The husband was craving for Indian food. I was craving for vegetarian. So when we went Tekka Market to buy spices one weekend, I was casually asking one shopkeeper for her recommendations for Indian vegetarian food and Gokul Vegetarian Restaurant at Upper Dickson Road (nearest MRT is Little India) was one of the options that popped up.
We made our way there and checked out the menu. Majority were the kind of food that I knew the husband would like, plus it was vegetarian which I preferred. Since it was the best of both worlds, why not.
Gokul Vegetarian Restaurant is an air-conditioned casual dining establishment (one of the reasons we picked this restaurant over the open-air ones) located along a row of shop-houses, away from the bustling crowd in Little India. We arrived just before 12 noon and it wasn’t that packed so we could still easily get a table. Shortly after we came in, the restaurant was already full house as customers streamed in for lunch.
After placing our order, we were served ice water in a carafe with a complimentary basket of papadums.
It didn’t take long for our food to be served.
What we ordered was just a small percentage of what was available. The menu consisted of a spectacular array of almost 300 dishes of North & South Indian cuisine as well as Asian vegetarian food. You can view the full menu here. The selection of beverages was also impressive with a variety of freshly squeezed juices and lassis. There’s definitely something for everyone.
Malai Kofta $10.00
I loved the way this dish was presented and I named it “The Twin Peaks” because I couldn’t help but thought they looked really suggestive, lol. Malai (cream) Kofta (fried paneer & vegetable dumplings) is actually a vegetarian version of meatballs. It was also my first time trying this dish. I was totally blown away by my first spoonful and I couldn’t stop thereafter.
The sauce was extremely rich and creamy and I could taste mashed potatoes, chickpeas, fresh coriander and other herbs & spices in the dumplings that were fried to a golden brown crust on the outside before they were doused in sauce. Overall, it was very well seasoned and very tasty. This was perhaps the BEST North Indian vegetarian dish I ever had. Who needs the meat when we have this?
Mysore Mutton $9.00
Looks exactly like the real thing, doesn’t it? We were impressed by the texture of the mock meat that came in stringy layers and was firm and a little chewy just like mutton. If we didn’t know what this was, we’d probably think this was a true-blue mutton rendang as we really couldn’t tell the difference. Best of all, we need not worry about any gamey smell. The gravy was packed with spices and wasn’t oily.
Romali Roti $4.00
The Romali Roti is a light and thin flat bread that looks like a crepe or handkerchief. It might seem plain and boring but it was exactly what I wanted so I could use this to mop up the gravies from the earlier two dishes.
Briyani Rice $2.50
With such delish gravies, no doubt the husband would order a rice to go with them. This was a plate of fragrant basmati rice with the perfect consistency and had an intense aroma of cardamons. Do note this portion of rice was only sufficient for 1 person so if you’re dining in a group, you’d have to order more to share.
There is no service charge for dining in, only GST.
Overall, we unanimously agreed that this was one of the best Indian vegetarian restaurants we’d tried so far. Portions were more than ample, definitely value for money for their price tags. Service was polite and prompt. Nothing to fault on, really. We give our 4 thumbs up for this restaurant and will definitely return again soon. In fact, we had already decided what to order next time, lol.
Gokul Vegetarian Restaurant
19 Upper Dickson Road
Singapore 207478
Tel: 6396 7769
Gokul Vegetarian Restaurant
190 Middle Road
#01-07. Fortune Centre
Singapore 188979
Tel: 6337 4811
Website: http://gokulvegetarianrestaurant.com/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/GokulVegetarianRestaurant
Opening hours: 10.30am to 10.30pm daily