Brampton Meats
178 Meadowlands Dr. W, 613-695-9915, bramptonmeats.ca
Open: Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., closed Tuesdays.
Access: Steps to front door, sweet shop, no washroom
At Brampton Meats, an Indian butcher shop on Meadowlands Drive near Woodroffe Avenue, the walls are covered with an array of coloured papers listing in big print the many take-out dishes available, along with their prices.
It was all a little bit disorienting some weeks ago for this first-time visitor. My show of indecision prompted the man behind the counter, who I later learned was co-owner Ravinder Singh, to suggest options, all of which he extolled as “tasteful.”
To some, that might mean refined, or even restrained or mellow. After eating much of Brampton Meat’s wares, I think “full of taste” is closer to the truth — as in assertively spiced, robust, or mouth-tingling.
While it’s common for other Indian eateries to mute their spices and push creaminess or sweetness to soothe non-Indian palates, Brampton Meats pulls far fewer punches. Yes, for the multitude of curries, kabobs or grilled meats served here you can specify mild, medium or spicy. But my sense is that Brampton’s “medium” is more like a seven or eight out of 10, compared to fours and fives elsewhere.
“If some dish is spicy, it has to be spicy,” Singh said.
Consider yourself warned. Or enticed.
The business model, which Singh says is unique in Ottawa, is focused on takeout foods and marinated meats prepped for barbecuing, grilling or baking. The extensive menu at bramptonmeats.ca makes the combination of phoning in an order for pickup 20 minutes later a snap. Brampton also delivers if your order is large enough (at least $30) and you live close enough (within 10 kilometres).
You can dine, extremely casually, on site, at one of two tables for four beside the door, next to the display case filled with marinated chicken legs of many colours. You’ll eat from takeout containers with plastic utensils. The upside is that deep-fried items such as crisp pakoras, vibrantly flavoured chicken legs and wings grilled to order, or naan bread fresh from the tandoor will taste better, spared the degrading trip home.
Chingari chicken, marinated with coconut, curry leaves and black pepper and spices, at Brampton Meats
I’d also counsel eating in when it comes to the thali samplers, rather than risk the TV dinner-like trays spilling in car.
A vegetarian version ($9.99) featured tray compartments filled with, for example, gingery, peppery peas and tofu or mouth-warming cauliflower and green beans plus a meaty, savoury chickpea masala.
A meatier thali ($10.99) included more of those savoury chickpeas, goat meat in a sumptuous gravy, and butter chicken that was more tomatoey than creamy. The meat in these and other items was cleaved and trimmed with less finesse than you might encounter elsewhere.
Non-vegetarian thali at Brampton Meats
Curries (various sizes, up to $14.99) from the approachable goat curry, chicken bhuna and bracing beef vindaloo to the less common chicken takatak, bolstered with green peppers, or the thickened chicken lababdar, were full-on flavour bombs.
Beef vindaloo at Brampton Meats
Chicken Lababdar at Brampton Meats
Chicken Takatak at Brampton Meats
There were some items at Brampton Meats that I’ve not seen elsewhere. (But then, I’ve not been to India — or Brampton, Ont., where according to the 2011 census, 200,220 South Asians are the city’s largest ethnic group, making up almost 40 per cent of the population.)
Goat and chicken pickle were new to me, to name two examples.
Chicken pickle at Brampton Meats
Brampton applies pickling spices to those meats to yield potent, sharply sour and salty, somewhat preserved snacks, sold cold and by weight ($8.99 for a half-pound of chicken pickle). Singh said the pickled meats can star inside wraps or as cocktail snacks. I enjoyed it when chicken pickle was added to Brampton Meats’ biryani for a puckering, enticing rice dish.
Achari chicken biryani at Brampton Meats
I’m also a fan of the amritsari kulcha ($6.99), a flat bread stuffed with mashed chickpeas, which was served with butter chicken sauce and goat curry gravy for sumptuous dipping.
New to me was the bread pakora ($2.25), a sandwich of spiced potato that had been coated in chickpea batter, deep-fried and microwaved, served with tamarind sauce and mango salt, which was a revelation of a condiment. Filling and cheap, I imagine bread pakoras as hangover food on the other side of the world, the poutine of South Asia.
Bread Pakora at Brampton Meats
Speaking of which, they serve butter chicken poutine ($6.99) here — which I couldn’t bring myself to try.
Another dish that strikes me as cultural outreach is Brampton’s desi pizza ($16.99 to $18.99), slices of chicken or goat kebab on cheese. I’ve tried one, and thought it all right, but less appealing than other specialties.
Chicken kebab desi pizza at Brampton Meats
Maybe these India-meets-North America dishes lure in students from nearby Algonquin College, along with the discounted lunch deals.
Need relief from the all the spices? In September, Brampton Meats became, in a fashion, Brampton Meats and Sweets, when it opened a large counter teeming with Indian sweets by the Toronto company Brar’s.
I liked rasgulla and gulab jamun (but syrup-soaked milk-based pastries) as well as milk cake, which strike me as entry-level sweets for non-Indian palates. I’d like to go deeper in the selection, though, as orienting oneself within a landscape of vivid, foreign flavours is the right mindset to bring to Brampton Meats.
ottawacitizen.com/tag/dining-out
