Mowgli

The Indian Street Food venue (opened by Nisha Katona) has taken off to new heights in recent times, expanding into brand new venues in Liverpool, Manchester, and various other cities across the country. Its original Bold Street home, and the magnificent Water Street venue, are well worth a visit here though. It is simple, tasty, Indian street food like nowhere else. TiL is always banging on about how good Mowgli is, and every visitor we’ve taken there goes away and raves about it to their friends and family, it is that good. A 100% success rate of recommendations.

The Vibe

The Bold street Mowgli was the original venue, and it still has a policy that it does not take advance bookings (you can turn up and be put on a waiting list if it is full though). The wooden swing chairs and clean wooden benches throughout, is completely different to what we expect from a traditional curry house. The simplicity of the décor, and the menu, is something special. The Water Street venue is even more spectacular, with a gorgeous tree in the centre of the room, and upstairs seating that overlooks it. Water Street is much bigger, and takes bookings, providing a slightly different experience to Bold Street, but with the same flavour sensation. The customer service is impeccable, and even when it is busy, we’ve had the waiting staff go above and beyond to help out those in our party with chilli allergies (don’t ask why we took them to an Indian!), and those who are scared of heat.

The Food

There are so many showstopping dishes on the menu it is REALLY difficult to choose what to have. This is why TiL always take new people to Mowgli all the time, to try out new dishes and to order enough food to feed an army. Every. Single. Time. What we would say, is that you should always start a visit to Mowgli with a serving of the Yoghurt Chat Bombs. Small, bite-sized puffs of crisp bread that are filled to the brim with spicy yoghurt, chickpeas, tamarins and coriander. They have to be eaten within a few minutes of being cooked, and when you pop them in your mouth it is an actual explosion of flavour. Definitely throw it all in in one go, otherwise you’ll end up with yoghurt all over your face and hands, and no one wants to see that! Other standout dishes from the street food menu include the treacle tamarind fries that are sticky and smothering and amazing, the Himalayan cheese toast, and the Gunpowder chicken. There are loads of great veggie, vegan, and meaty curries throughout the rest of the menu, and one of the best ways to experience these is to take a chance with the Tiffin boxes for one, a food roulette where you’re given four tiers of dishes and you don’t know what you’re getting till it arrives at your table. Are you going to get the paneer, the house lamb, or the Goan fish curry? Who knows, but it’ll be tasty for sure!

The Price

Mowgli recommend that you take a similar approach as you would in any small plate restaurant, choosing 3 or 4 dishes each and sharing with the table. This is always more than enough food and doesn’t cost too much. The smaller street food dishes start at around £6 with even the biggest dishes only costing around £9 at most. Most of the menu you’ll find dishes around the £6 and £7 mark. If you decide to go the food roulette route with the Tiffin boxes, the price is either £14 meatless or £16 with meat.