Far Far at Dishoom Kings Cross, London

We went out for lunch to celebrate the Chef's birthday and chose Dishoom which is a chain of restaurants based on old Irani cafes in Bombay. I like the food because it’s gently spicy without being too hot for me.

And as a starter the Chef ordered Far Far. Which is basically a crispy snack. The Dishoom version is tubular but I gather they also come in squares and sticks and lattic shapes and stars and.... I have no idea how you’d make them because it seems you buy a packet of what looks rather like dried pasta and then fry it in oil.

According to our waiter Far Far are flavoured with chilli and mango. I don’t think I could distinguish any particular flavours but the colourful ones seemed tastier than the plain pale yellow ones. The menu described them as a sort of carnival of snackery, halfway between crisp and cracker, colourful, lemony, salty. Not sure I could pick the lemon but I did like the crunch.

I dare say you get Far Far at all sorts of eastern-style restaurants, and quite likely many of you crisp fans out there know a lot more about this Far Far than I do, however I don’t often (if ever - but who knows what the future may bring?) go for an Indian, so discovering Far Far was a pleasant surprise for me.

But why, and this applies to everything in life, do you always get more of the dull plain ones than the fancy colours? Life, eh?