suwon curry | Ramen Water

The newest addition to the Curries of Suwon series is ShangriLa, located on the main road leading to Ajou university. If you read my review of Kasam then you know that I think it’s quite good. It seems that they are the owners/operators of ShangriLa…so good news!

Basically, ShangriLa is like a nicer version of Kasam. Kasam tends to be very utilitarian and the decor isn’t much to write home about. The food, though, is excellent. I asked if the recipes were the same as Kasam and they told me “it’s a different chef,” but at least what I ordered (Butter Chicken Curry) tasted very similar to the same dish from Kasam, maybe just a bit less spicy, and the naan was identical…so yeah, I think the recipes are probably the same. The menu is a good bit smaller than Kasam’s and resembles a sort of “greatest hits” version. You won’t find some of the less popular curries. Instead, they’re offering 5 vegetarian, 5 chicken, and 5 lamb curries. The prices are the same as Kasam and you can get a curry and a naan for about 11-13,000won.

While Kasam is super delicious, it’s not exactly the kind of place you’d want to go on a date or anything. In this way, ShangriLa is a big improvement. The restaurant’s interior is much nicer than Kasam’s. There are booths! It just seems like a nicer restaurant in general and sort of meets the standard of a normal mid-priced restaurant in Korea.

Anyway, I am a diehard Kasam fan, but thought ShangriLa was quite good as well. I think it’s definitely worth a visit and encourage you to support awesome Indian/Nepalese cuisine in Suwon. I also like it because they gave us free stuff.

Directions:

On the main road leading to Ajou University, look across the street from the KFC. It’s above the Tom n Tom’s coffee and the GS 25 on the 3rd floor.

Let’s continue our curry adventures, shall we? Today, I’ll tell you about Dheli Dhaba, an Indian restaurant with a Turkish spin on it. We used to call this the Turkish place, but it seems like their kebab options have dwindled and they’re focusing mainly on curries now. They’ve also changed locations sort of. They used to be down an alley and they had a huge basement area as well, but now they’ve moved the whole operation downstairs and they have an entrance on the main road.

Let’s talk about what they do right first. For one thing, it’s by far the cheapest Indian restaurant I’ve ever been to. You could easily eat here for under 10,000won. We ordered 4 curries, 5 bread things, rice, a kebab, samosas, and drinks and it was 42,000won. Incredibly affordable. The three of us who went there all thought the vegetarian dishes were amazing. We had the daal (lentils), aloo gobi (potato and cauliflower), chana masala (chickpeas), and butter chicken. The Irish particularly liked the aloo gobi, which was good, but I have a weird thing about the texture of cauliflower. So sue me. I thought the chana masala was the best dish. Considering that it’s typically not a main dish, they really did it justice. It was really floral and had a really prominent ginger taste…or was it cardamom? I’m not exactly sure, I’d have to have it again.

Now for the bad. I’ve been here a couple of times and ordered meat things both times. Their meat just isn’t good. The chicken butter was described as “a chicken that died a buttery death.” It really did taste like you were eating a stick of butter. That was the worst thing we had. The daal and that were really too salty. When your curry tastes like salt and not lentils, it’s a problem. We tried chapati, naan, and roti for the breads and they were all passable, though nothing special.

They have quite a big space and can seat large groups. I went one time with around 20 people for a birthday party. They also have a nice little mini grocery store, as is common for a lot of Indian restaurants. If you ever need 20kg of Jasmine rice, you can get it here. So this is a great place for poor vegetarians, and it’s good if you’re not poor as well…but meat eaters steer clear. It’s on the main street near Suwon station. If you just walk up the street it’s on the right in the same building as Bean’s Bins Coffee and it’s across the street from places like Tom and Tom’s/Pizza hut/Starbucks/etc.