Forget your preconceptions of Indian food before heading to Nicosia’s latest Oriental eatery
THE ‘Green Pepper Indian Style’ (not just ‘Indian’) Restaurant. An inconspicuous doorway. A sign promising “Halal Meat”. A fairly dodgy part of Nicosia, off the Ochi roundabout, near the old coffee shops and so-called ‘prozzie pubs’. I envisaged a hole in the wall, a kind of canteen catering to Indian and Sri Lankan workers, the kind of place with cramped, probably communal, benches serving dirt-cheap, spice-laden dishes.
Here’s the first surprise: the narrow doorway opens into a large, cavernous space on two levels, done up in stone (some real, some veneer). It seats around 50, but could probably accommodate twice that number. Mohammed Asif, the 24-year-old Pakistani manager – he’s also the owner’s brother – stands by the door, waiting to welcome customers. The overall effect is spacious, airy and relaxing.
Here’s the second surprise: the food itself. Indian food has a chequered past in Cyprus. For a long time, mention of curries and tandoori was a cue for people to roll their eyes and flap their hands in front of their mouths to indicate extreme heat. Gradually it got accepted – not, thank God, in the way of the UK’s ‘vindaloo culture’ where post-pub revellers order the hottest thing on the menu to prove how ‘hard’ they are, but merely as a sign of Adventurous Eating. These days it’s different but not too different, conventionally unconventional: chunks of meat in heavy sauce, soaked up with naan bread and rice.
This is where the Green Pepper may have a problem. The food isn’t quite what you’d expect from an Indian restaurant – though the menu is. We ordered samosas to start, then Aloo Gobhi (potatoes and cauliflower), Chana Masala (chickpeas with onion, garlic, ginger and tomatoes) and Chicken Karahi, as well as Chapati bread, Raita and rice. (The Chicken Tikka starter, strongly recommended by a colleague, was unfortunately unavailable.)
On paper, it sounds quite exotic. In fact, though the meal was delicious, none of it would’ve fazed your average souvla eater or fish-and-chips aficionado (the specials even include “Spicy Fried Fish and Chips”!). There were no heavy sauces. The food tasted clean and fresh. The chickpeas gleamed like marbles. The cauliflower wasn’t overcooked. None of it was very spicy, but that’s partly our fault for choosing Medium-spiced when Mohammed took our order (go for Hot if you like your food fiery). There was even a Cyprus-style side salad with feta cheese!
I repeat: all this was delicious. Special mention goes to the samosas, which took a while to arrive (about half an hour) but proved worth the wait. Never mind those supermarket triangles with the papery taste: £1.50 gets you three monster, potato-filled pasties, fresh from the deep-fry, each one bigger than the palm of your hand. The dough was fragrant and crisp, cooled by judicious dipping in a side-dish of minty yoghurt.
But was it really ‘Indian’? The quest for culinary Authenticity breeds bad habits. This fine samosa was just a potato pie, which won’t be enough for some customers; Indian restaurants create a certain mind-set. Painfully hot is ‘Indian’. Sauces so thick you can’t tell what you’re eating are ‘Indian’. Yet I recall being in India some years ago, up in Rajasthan in the North-West, and eating a pakora from a roadside stand. It tasted a lot like the Green Pepper samosa.
I had a chat with Mohammed after we ate, asking what kind of customers the place is targeting. I’m worried it’ll seem too ‘ordinary’ for local foodies, and prices are a little steep for workers from the sub-continent, though – as he points out – portions are so generous you only need to order Pilau Rice and a Special (total price about £6) to feel full. Then of course there’s the lure of Halal meat.
Green Pepper may be the only Halal restaurant in Cyprus – ‘Halal’ being the Muslim equivalent of Kosher, i.e. meat from an animal that’s been bled to death rather than bludgeoned or decapitated. It sounds cruel, but Mohammed assures me the opposite is true: the idea is in fact to avoid causing pain – cutting a vein makes the beast drift into woozy oblivion, as opposed to the shock of a lethal blow from a blade – and draining the meat of blood also makes it (allegedly) healthier. In any case, I didn’t notice any difference in taste.
Restaurants depend on expectations. Hopefully the Green Pepper will find its niche, because it offers first-rate, good-value fare in pleasant surroundings – but it’s not quite the gravy-sodden curries you (may) expect when you hear the words ‘Indian restaurant’. Maybe that explains the Indian Style Restaurant: Indian, with a Style all its own.
By Theo Panayides
SPECIALITY Karachi Chicken Biryani, Degi Charga, Samosas
SEATING 50-60
WHERE 23, Xanthi Xenierou Street, Nicosia
CONTACT 22-756753
BOOKING Not required
PRICE Around £20 for two, including wine
