7 Village Indian Restaurant

A weekday night and we're parking in Dickson, looking for a little Indian restaurant tucked next to a large Turkish takeaway joint and a Chinese dumpling house. We might have Twitter to thank for this review. A fellow journalist tipped me off to 7 Village a month or two ago, promising that it was "weird and awesome". How can could anyone resist that recommendation?

The restaurant won't win any interior decorating awards, decked out in green and white with a little service bar and a no-nonsense array of tables and chairs. It's a small space – three or four group dinners would fill it right up. And it does look reasonably busy tonight, one big group of friends sharing a meal and talking about Bible study on one side of the room, and another set of older couples catching up on the other side.

To the menu. There's a strong vegetarian section: plenty of aloo gobi, vegetable curries, kormas and the like. The entrees are also divided into meat and vegetarian sections, so points for making it easy for non-meat eaters. The wine list is brief. There are also some interesting-sounding dishes in the meat section, such as chicken breast with mango pulp and cream, and a goat curry. But we're drawn to the 7 Village Special Curry, which is described as "stuffed chicken marinated with eggs, ginger and Indian spices (deep fried) then cooked with onion, tomatoes, cashew nuts and master sauce" ($22).

First, though, a dish of vegetable pakoras (described as an "Amritsari special" – $10). These are four dark, crisp patties filled with spinach, potato and chickpea flour. They have crunch on the outside and are suitably soft with vegetable inside. A pot of mint yoghurt on the side lifts the dish without being too sweet or fresh, and we could do with more of it.

The 7 Village Special, which comes out in short order, is a roll of chicken neatly stuffed with fennel seeds and other spices and pretty well smothered in curry. The waiter, who is exquisitely well mannered but somewhat busy tending to the entire restaurant, has asked how we'd like our curries – mild, medium or hot. We picked hot and there is a nice heat to the special but I don't think it will tax most people. The chicken is tender and juicy and packed with spice and the curry has a pretty good flavour.

Beef laziz with honey ($19.50) is another unusual sounding dish. It turns out to be cubes of beef covered in curry which sings of honey and spice but also has a bit of heat to it. It's a dish that will stick in the memory, and manages to be savoury, spicy and sweet all at once. A basket of mixed naan bread ($14.50) helps soak up all the curry and the honeyed beef goes particularly well with a piece of Kashmiri naan, which is studded through with raisins and other bits of dried fruit. The naan are soft and fluffy and flavoured with garlic and cheese.

We're working our way through the meal when we hear it. We'd been promised that one hallmark of 7 Village was "cheesy music" and there it is. Wafting down from the speakers is You Light Up My Life, followed in short order by The Wind Beneath My Wings and then Love Story. It's either ironic or brilliantly unstudied. There are a couple of desserts such as kulfi and gulab jamun ($4.50) but we've stuffed ourselves with naan and curry and roll out into the night.

There's no high concept to 7 Village – the decor is straightforward and the food is presented candidly. The service is a little bit erratic but beautifully polite tonight and there's enough range in the menu to make it an interesting choice for a cheap and cheerful Dickson dinner.