Hello, Bindu!

By Ken Aichi

There are a lot of Indian restaurants in Japan. New, cool Indian restaurant-bars are a far rarer breed, however, so say hello to Bindu!

Open from 11 in the morning through to midnight every day of the week, Bindu serves up lunch accompanied by a wide selection of teas and coffees. Coffee is big business in India at the moment, and Bindu doesn't disappoint. They also offer chai for a more exotic option.

Rather than merely sticking a few tapestries on the wall and calling the place "Indian", a lot of work has gone into making Bindu a genuinely atmospheric place, and the result is a space that is stylish and gives a distinct sense of geography without coming across as camp or tacky.

This makes it a great location for a bite of lunch and relaxation on the café-style table seats, or to have a drink at the neat mosaic-tile counter in the evening; doing either feels very comfortable, and the two different settings compliment rather than detract from each other, as is the case with many other establishments that try to do both but end up succeeding at neither.

In addition to curries and other Indian staples, Bindu offers such intriguing delicacies as chicken lollipops - the perfect accompaniment to a beer and roomali roti, a variation on traditional Indian flatbread that demands to be tried at least once.

Bindu's owner, Tika, was kind enough to explain to me some of his restaurant's unique options...

Tika: I'm Nepalese and have been an Indian chef for 20 years, 14 of which were actually spent in India.

Ken Aichi: Cool, so you're serving up authentically Indian food.

Tika: Yes, like my desserts - Kheer, a kind of spicy rice pudding, and Gazar Ka Halwa, a sweet carrot dish. [At this point, he picked up a sword (!) from the cleverly illuminated row of decorative bottles under the bar and started waving it in my direction.]

KA: Sorry, was it something I said?

Tika: It's rum! [Luckily for me, the "sword" was actually a vessel shaped like a khukuri, a traditional Nepalese dagger for Khukuri, a popular and rare-in-Japan Nepalese rum.] We also have McDowell's, a top Indian rum, and our own original spice liqueurs. Come and have a drink!

Bindu has been open since January 17th (a day chosen for good luck). Check them out - you will be impressed!

To download a PDF of this story as it appears in the magazine, click here

Latest Forum Threads