Chelany-Neukölln Restaurant — Restaurant in Berlin

Vegan perspective: the menu does not mention any vegan options, so I asked and the greeter said "Anything at all can be made vegan... even Chicken Tika Masala!" It was a joke (I was not offended, but I guess he wasn't aware of the fake meat options available today).

Anyhow, turns out there in no vegan Thali option, but about 3 dishes that could be requested vegan: Sabji, Dahl and one other. I ordered Sabji as the new waiter seemed to be staring me that way.

The portion was large, came with a large rice and I ordered 2 chapattis (it was too much food, but I finished it). Chapattis were excellent. The veggies were nicely cooked, the flavor was not bad, but not great either. I make much better Sabji at home for example -- there just wasn't any complexity to the sauce. Fresh ginger was nice though.

Several reviews here claim it is "authentic Indian food", but doesn't hold up against anything I had in India (7 months traveling though much of the country), or Pakistani restaurants I've been to in San Francisco for example.

Conclusion: I think you can probably do better for vegan curries, but this is still better than average here in Berlin (restaurants here tend to make bland, creamy / meaty curries, often sweet, etc... Totally different than in India). Total was € 10, would have been less if I didn't order...

I eat lunch here pretty often and never disappointed. The first thing they do when you are seated is they give you "papad" with dips (with lunch menu probably), followed with a soup of the day and a big salad. So you can start easting as soon as you are sitting. The super fast and hospitable service is another big plus. You can ask them to serve menu items with spice level of the real indian food, and they make it accordingly. Today I had the "mattar paneer" and it was very well made, paneer was fried and gravy was spicy! Another favourite is their lamb curry.. They serve their lunch menu with "bhatura" which is also very tasty. Regular happy customer, definitely...

We ordered from Chelany last night (via Deliveroo) and it was quite good! I was especially impressed with the amount of meat that was included. Often when we order a shrimp dish it will only have two tiny shrimp, but the masala I got last night had seven or eight large prawns in it! And my wife's butter chicken had three or four large pieces of chicken (with the bone, which was a change for us).

If the quality remains high after subsequent meals this could become our goto place for Indian food. (It's actually a Pakistani...