It's all about the spices.

I had never heard of sag panir until I met Sapna and it's a shame really, that I had missed out on it for almost 20 years of my life. The only recollection I have about any exposure to Northern Indian food before that was that it involved a lot of yogurt and being only a recently converted yogurt-eater, you can probably guess why I wasn't a big fan of Northern Indian food. It's funny that I had to come all the way here to fall in love with the cuisine and of course, learn that it's not all about the yogurt.

There's a nice little Indian restaurant just a couple of minutes walk away from where we live which has amazing food and delivery service. Feeling lazy but still in the mood for some celebrating, (it was the day between our birthdays) we decided to order in and that's quite the ultimate I think - good food without having to do little more than pick up the phone.

Regency Indian Cuisine
96 Old Street
London
ECIV 9AY

Chicken Balti (with keema naan in the background). I have keema naan everytime I go to the restaurant (or in this case, order in). It's naan with some sort of meat filling inside which makes it slightly heavier than the usual naan. They do a really good garlic naan, too as they are really generous with the garlic. The naan is generally quite different from the naan we get back home and I must say that I prefer the ones here - less greasy and more like they were really cooked in a clay oven.

Sag panir (paneer) - spinach with cottage cheese. The thing about cottage cheese is that it doesn't really taste like cheese, not the typical cheese you get in Western cuisine anyway. The spinach is cooked in some spices until it is somewhat creamy and the cheese (funnily enough) doesn't melt but stays in cube form. It actually reminds me a little of Popeye's spinach - the spinach that he squeezes out of the can straight into his mouth. It's one of our favourites, if not THE favourite and we always have to get more than one serving to share.

"It's like tandoori but with gravy"
-Hanad on his choice for the evening, lamb rezalla-

With Indian food, every mouthful is a burst of flavour and that's what I really love about it (and why it's probably the only type of food I have cravings for). At Regency, the curries seem to go so well with everything and the food is literally finger-licking good. The amount of food we ordered that evening was enough to last us until lunch the next day - good food, big portions, very reasonable prices and free delivery - what more can one ask for?

To top it all off, our birthday cake - a layered cappuccino cake. With ours being last of the birthdays we'll be celebrating here this round, I think we've just about exhausted all the M&S cakes.

Oh yes, we do love our Indian food.