Updated: 4th Oct 2011: Red Mirchi has moved a few doors away to 4119 #5 Road.

The Richmond Community Kitchen met for the last time before the summer break. This luncheon is attended by 13 members from various Richmond Community Kitchens.

I filled in for Minoo to organize this luncheon because Minoo has a last minute personal matter to attend to. It was a good turnout.

We had lunch at Red Mirchi at the corner of No. 5 Road and Cambie. The location had been determined during the previous week’s lunch at Cucina Manila. We love to enjoy various ethnic cuisines in our multicultural community kitchens.

Red Mirchi offers buffet lunch and daily lunch specials at reasonable prices.

Red Mirchi’s regular menu items ranges from $10 to $15 for the Indian dishes. You can click on the menu to view them larger. Red Mirchi also serves pizza and pasta.

Red Mirchi has a very pleasant setting with booth seats and single rectangular tables that can be joined up for a large group. It is spacious.

We were told by the server that this restaurant has been in business for 15 months. The server who served us told us that she used to work at All India Sweets in Vancouver for 5 years before her family decided to open this restaurant. This is a family run business, managed by two brothers and two sisters.

The server also told us they are often mistaken to be related to Mirchi on Granville St. in Vancouver. However, they are not related at all. They even have customers who call up for take out orders but went to the Mirchi in Vancouver to pick up the order and only found out it’s the wrong Mirchi.

Since we had a big group and the majority of them opted for the buffet, we decided the whole group to have the buffet. It’s easier to manage this way. The buffet is $10.95 per person.

The main dish in the buffet is …

Butter Chicken which origins from Hindu Punjabi.

The butter chicken sauce is made with butter, tomato puree, and various spices like cumin, cloves, cinnamon, coriander, pepper, fenugreek and fresh cream. This is a very rich dish.

Butter chicken is best eaten with basmati rice or naan which absorb all the goodness of the sauce. Naan is a leavened flatbread that is cooked in a tandoor (a clay oven). The good thing is freshly baked naan is frequently topped up at the buffet.

Another star of the buffet is the Chicken Wing. One of the attendee told me it’s called Tandoori Chicken Wing because she likes it so much that she called the restaurant the next day to check if they have this for take out. Unfortunately, the Tandoori Chicken Wing is only available in the buffet. It’s not on their take out menu. I guessed it is called Tandoori Chicken Wing because they cooked it in the tandoor. It sure does not look like the typical reddish tandoori chicken.

The chicken wing is moist and spiced up with lots of pepper. This is one item that disappears quickly the moment the buffet is refilled.

The buffet also has a soup item. Today’s soup is a tomatoísh soup with chicken. It is slightly spicy and a tad too salty. Vegetables in this soup includes onions, celery and carrots.

There were four vegetarian dishes in the buffet. I only had this one which is the Paneer with Green Peas. Paneer is an unaged, non-melting farmer cheese or cheese curd. It is made by curdling heated milk with lemon juice or other acidic food. The process is described in this post.

One of the snack item on the buffet is Pakora. It’s a deep fried snacks made with various vegetables like onion, potato, eggplant, spinach, cauliflower, tomato, chili, etc, dipped in gram flour and deep fried. It is crispy on the outside.

Another snack item or appetizer on the buffet is the Papadum. It is typically made from flour or paste derived from either lentil, chickpea, black gram, rice or potato.  I think the one above has fennel seeds. It is quite salty. It is supposed to be eaten with chutney or salsa.

There are a number of dips for the salad bar. The above are two of the dips. The one on the left is spicy and vinegarish. You can smell the jalapeno or green chili in it. The one on the right is raita. Raita is a yogurt dip. You can find the recipe here.

They serve tomatoes. cucumbers, daikon, chickpeas, etc at the salad and condiments bar.

There is only one dessert in buffet. It is Gulab Jamun. It is an Indian dessert made from fried milk balls and soaked in a sweet syrup.

It is not a big selection buffet. But it has sufficient items to represent the Indian cuisine. We enjoyed the meal and most of all the company of friends who have great interest in food.