Like a Curry God out of Hell.

With a crunch NZ v Ireland RWC quarter-final looming it was decided to brave the belly of the beast and visit at Paddy McNaughton’s Irish bar for October 2023’s visitation warm up drinks. It’s difficult to muck up the Irish pub formula but Paddys certainly lived up to its billing as the best Irish bar in Christchurch with an interesting backstory to boot. After various All Black “secret moves” were shared with punters in green, white and orange, the thirsty throng was moved onto Basmatis Indian, subterfuge objective achieved!

Once we had drunk in the awesome decor – who doesn’t like an Indian god riding a pair of bulls and a partial tuk-tuk on the wall, it was time for the serious business of munching curry. On previous visit in Jan 2021 the food was given a rather lacklustre score but at least the beer prices were noted as rather reasonable. This visitation, while the starters and mains came out at the same time aka curry lottery, the curry itself more than made up for that, scoring a fine 4.7/5 on the RCCC Curry o’ Meter. There were some whispers that the heat was a bit light on one dish…but that’s probably just the ol’ elevated curry tolerance level amongst the fine gentlemen of the RCCC – a good problem to have!

To pay for their many sins again the Curry Gods, the remaining members decamped to The Church which is handily placed right next door to Paddy McNaughton’s. A Hail Mary or two and a couple Hazys was enough to even up the ledger, and strict vows were made to return for more beers and curry soon.

Service: 4.0/5

Food: 4.7/5

Total: 8.7/10

Basmatis Indian Eatery, 185 Manchester St