World Curry - 20 Years Celebration

It's always Curry Time somewhere in the world!

With the coming and going of restaurants, it's always amazing to hear about how one restaurant is still thriving after many years. Dennis and I attended a special media dinner last week because Curry World in Pacific Beach is celebrating its 20th year of business. That's about twice as long as I've lived in San Diego!

Passion Roots PR planned the event and even provided transportation! Pacific Beach is not the easiest area to park in so this was definitely a plus! A white van from "the DD" ie, Drunk Driver van service, pulled up to our house and off we went! We made a quick stop to pick up fellow blogger Mary from This Tasty Life. I was a little surprised that we were heading AWAY from Pacific Beach but found out we were meeting up with the rest of the group in the North Park area.

(images from "The DD" Van Service)

There, a Black Limo Style Mercedes Sprinter awaited us there. Now that's a party bus! We joined J.S from Sun Diego Eats and Di from The Daily Chow inside. Some red and white wine were passed down to enjoy as we chatted away under the club-like blue lights!

Once at the restaurant, there was a mini cocktail hour with more wine and beer.

Food bloggers are always taking pictures of everything!

I especially liked this cool red dragon decoration flying overhead!

Bruce and Momo are the owners and came out to talk to us about their restaurant journey and the influences behind it all. They came up with the idea of having a restaurant with it all... curry that is. Even through the tough times, such as starting out initially, they pushed through and are proud of what they've created, a dining experience inspired from all over the world!

We were pretty hungry at this point and sat down at a table with Faye + 1 of Faye's Fork, J.S. and Brett.

Hello Thai Tea! Momo brought these out for us to enjoy during dinner.

Dipping sauces for our meal included the red sambal chili, the coriander green sauce, the housemade yogurt which everyone loved, and a sweeter mango chutney sauce.

To start, we got a huge sampler platter, naan, tikka tacos, vegetable pakora, and phall poppers (pronounced like "fall").

I can't handle much heat so Dennis sampled the two phall poppers in the back. He thought the first one felt pretty spicy, but the yogurt sauce helped to cool it down. The second one didn't seem as crazy, maybe after the initial shock. There's also a phall challenge at the restaurant and our table was cracking up as Faye challenged Brett - right here, right now! Of course, we axed that idea since there were still some courses left for this event!

Those tikka tacos were AMAZING. What made it different was the use of roti bread instead of a tortilla, so throwing in some influence from India. There was a sprinkle of heat to it and even though the flavors were complex, there was a fine balance between all the ingredients. This was my favorite item of the night.

The vegetable pakora batter was plush with a pleasant seasoning to it, and we dug in to find soft veggies inside. I was pleased that it wasn't overfried or oily and just kept snacking on it until the entrees arrived!

Next came the main meal, thai green curry with chicken and vegetables on the left and the tikka masala chicken on the right. You can't tell that easily from the picture but the rice was shaped like a pyramid! Apparently they have been doing that for years! Although, due to this shaping, the rice wasn't as fluffy as it could be. It was packed at little hard but at least the curry sauces would soften it up.

I definitely loved the sauces for both. I don't remember the exact details but even these dishes were tweaked slightly. The tikki masala chicken sauce was mild and it had that earthier spiced taste to it, though I wish I knew which indian spice gave it that flavor. Our table's spicy challengers and Dennis all thought it needed more heat but for this event, it was defaulted to mild (you can order it hotter). The creamy flavorful green curry seemed to the the general favorite and came with vegetables as well. The chicken meat was a little bit drier for me in general.

For desserts they had this banana fritter. There was sweet banana inside and it was drizzled with housemade caramel sauce. That sauce was downright fantastic, rich without the sickly sweet that most caramels have. My favorite part was the rich and creamy half coconut milk and half cream mix with bits of coconut flakes. Dennis thought it was a good sized portion too for dessert.

All the food we've tasted from this night is going to be available as a pre-fixe meal for $20 from August 10-30 between 4-8pm.

You also have the option of trying any of the other items off their regular menu.

I like that for thsi event, they had different setups with information on the curries from around the world.

Stop by to check them out and see what it's all about! 20 years and counting!

Thanks to Passion Roots PR for planning, The DD (Drunk Driver) Van Service for transportation and Curry World for hosting dinner.

Disclaimer: we were hosted for the meal but the opinions are strictly our own.