Mowgli Street Food Liverpool Water Street

If you don’t know who Nisha Katona is, you’re not watching enough Celebrity MasterChef, but, to recap, she’s the founder of Mowgli, born in 2014 right here in Liverpool – the Bold Street branch is the flagship of the Indian restaurant chain of 17 restaurants nationwide and rising.

The idea was to serve the kind of food Indians eat at home and on the streets, including tiffin boxes full of curries and carbs, offering fresh healthy ingredients, bright colours and intense flavours from myriad herbs and spices. Mowgli gives the appearance of an Indian home kitchen, if you will, but with all the touches of a contemporary British gaff (Nisha hails from Skelmersdale), complete with sharing menu, set menu, gluten-free menu, gluten-free set menu, Mini Mowgli kids menu, Christmas menu… There’s plenty for the carniverous customer in the street market selection, including gunpowder chicken poppers in a golden chickpea batter or lamb chops marinated in aromatic spiced yoghurt and served with turmeric chips. Pescatarians, there’s an aromatic Goan fish curry and the “addictive” Aunty Geeta’s prawn curry – with “tomatoes tangled with panch phoron, green chilli, fennel, garden peas and mustard”. The Hindu Kitchen listing is where you’ll find vegetarian fayre, including red lentil temple dahl (perfect comfort food) and Mowgli paneer, apparently the staff favourite with its tender cubes of soft cheese. There’s also a completely separate vegan menu, with street chat the likes of fenugreek kissed fries and treacle tamarind fries, plus mains, such as the “showstopper” dish called holy chow, that combines spiced chickpea, potato, spinach, fresh ginger and mango, and comes served in a loaf, so you won’t be going home hungry.

Puddings range from ice cream cones, sorbets and lassis for the faint-hearted to full-on warm chocolate brownies and the house special: gulab jamun doughballs, Mowgli’s answer to sticky toffee pudding. Room for more? The masala espresso martini has your name on it.

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