I was told that aiming at eating at the best rated Indian restaurants in Lisbon and then deciding which one is actually the best one --in my opinion, a quite decent goal in life-- was a rather childish thought. Still, we go to one such restaurants: close to a central metro station, it has the best comments and scores, even from Italian reviewers.
The place is small and overly pink. Unlike most Indian restaurants in Portugal, however, in this place you will not find a side menu with Italian food. The entrance (cheese naan) is quite good, a bit different from the one we are used to eat, though. We then ordered two chicken dishes (chicken tikka masala and keema matar). Sadly, both are a major disappointment: in both cases the meat is devoid of any flavor. We couldn't avoid establish a sharp contrast between these two dishes and equivalent dishes at our favorite, less expensive Indian place.
In the table next to ours, a group of Indian tourists eats enthusiastically (using their hands and naan rather than cutlery) and we are tempted to ask their opinion on the food. Of course we didn't do it. I then suggest that India is such a big country that it could be the case that each of the two restaurants serves food from two rather different regions. Could it be that real Indian food is actually insipid and boring? Perhaps our favorite restaurant has been cheating on us with tasty food for the last three years? We will have to go to India to confirm it.
