K2 Balti House seems to be an institution in Hemel Hempstead. I have no idea how long it's been going, but C's grandparents remember going a while ago - which could be 30 years ago for all we know! It is also I suspect, one of the hardest food businesses hit by COVID. It has a huge physical presence, which can't be cheap to run in lockdown, and I imagine going into the actual restaurant was very much a part of the experience. I think that's an important caveat to add to this review - things could be very different in person. But we can only review what goes in our faces.
K2 recently popped up on Just Eat - and I took this to be a sign, as I was complaining recently that the food appeared to be collection only (I grant you this sign is tenuous). In any case, I ordered a chicken balti (had to really, given the name), dal maharani, an aubergine bhaji, some onion bahjis, peshwari naan, rice and poppadoms. That came to £37.
Two of the Indian restaurants we have tried recently have led the way combatting a couple of common issues you often see with Indian food. The Cochin dealt with dominant spice brilliantly, their dishes were fiery when appropriate, but also had complex flavour profiles layered around the chilli: the spice was an addition, not the defining feature. The other is the issue of many takeaways lacking freshness; Olive showed the difference that fresh ingredients make to the quality of a takeaway. so we had high expectations going into our experience with such a highly recommended Hemel staple. Sadly, we were pretty disappointed with K2.
Firstly, the poppadoms didn't arrive, no biggie at all, but still annoying. Also the sauces that would have gone with them were luminous. It was pretty clear these hadn't seen a natural ingredient for some time. Don't get me wrong, my standards for dips with poppadoms are not super high, but I have never seen something that looked that colour before!
Getting into the mains - the good news was the balti was nice. The chicken was cooked so well, it was juicy, fresh and perfectly charred. The balti sauce was well spiced, not too spicy but flavoured well.
Also got to give a shout out to the naans; they were so fluffy! One of the best naan breads we've had for a while!
The positives end there really. The dal was passable, but fell into the trap of being spicy without having any depth. On the menu it is described as being slow cooked with ginger, garlic and tomato. We couldn't taste one of those ingredients. Just a generic, spicy gravy with black lentils. Dal is such a great opportunity to mix a depth of flavours together. If you think about the famous Dishoom's amazing black dal, it is a complex mix of flavours. K2's was just spice.
Same story with the aubergine dish. It was passable, but the only tasting note you got was chilli powder and bland tomato. I'm all for spicy, but it can't be the only thing you get when you take a mouthful. The texture of the aubergine was perfect though.
The onion bahjis... We don't like to be too negative, but it was one of the saltiest things we have ever eaten and very clearly was reheated. We only took a bite of it each. We'll leave it there.
The rice had a bit too much cardamon in it which gave it the tell tale sign of a bit of a soapy taste.
Overall this is such a shame. The food was passable; nothing amazing here but nothing inedible either. We really hope this was maybe just an off day? Maybe we ordered the wrong things? Or maybe it's just not set up to do takeaway in these strange times.
Service:
Arrived quickly via Just Eat, but was missing poppadoms. Arrived hot and packaged well.
Quality:
Meat seemed fresh and well cooked (so many Indian takeways aren't). Otherwise pretty average.
Value & Price:
Mains are around £12 each. More than average, but I didn't mind as the meat was of good quality.
Overall:
ACCEPTABLE. This is passable Indian takeaway, but it is pretty forgettable. The chilli dominates most of the flavour profiles. Perhaps we were unlucky with the dishes we picked. Perhaps the dine in experience is key to K2 Balti House. But in any case, this was a pretty average effort.