Review: Sexy street food at Chai Ki, Canary Wharf

Style Points: 5/5
Price: £££
Overall: 5/5

Newly opened Chai Ki has a menu inspired by south India’s roadside drinking dens and street food. This sister venue to Roti Chai in Marylebone is a spacious all-day Indian restaurant and toddy shop bar, with industrial chic décor composed of steel ducting pipes, high ceiling, concrete walls and hanging lights all combined with a bright colour palate to make an extremely inviting restaurant space.

The menu here offers an extensive choice of creative cocktails, mocktails and chais all infusing south Asian flavours, as well as breakfast dishes, sharing plates and traditional curries.

Would I Want Seconds?

The dishes and flavours on the menu at Chai Ki are immensely attractively and as a result we ended up ordering quite a few dishes!

To start we ordered Bhel Puri, a traditional Indian street food dish made of puffed rice, potato, onions and tamarind sauce, as well as Dahi Puri made of light and crispy crunchy semolina shells filled with potato,  refreshing sweet yoghurt, and even more gorgeous tamarind sauce.

I also tried the Shakarkandi Chaat which is a unique and creative combination of sweet potato, not usually used in chaat dishes, with spiced chickpeas, sev, tamarind, papri and mint yoghurt.

For our final starter we ordered Chicken Lollipops coated in tamarind, shallots, ginger and coriander which had an unexpected spicy kick to them!

Shakarkandi Chaat

Chicken Lollipops

Bhel Puri

Dahi Puri

All starters are served are sharing plates and so easy to mix and match and eat tapas style. After we had demolished all our starters I ordered Dakshini Korma as my main course which was made up of  aubergine, sweet potato, snow peas, South Indian spices and coconut milk. This was a delicious mildly spiced dish which worked well with the Burnt Ginger Rice which I ordered as a side.

What I particular like at Roti Chai is the creativity they bring to traditional dishes, and in particular the Indo-Chinese flavours they have introduced to some dishes, a trend which is popular in Indian itself.

We also constantly nibbled on ridiculously addictive Masala Fries throughout our meal and tried a few refreshing drinks too including my favourite Kovalam Beach composed of guava, coconut, lychee, ginger ale. I also finished my meal on a high with a glass of Panjabi style masala chai.

Dakshini Korma

Masala Fries

Could I Afford Seconds?

The prices at Chai Ki are varied, but not high enough to put you off ordering seconds which we were certainly tempted to do.

The chai and mocktails are particularly well priced at approximately £3.50 each. The starters range from £6-£9 and are similarly priced to main courses as they can be easily interchanged in the tapas style dining Chai Ki promotes.

Overall? 5/5

I was a particular fan of the authentic street food served at Roti Chai but I am now an even bigger fan or Chai Ki. The large dining space, creative menu, eclectic drinks and relaxed vibe mean I will definitely be frequently the restaurant much more!

Website: www.chai-ki.com
Address: Crossrail Place, Canary Wharf, London E14
Closest Tube Station: Canary Wharf