Takeaways / Faruk Choudhury
Chai Shai
The Lord Mayor of Bristol has a busy diary of official engagements, from opening new buildings to officiating at citizenship ceremonies.
Nowhere on last week’s published list of engagements for our current Lord Mayor Faruk Choudhury, however, was washing up duties at his new family restaurant, deli and takeaway.
Chai Shai at the bottom of Jacob’s Wells Road in Hotwells is very much a family affair.
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When I visited for the first time last week, two of the three Choudhury children were helping to water the hanging baskets outside, with their mum Shilpi on front of house duties.
The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress were both born in Bangladesh, and the food at Chai Shai has been influenced by Bangladeshi cuisine as well as northern India.
The cooking here is lovingly homemade – fresh and healthy fare, far removed from your typical curry house.
The aloo gost (£6.95) which I had on my first visit sees the lamb cooked on the bone for a richer taste, with a short selection of mains also including a spinach kofta and mustard fish bhuna, both also £6.95.
Shilpi hopes to encourage people to pop into the restaurant in the morning and take away a box of their choice to eat later.
The fluffy pakoras, ordered on Sunday evening on an emergency refueling session with my three-year-old daughter, are as good as I have tasted, on a par with those made by the Indian-born grandmother of a university friend of mine.
If you do choose to eat in, there are a couple of tables in the window of a small room with exposed brickwork, oversized lamps and metal chairs in primary colours.
For the next fortnight until Faruk’s term of office ends, the Simple Simon design could perhaps even be accessorised with the Lord Mayor’s ceremonial chain.
Chai Shai, 4 Jacob’s Wells Rod, Hotwells, Bristol, BS8 1EA
0117 925 0754
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