August 29, 2021
Chefs shake long-handled pans which flame like coronal mass ejections from the sun. They pack glowing tandoors, stir colossal pots, load weapons-grade skewers (seekhs) with kabob, pat dough for naan. A chef looks up at you and smiles. It’s no exaggeration to say the room is action-packed. It’s clean. Installing a large window, so diners can see in, was brilliant. Carat’s kitchen is theater!
Tables are set with monogrammed cloth napkins. Flatware is elegantly engraved with the restaurant’s name. The dining room buzzes with conversation lilted with laughter. Beautiful food wafts by and you clench your hands together so neither will insubordinately snag a morsel. You feel a sense of well-being and happy anticipation. Good stuff is nigh.
The menu lists not only Indian foods, but Mediterranean. That’s quite a range. Can they handle it all? You make a tactical decision to order only Indian, leaving the rest for another day.
There’s hardly a better way to survey a restaurant’s terrain than samplers. You order two: an Old Delhi Chaat Platter (street-food snacks) and a Chef’s Choice Platter (tandoori). Naturally, of sound mind, you order butter naan and saffron-poppyseed-almond naan. And Raita (yogurt sauce). And Saffron Pulao (perfectly cooked basmati rice with saffron and scattered cumin seed).
There are three kinds of chaat: Dahi Bhalla, Dahi Puri, and Papri Chaat. The Dahi Bhalla is a black lentil patty in a puri (a crisp, deep-fried Indian bread), doused with yogurt, tamarind chutney, and mint chutney.
All the chutneys, and the yogurt, are housemade. You particularly like the yogurt which astounds you with its cheeky freshness, so much better than store bought that it’s almost a different substance altogether. The tamarind chutney is sweet, sour, sultry. The mint chutney pops like a flash bang.
The Dahi Puri is a crisp sphere filled with potato, yogurt, and tamarind.
The Papri Chaat, is a little crisp disk with yogurt, tamarind, and mint.
They’re amped by neon pomegranate seeds and sev – like the fibers in Shredded Wheat, but from chickpea flour. It’s an utterly delectable demolition-derby of flavors-textures-colors-scents with no western equivalent. They’re so delicious that you must suppress a tendency to growl and snap at your wife’s fingers as the two of you consume them.
All the tandoori items are moist-spiced-caramelized-charred-flavorful, great with naan, raita, and chutneys (the sesame, OMG): Chicken Tikka, Chicken Pahadi, Tandoori King Prawn, Lamb Chop, Mackerel Fish Tikka, Lamb Seekh Kebab. They’re so good, there’s hardly a standout, but you savored the perfect texture and flavor of the sashimi-grade King Prawn. Your wife went full piranha on the lamb chop with nutmeg in the spicing. The mackerel was snapping fresh, clearly receptive to the tandoor’s caress.
Like an anaconda unhinging its jaws to take in a cow, you gird for one more main, Sindhi Gosht, slow-cooked New Zealand mutton, with sliced onions, cardamom, bay leaf, and “chef’s special spices.” It’s chunks of fork-tender lamb in a mild, silky gravy. It’s a dish ideally suited to saffron pilau or naan, dolloped with raita. It’s a sigh of contentment.
Finale, two desserts: Kista Pulfi and Gulab Jaman. The Kista Pulfi is unchurned ice cream, like a semifreddo, sweet, assertively saffron-flavored, scattered with pistachio bits. It mauls you with pleasure. You hesitate to say it’s the most delicious dessert you’ve ever eaten, but it might be.
The Gulab Jaman is deep-fried beignets -- made from milk curd and flour and cardamom and saffron – soaked in saffron syrup and sprinkled with pistachio and almond bits, served hot. It’s so delicious surely it can’t be legal. Brutal to say, Café du Monde’s renowned beignets are T-ball by comparison. These desserts together are a binary explosive. Beware.
Drinks? It is a restaurant reviewer’s job to swing their lantern high, selflessly lighting the way for others. So, you and your wife selflessly order a Gems and Spices (House-Infused Cardamom Vodka, Fennel Seeds, Housemade Ginger Syrup, Peychaud’s Bitters, Lime Juice, Absinthe rinsed glass) and a
Bollywood Afterparty (House-infused Cinnamon gin, Housemade Honey Syrup, Aromatic Bitters & Pure Cacao Bitters, Lemon Juice, Aquafaba).
Selflessness unbounded, you order a second round, a Pink Diamond (House-infused Raspberry & Clove Rum, Crème de Peche, Cherry Blossom Syrup, Orange Bitters, Lime Juice, Fresh Raspberries, Albumen) and a
Divine Intervention (Cognac, Rye Whisky, Fine Ruby Port, Campari, Aromatic Bitters, Smoked Peat Mist).
All are so complex that you eye them skeptically. A sip though and your eyes widen. If you worship at the altar of mixology, these are musts, on another continuum altogether from the typical, overpriced Hawaiian Punch cocktails (with the provenance of every ingredient listed) commonly dispensed. They are sprung from the mixological genius of Daniel Whitely. If the Queen of England ever happens in and tilts back a few, knighthood is his. Your favorite is the Gems and Spices, like a long note on a cardamom cello. It’s among the greatest (if not the greatest) cocktails you’ve ever had. Close runner-up is the Bollywood Afterparty. Deep as an old leather chair, it is capped with aquafaba, frothed garbanzo cooking liquid which is, unlikely as it seems, luscious. The Pink Diamond, luminous with berry and peach, is its equal. And the Divine Intervention (which is finished with a spray of Smoky Islay Single Malt Whiskey), is a contemplative sipper with a retro quality that will incline you to speak with a Transatlantic accent.
Mango Lassi is served as a digestif. It’s made with their fresh homemade yogurt and pureed Alphonso mangoes imported from India plus a little mango syrup. It gladdens your gizzard.
All the cocktails are priced at HK$108. Very fair.
The owner of Carat, Atul, is also a gem dealer, hence the restaurant’s name. Gems are precious stones forged by time, heat, and pressure. The food and drink created by this restaurant are gems produced in just the same way, forged by the time, heat, and pressure of extraordinary intelligence, talent, and experience. And as if this were not enough, prices are reasonable.
Carat is great for families, for friends, for dates. It has an outside deck which looks ideal for parties. It is well worth a trip across town. Boy, do you recommend it.
Rating (on a scale of 0 to 5)
Food overall: 5
Ambience: 4
Service: 4
Overall greatness: 5
Restaurants are intuitively rated within their particular realms. So Michelin restaurants, pizza places and stand-up sandwich joints are judged against like restaurants, not each other. A 5 for a high-end restaurant is not meant to be the same as a 5 for street food.
From my website, here’s how I rate food: “I believe the quality of a restaurant’s food is vastly more important than any other factor. Even if I love a restaurant’s food, I’m very conservative about giving out 4’s or 5’s. I reserve 4’s for food that is uniformly excellent. Preponderantly excellent tends to get a lower score. 5’s are for food that is uniformly stunning.”
This meal was comped.
Carat
4F, Winfield Commercial Building, 6-8 Prat Avenue, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong
+852 2391 3929