Tikki Tikka

Review 1 of a few more to come!

Honestly love this place.  Pretty decent atmosphere, small group of people running the place, awesome food, and a buffet for lunch!

I've ordered take out from this place several times already since I discovered it in November of 2009.  They're one of my favorite place in Mississauga to eat Indian food.  Sometimes it's not 100% authentic but hey, it's hard to find the right ingredients in Canada when a lot of people don't know what Paneer is.  All in all, I highly recommend this restaurant.

So I can try to be more objective on the review of food, I've ordered things that I never normally eat at this restaurant.  I got some Kulfi (finally, they're so high in demand that I have never been able to get my hands on any), butter chicken (with the usual side of naan), chicken pakoras, and beef samosas.

The Kulfi was excellent.  There's that ice cream-sweet flavor that so many people seek from a dessert yet it's not mind-numbingly cold.  It's also got some pistachios and some interesting herbs in it.  It tastes like those perfumed herbs and rock sugars that you can find at some Indian restaurants.  Delicious.  Although I am used to a heavier taste of condensed milk I like this version just as much.  Reader forewarned: you may have to get used to the flavor.  It's not like your usual Ben&Jerry's.

Hmm, butter chicken.  Now I have a lot of experience with dish since I ate it all the time back in Asia.  Home-made of course.  This dish doesn't disappoint.  The chicken is fairly tender although I wish they would marinate it for longer.  It's an interesting blend of the usual spices although there is something else in there.  Tomato?  I also have a suspicious feeling that the butter being used isn't the good stuff that normally goes into Indian food.  I'm talking about Ghee, of course.  It's a very generous serving of chicken in sauce though.

This is the naan that comes as a side.  You get it as a choice between basmati rice or half rice and half naan.  It's your typical naan; chewy, a little salty, great for dipping it into your curry or eating it with slabs of chicken between each bite.  It's a good consistency and I especially like how they do it via a pizza oven.  It doesn't have the charcoal flavor that normally follows naan made in the traditional method in the round oven that's open at the top.  Don't really know how it works but I normally see them stick their hand in there and put it on the side or something.  Regardless, it's all delicious.  I just like the naan without the charcoal since it masks the delicate herbs in the curry.

The chicken pakoras is essentially fried chicken.  It’s not burnt to a crisp like KFC or spicy like Popeye’s but the green sauce complements it very well.  This is a dish I would like to order when I’m feeling meaty but with less tastes to take in.  Overall it’s a decent dish.

The beef samosas were great!  I have a feeling that chickpeas are harder to find in Canada than they are elsewhere since I’m used to eating samosas with chickpeas with other sorts of garnish and varying types of meat.  Although the samosas here didn’t have chickpeas I do like the way they mixed the herbs and meat together.  It’s a little spicy but there’s a perfect balance.  The herbs don’t overwhelm the meat and the meat doesn’t overwhelm the goodness of the fried samosa and the herbs inside.  Very tasty.

I am a continuous customer at this restaurant.  Although my reviews in this post may seem a little harsh on certain aspects of the authenticity of food I would like to establish that it is completely understandable that the right ingredients are hard to find when some of them can only be found near the equator.  It's like going to a supermarket and trying to find green Thai chillies or Ghee (does anyone know where I can get some of that by the way?). The food is excellent, the people are friendly, the atmosphere at the restaurant is friendly, the service is extremely quick, and for a small restaurant they even have an online ordering service called eOrder that works a lot better than Pizzahut's (to this date I still cannot enter an address at UTM).

Definitely go there, if not for authenticity, for the good food and the great people.  This is exactly what we need.  Some good food for a good price.

Their website is www.tikkitikka.com or you can call them at 905-823-2000.  Their address is 2057 Royal Windsor Dr in Mississauga.  It's right next to the southern parking lot of Clarkson Go Station.  It may be hard to find so just keep an eye out for it at the north-western corner of the Southdown&Royal Windsor Dr intersection.