Chilli Peppers

Rating: 2

We ate dinner here in June 2024.

Butter chicken with rice
Malai kofta with rice
Battered paneer in chilli yoghurt sauce
Butter naan
Plain naan

Someone alert the Michelin Guide, the definition of ‘fine dining’ has been expanded to include flashing coloured lights, unchilled water, fake flowers, springy plastic streamers and waitresses wearing “Dog Mom” t-shirts. Or so we assume, as Chilli Peppers proudly advertises itself using this terminology.

Ideas-above-their-station aside, Chilli Peppers is a typical suburban Indian restaurant - way more tables than patrons and a standard menu except a small ‘Indo-Chinese’ selection, including the paneer we ordered. This dish reminded The Fee-Rex instantly of those frozen mini hotdogs you can buy as 20 packs at the supermarket. The batter was the same, the texture of the paneer similar to heavily processed sausage meat, and the sauce had tomato undertones with an overtone of chilli.

The naans were probably the best part, hot and fresh with good texture. Expensive though, $5.50 for a plain naan? That’s cheese naan prices! The curries were alright, a bit flavourless and a little too sweet, although the sauces were both nicely creamy. The koftas had a few more ingredients than some competing koftas, although this didn’t do that much for the flavour, and did result in a crumbletastic mess. Honestly, they fell apart if you just looked like you were approaching with a fork. And while not really chewy or sinewy like some chicken can be in a curry, our overall feeling about the meat was that it was passable but not great.

This assessment may come as a surprise to the owner, who visited us during our meal to brag about the authenticity of his curries. Made with real cashew nuts, just like they do in India. Wow. We were touched that he took time out of his busy schedule to come and visit us though, as his plate was pretty full between sitting around on his phone and micromanaging the waitresses.