Most people walk into an indiaas restaurant eindhoven expecting the same five items repeated on every menu across the city. Butter chicken, naan, chicken tikka masala, a biryani, and maybe a samosa starter. It’s a shortlist that’s been copied so many times across Europe that most diners have stopped questioning whether it represents Indian food at all, or just the version that travelled easiest.
Here are five dishes that break that pattern, and the specific reason each one earned a place on this particular menu.
1. Mangalorean Prawn Gassi
This prawn curry comes from coastal Karnataka, built on a spiced coconut and red chilli gravy that’s nothing like the cream-based curries most people associate with Indian food abroad. It’s bold, tangy, and distinctly coastal, a flavour profile that rarely makes it past regional Indian kitchens and almost never appears on a European Indian menu. The coconut base isn’t there for sweetness. It’s there to carry the chilli without letting it flatten everything else on the plate.
2. Bangla Fish Curry
A Bengali-style preparation using mustard oil and nigella seeds, this dish leans tangy rather than rich. It’s a completely different cooking tradition from the tomato-heavy gravies that dominate most Indian menus in Europe, and it’s included here specifically because that contrast matters. Mustard oil has a sharp, distinct character that either wins people over immediately or takes a bite or two to adjust to.
3. Rogan Josh, Done the Kashmiri Way
Rogan Josh gets used loosely on a lot of menus, often just meaning “red curry” with little connection to where the dish actually comes from. Here it’s treated as the Kashmiri classic it actually is, simmered slowly with a spice blend that gives it deep colour and layered flavour rather than relying on heat alone. Preparation depends on availability of the right cut, which is a small but honest detail most places wouldn’t bother mentioning.
4. Vegetable Kolhapuri
Named after the city of Kolhapur in Maharashtra, this dish uses a thick, heavily spiced gravy that’s built for vegetables to actually hold their own against strong spice, rather than being an afterthought sitting quietly next to the meat dishes. It’s proof that the vegetarian side of the menu gets the same regional attention as everything else.
5. Dum ki Ghosht Biryani
Layered mutton and rice, slow-cooked using the traditional dum method, where the pot is sealed and steamed rather than stirred or rushed. It’s a slower, more deliberate technique than most quick-turnaround biryanis served elsewhere in the city, and it shows in the texture once it reaches the table.
Why List These Five Specifically
None of these dishes are on the menu to look exotic for the sake of it. Each one represents a different Indian state and a different cooking method, which is the whole reason this indiaas restaurant eindhoven exists in the first place: to put the actual range of Indian food on one table instead of trimming it down to what’s familiar and easy to sell.
That said, familiar dishes are still there too. Butter chicken, naan, and classic biryani haven’t disappeared from the menu, and there’s no pressure to skip them. They’re simply not the only story being told anymore, and for a lot of regular diners, that’s exactly the point of coming back a second and third time.
One Thing Worth Knowing First
If you’re coming in specifically for one of these five dishes, it’s worth checking availability first, particularly for anything involving mutton, since some preparations depend on what’s fresh that day rather than being kept pre-prepped for convenience. It’s a small trade-off, and one that usually says more about a kitchen’s standards than a limitation.
Where to Try Them
Dhol & Soul is located at Willemstraat 61, Eindhoven, open daily from 4:30pm to 10pm. Reservations go through an online widget, and WhatsApp is available for questions or group bookings. To understand why the menu is built this way in the first place, it’s worth reading the story behind the restaurant, which explains the thinking long before any of these dishes made it onto a plate.
For anyone who assumed an indiaas restaurant eindhoven meant the same five dishes everywhere else, this menu is built to prove otherwise, one region at a time, one dish at a time, and one visit at a time.
