BABUR (273 Queen West, at McCaul, 416-599-7720) Complete dinners for $40 per person (lunches $27), including all taxes, tip and a Kingfisher. Average main $12. Open Monday to Thursday 11 am to 10 pm, Friday to Sunday 11 am to 11 pm. Licensed. Access: one step at door, washrooms on same floor. Rating: NN
Some things never change.
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Take Babur, that long-running Indian resto on Queen West at McCaul. It’s been there since the 80s, and before that on Dundas down from the AGO. Competent but hardly gastro grub.
We drop in for lunch to discover that the room’s just been given a Restaurant Makeover-type overhaul by trendy design firm Commute Home, the crew responsible for Hanif Harij’s Nyood. Translation: exposed rock walls, ironic light fixtures and a communal table with discrete dividers for those who can’t completely commit to dining with strangers. Problem be, no one’s bothered to modernize Babur’s dated north Indian card.
A relaxation tape of crashing waves does little to whet our appetite, but a tiny amuse of deep-fried papri does. Oh that it prepared us for something more palatable than mango chicken ($13.95). I don’t know about you, but when I see the words “mango” and “chicken” next to each other on a menu, I expect to see them show up on the same plate. Not so at Babur. Instead, generic deep-fried General Tso-style chicken nuggets arrive in a sickly sweet sauce (mango?) served on a sizzling cast-iron platter littered with Spanish onion and tomato.
Babur’s appropriation of nearby Trimurti’s (265 Queen West, at Duncan, 416-645-0286) signature tandoori cauliflower ($11.95) might be easier to stomach if it didn’t work out to $4 per fluorescent floret.
At lunch, all mains from the regular à la carte lineup include bowls of nutty basmati rice and smoky dal. Add-ons like garlic naan ($5), lukewarm mango lassi ($4.50) and $4 bottles of Fanta are all ridiculously overpriced.
We’d have been far better off ordering fiery Pili Pili Chicken with al dente green pepper in a sweet Goan tomato sauce, or the sly heat of Jardaloo Sali Balti’s tender-pink cubes of lamb in a cashew gravy tossed with sultanas. But the next time we’re in the mood for industrial-strength butter chicken (all $13.95), we’ll head for the nearest all-you-can-eat buffet.
