Rickshaw Urban Indian Kitchen opened up in Sherwood recently serving their modern take on Indian Street Food. I took a stroll up Mansfield Road to check them out a couple of times this week so that I could see what they were all about. Spoiler alert I found some pretty tasty food to eat 🙂

Their website has a quote saying “flavour fuelled Indian Street Food – A wild epic combination of mild, spicy, sweet, and sour food creating something incredible“.

Sounds good to me, I mean why not aim high and see where we land!

Lets see what we found to eat

I decided that it would be best to pick out a few of their side dishes / appetisers to get a picture or rather flavour of the food that this place had to offer. So I ordered the Chilli Chicken, The Papdi Chaat, and the Palak Pakora (I think) just to get started with 🙂

Instead of getting everything to takeaway I said I would just eat them there perched on a stool at on one of the bench tables. I kind of expected them to just arrive in small boxes so was pleasantly surprised when each arrived all pretty and presented neatly on proper plates.

It took up half the table and I did feel like a bit of a glutton for a brief moment. Then I just smelt the flavours of the food wafting up at me and dived straight into each dish, lost in my own world 🙂

Chilli Chicken

I really liked the Chilli Chicken, The menu described this as ‘Moreish super tasty & sticky special garlic chilli spiced boneless chicken breast‘. That was certainly true as it was very moreish indeed. As I was eating this it was reminding me of a classic street food style dish called Chicken 65 that I used to eat a lot in India. That was funny as when I got home and checked out the Rickshaw menu online they were calling this dish Chilli Chicken 69. I think it was a similar idea only chicken 65 is drier and spicier.

I could have eaten this dish all day long, even though it was spicy it was that sort of spice taste that keeps you coming back for more, the chicken itself was moist and juicy, that sticky sauce that clings to each piece was the business and the sweet soft chunks of bell pepper were a super foil to the spicy chicken.

Papdi Chaat

The Papdi Chaat was described on the menu as being a popular street food dish, ‘little crisp indian crackers are layered with potatoes, chutneys, chaat masala, and yoghurt. This was quite an interesting dish, while you did have plenty of texture with crisp layers and soft potato slices, you also had a lot of sauce with the yoghurt and the drizzles of a sort of tamarind sauce and green yoghurt sauce on the side.

I liked this but if I am honest I am still not sure which dish this really was, the chap on the counter told me that it was this, but I didn’t remember ordering that, still it was pretty good and I would have it again 🙂

Crispy Palak Pakora?

I also had this slightly fancy looking ‘Crispy Palak Pakora‘ which were a very solid bite of food, they were spiced quite subtly onion, sliced potato, spinach and I am sure there was a pea in there, all covered in gram flour and fried delicately. You really needed that accompanying sauce to make this really interesting as they did need a dip to add excitement. I reckon that they would go well alongside a bowl of curry

I had to come back to Rikshaw at lunchtime the next day to try one of their ‘Home Inspired’ dishes from the Indian Curry Station section of the menu. I had seen those on the TV menu screen the day before and they sounded good

I ended up choosing the Railway Gosht – ‘Lamb slow cooked with aromatic spices and herbs, coriander and fresh tomatoes, a very popular way of eating Lamb curry in the Indian and Pakastani regions of the Punjab’

It was a close call between that or the Highway Chicken described as “the famous dish that Rickshaw drivers deliver on the roads of India at busy lunchtimes, bite sized chicken slow cooked in aromatic spices in a delicious authentic sauce”

I really like the language that they were using to paint a picture of the daily life on the busy streets of India. I worked over there for a short time spending a few months in Hyderabad and we used to ride around all over the city in those bright yellow auto rickshaws with our fellow Indian workers picking up meals from roadside stalls and going to hole in the wall eateries. Just these simple words were bringing back floods of food memories.

Railway Gosht

The Railway Gosht (or Mutton Curry) really was very tasty, it was a very rich gentle gravy sauce packed out with a lot of fresh flavour just like the other dishes I had sampled. Garlic, Ginger, Fresh Coriander, Cumin and Chilli seemed to be the main flavours coming through.

The lamb was soft and tender and was falling apart to the fork, the sauce was thick and clinging. Sometimes with tomato dishes it can be a bit acrid or tart, but this sauce was lovely and sweet and vibrant. Even after I had run out of lamb I was mopping the rest up with what was left of my nan bread, and actually to be honest with what was left of my mates nan bread as well.  It might not have looked all that pretty, but to be honest it was all about the taste and that was spot on.

Masala Fish

My mate went for the Indian version of Fish and Chips ordering the Masala Fish which just happened to offer Rickshaw fries as a side dish option, he also had a garlic nan (which was good I ate a fair chunk 🙂 ) The fish was not as spicy as some Masala fish I have seen, but it was well cooked nice bit of crisp batter and soft flaky and juicy fish. The fries were crisp and had a bit of spicing too to make them a little more interesting.

The picture perhaps just looks like a box of fish and chips, but it was a lot more interesting and tasty than that.

My first impressions of Rikshaw Urban Indian Kitchen in Sherwood were all very good. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find when I sought them out. I had been worried that it was just another Indian takeaway jumping on the Indian tapas and street food band wagon, but they did seem to be a lot better than just another pretender.

The food was as promised fresh and flavourful and importantly interesting and authentic. It isn’t fancy, but then it doesn’t need to be. The people running it were all very cheerful, enthusiastic and genuine. The menu on the website and on the board was or rather is in a bit of a flux as they try to get going and test out their ideas and concepts so I am expecting that it might be changeable over the opening few weeks.

I hope that they keep the Railway and Roadside Curries, and that Chilli Chicken, and I am looking forward to trying some (or rather a fair bit) of the rest of the menu.

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They are located at 615 Mansfield Road in Sherwood, Nottingham, NG5 2FW
in there own word ‘Opposite Wilkinson’s – next door to Holland & Barratt Sherwood

Check them out on their Facebook Page and on their Instagram Profile, I haven’t found a Twitter Feed as of yet for them