Tikki Tikka Indian Bistro
2057 Royal Windsor Drive, Mississauga
905-823-2000
Dinner for two with non-alcoholic drinks including tax and tip: $65.00

This week my husband got to pick the place. For our ninth anniversary, he took me to his favourite strip mall Indian restaurant out near where he works, out by the invisible line separating Mississauga from Oakville, out in the complex with the police station (Region Of Peel!), the Firestone Tire, a surviving Harvey’s, a bank, a dry cleaner, and other stuff that is hard to notice or remember. Moderate was my trepidation, hopping the Go Train out from Union Station on the (not quite) last train to Clarkson, but great was my pleasant surprise. Tikki Tikka Indian Bistro met and exceeded my Toronto-city-cat expectations. I was surprised to find such an innovative and interesting Indian food out in the land of the big boxes, many-axeled trucks and red light cams, but, really, on reflection, why not? This bistro was unique and it was good, darn good.

Tasteful was the interior of Tikki Tikka, making one forgetful of the prefab exterior and the police to one side and the bank tellers to the other. Mellow, yellow strings of lights defined the ceiling plane of the interior space, so far removed from the heavy traffic of commerce beyond the frosted glass outside, creating a pleasant, self-contained ambiance. Butcher paper and unprepossessing IKEA-ware on the tables kept things on the casual tip, but the overriding impression is one of cleanliness. I mean, the place is done up in earthtones and soft yellow lights – it is no hospital – but it is exceptionally clean, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

Our server brought us some black pepper papadums before we ordered. Heavy on the black pepper, my husband was more than happy to eat all of them, while I savoured my mango lassi. The beverage had a strong lime component, not too thick and no faux milkshake texture. Best lassi I have had locally, city or suburbs.

The real food started off with the mixed appetizer platter. Three chutneys sat in their ocular little glass bowls – lime, mango and coriander – looking over the spread of lamb samosas, vegetable samosas, paneer poppers, pakoras and spring rolls. The lime and mango were perfect, not too sweet and a perfect texture for dipping. The coriander was a yogurt-based sauce, very good to be sure, but a bit thin for a dipping sauce. Since the coriander chutney had the same viscosity as my lassi, I drank it. It was delicious!

Something nice about all the appetizers was that you could “taste” the starch in the tip of your nose like when you nibble a bit of unbaked pie crust. A nice feeling, nostalgic. The lamb samosas were the standout, with sausage-like ground lamb filling and flaky pastry, a perfect complement for the lime chutney. Killer paneer poppers, too. Because paneer doesn’t melt like most cheeses, it stands up great to the breaded-and-fried popper treatment.

I ordered butter chicken for my main course, with naan instead of rice. I loved the unusual addition of pistachio nuts. Playing food critic for a second, I will point out that it was slightly watery in texture, more like a creamy butter chicken soup than an entrée. I did the sensible thing and ate it with a spoon. Soup is good food! The chicken meat was dark, but primo; well played in the sense that the dark meat talked back to the tomatoes in the sauce, still with a texture that would not let you forget you were in a place with exacting standards.

You could fill a book with what I don’t know about Punjabi cooking. That said, my husband’s Punjabi rice and chicken dish reminded me of pork fried rice, except no pork, no egg and no grease. It had a nice balanced salt and pepper taste, with a pleasing bitter note, contrapuntal to, but not overwhelming of the breaking starch aftertaste of the rice. In one word: fragrant! This was simply well-crafted food. The garlic naan was like garlic bread, which, I guess it kind of is. My husband said it expanded in his stomach, although I always thought that was an Indian food urban legend.

For desert we got the mango lime sorbet. It’s much grainier than I expect, and has a strong cardamom flavour. There was so much lime zest and so many tiny pieces of mango I think it probably counted as a serving of fibre. Slightly different than I expected, yet thoroughly pleasurable – and that could be said for the rest of the meal too. Hop a Go Train toward Hamilton to Clarkson, take the QEW to Erin Mills, or do the leisurely drive along Lakeshore. Tikki Takka isn’t great strip mall food, so much as flat-out great Indian food with flair and originality.