41 Cherkovna Str.
Tel.: 943 3001
Working hours:
10am - midnight

On my visit to Awadh I was joined by a companion whose judgment regarding Indian food is beyond question: A Londoner of Punjabi descent who often delivers scathing criticism of poor Indian fare in her hometown.

I took her to Awadh thinking about the flak Bulgaria has received lately in the British press and from the rest of the "outside world" in general. I'm thinking of newspapers featuring "corrupt" and "Bulgaria" in the same headline and an email a fellow American sent me recently asking if muggings, shootings and theft are a major problem here. As if the streets of Sofia were like Hieronymus Bosch's perdition.

I wanted my friend and I to eat Indian food like when we lived in New York or when I visited her in London or any other of the countless places we've eaten curry. I didn't want her to shrug and roll her eyes, as if to say she expected, and received, something inferior from Bulgaria. My friend's surprise at finding tasty curry in Sofia was therefore welcome.

I've made jokes about the lack of choices here when it comes to restaurants, but the city now has at least two good Indian places: Awadh and Taj Mahal. I go to both often but find myself eating from Awadh more, probably because I often order it from BGmenu.com, an excellent service that charges a few leva for delivery and often takes longer than it should, but which I recommend. Awadh is fairly out of the way for those of us who live in the centre. You need to walk down Oborishte, away from the Nevski Cathedral, and then take a left onto Cherknovna until you see the reddish exterior of the restaurant on the right. From the Doctor's Garden to the restaurant, it's a 20 minute stroll.

Inside, the place is decorated in Indian colours — saffron and pink — with the requisite bronze elephant heads of the god Ganesh and others. The smoking section is a true smoking section, a set-aside room that keeps the nicotine clouds out of your meal. But the restaurant still has a typical Bulgarian feel, because of the customers. People eat slowly and nibble at their dishes while the coffee cups and beer bottles pile up.

We ordered a lot. We always do. We always order too much.

To start, samosas (fried dumplings filled with potatoes and vegetables) for 4.20 leva and papadums (thin, crunchy bread) for 1.80 leva and pudina raita (a minty, spicy dip) for two leva. All were excellent. My companion deemed them only good, as in acceptable. But from my picky friend, that's a compliment. To me, having not eaten at an Indian restaurant in London for six months, they were great. I was not a slow-eating Bulgarian that night.

The service was exceptional. Our waitress spoke English, tolerated my Bulgarian and, most importantly, was attentive but not overbearing. In Bulgaria I tend to encounter servers of two extremes. They either don't check up on you even when you try to flag them down on their way to their cigarette break, or they make you uncomfortable by hovering near your table and inquiring into your meal every few minutes. At Awadh, our waitress approached us every now and again and was around when we wanted to order a glass of water.

For our meal, we enjoyed murgh makhanwala (grilled chicken served in a tomato gravy) and saag gosht (spicy lamb in spinach), both for 9.60 leva. We also ordered a portion of white rice for 3.60 leva and a few Tuborg beers for 2.50 leva apiece. While our entrees perhaps lacked some kind of je ne sais quoi that seems to infuse all proper curry, it was easy for me to go beyond that to enjoy myself. My companion agreed, though she tended to dwell more on the je ne sais quoi, the same way she would in an Indian restaurants on Brick Lane.

In total, our meal cost 45 leva. That included a 10 per cent service fee. I didn't ask why we were charged a fee, because at four leva I didn't care, but usually I frown on service fees unless I'm with a party of 10 or more people. I prefer tipping and would have tipped more than four leva if the fee hadn't been charged.

My Londoner-Punjabi friend and I found that our dining experience fit nicely with our tradition of patronising Indian restaurants around the globe. The next time you seek similar memories, or are just in want something other than shopska salad and grilled meat, remember Awadh.