sauce being the only accompaniment to the starters.

Rating: 4 poppadums out of 5.

Will we be back? absolutely.

Details: Jolly Good Indian does not have a website. You can call them on 08 9272 2111. The restuarant is BYO and has no EFTPOS facilities.

Coming up: Next week we will be visiting Cafe Mille at 1000 Beaufort Street, Inglewood.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: Love your blog,

Keep the reviews rolling!

I have to disagree with your rating of the Jolly Good Indian. I ate there last week and was very disappointed at the quality of the curry. Very watery, very bland, tasted like their main secret spice is tomato ketchup!

I am a Londoner so I know a good curry when I taste one! In my opinion, this was most certainly NOT a Jolly Good Indian!; March 24, 2008 at 7:19 PM
Beaufort Street Bloggers said...: Hi anonymous. Thanks for your comment, and we're pleased you're enjoying the blog.

Perhaps Jolly Good is a bit hit and miss - The Sponge and The Brains recently went back to Jolly Good Indian for a large work function and found it to be pretty good. You're right that the curries are a bit watery and not terribly spicy, but we think the cheep and cheery atmosphere had us sold.; March 25, 2008 at 11:04 AM
Invertir en oro said...: Hello, i would like to read more about this interesting topic.; June 10, 2011 at 11:46 PM

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So who are the Beaufort Street Bloggers?

The Deliberator

World renowned (he has excessively deliberated over menus the world over, to the chagrin of many a waiter), the Deliberator takes pride in his ability to frustrate even the most tolerant of wait staff, let alone his long suffering fellow Beaufort Street Bloggers.

Reflecting on himself (in a positive light as always), the Deliberator lists his favourite past times as pork belly, champagne cocktails and falling asleep on other people’s couches. Upon review of what lies ahead of him in the 2008 Beaufort Street Challenge, the Deliberator remained focussed on the year ahead, stating only that he was glad there were going to be a few budget Thursday nights ahead, as he has already committed 3 months wages to the purchase of a ring from Tiffanys for a certain pixie haired blonde within the team.

Despite still harbouring a love of vegemite on toast from his university days, the Deliberator prides himself on his culinary prowess and exacting standards. He has declared 2008 the year he not only finally drives a waiter to suicide and/or mass murder, but also establishes himself as the West’s answer to the Lygon Street gangster, tipping that before the year is out the name “Deliberator” will be spoken with hushed reverence in cafes and restaurants the length and breadth of Beaufort St.

The Brains

Aptly named because she is indeed the “brains" behind the 2008 Beaufort Street Challenge and also, because sometimes she just seems so smart the entire team prefers that she orders for them, the Brains is a complex character – lawyer by day, avid restaurant reviewer by night and frustrated interior decorator for pretty much all of the time in between.

The 2008 Beaufort Street Challenge came to the Brains whilst on her 7th glass of champagne just after Christmas 2007. Throwing caution to the wind, she drained her glass, slammed the table and declared to all and sundry in a rather agitated voice “2008….2008 we’re doing it. We’re starting at the top and we’re not stopping til the end!” Upon seeing the puzzled stares of those around her , the Brains went on to explain in more detail that what she meant was that 2008 was the year she and her fellow diners would begin at the top of Beaufort Street and eat at every eating establishment before the year was out. Needless to say her fellow team members were yet again left reeling at the sheer genius that is “The Brains”.

The Brains is also the long suffering partner of the Deliberator, having accompanied him on his most recent overseas expeditions to restaurants throughout Europe and Asia. Amenable in nature and blessed with the patience of a saint, the Brains only has to see a Tiffany & Co. advertisement to remind herself that one day, one day very soon, it will all be worthwhile….

Bito (Bun in the Oven)

Reformed party girl whose previous mantra was “Thursday is the new Friday”, BITO is currently at the 24 week mark of an alcohol free sentence known to most as pregnancy. Whilst BYO and corkage are no longer of concern to BITO, it is testament to her spirit and commitment to the team that she has committed herself to the 2008 Beaufort Street challenge in the role of designated driver.

Even before eating for 2, BITO was a committed fan of various Beaufort Street establishments and did not have to be asked twice when contacted by the Brains with regards to the 2008 Beaufort Street Challenge, stating only that there was no bloody way she was doing Jackson’s degustation menu sans alcohol.

Married to “The Sponge”, Bito is renowned in the team for her new found patience and tolerance of drunkards in her automobile.

The Sponge

Standing at the immodest height of 6 foot 4”, with size 14 feet, the Sponge has an appetite known to send many a kitchen into a flurry and a capacity for alcohol that has seen more than the odd sommelier rubbing his hands in delight.

Responsible for BITO’s current plight, the Sponge sees 2008 as the year he becomes a first time father yes, but more importantly, the year in which finally establishes himself as force to be reckoned within the Beaufort Street precinct.

When asked what unique attributes he thought he brought to the 2008 Beaufort Street Challenge, the Sponge declared that whilst he preferred to think of himself as a bit of an “all rounder”, he did think his world class background in spaghetti marinara and a capacity to calculate corkage in the blink of an eyelid were going to prove invaluable to the team in the year ahead.

Beaufort Street Blog

18 January 2008

Jolly Good Indian

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