Basmati rice layered over slow cooked chicken, lamb, beef or vegetables, finished with caramelised onions and served with yoghurt and salad. Made on Beaumont Street, Hamilton.
Raj's Corner cooks four biryanis every day at 116 Beaumont Street, Hamilton. Every biryani is made in the large size, layered over meat or vegetables cooked that day, and comes with yoghurt and salad on the side. Order it for pick up, for delivery, or eat in the dining room.
Biryani is a layered dish rather than a fried rice. The meat is cooked down first with whole spices until it gives, the basmati is cooked separately so the grains stay long and separate, and the two are layered with caramelised onions so the rice takes the flavour from below rather than from a sauce stirred through it.
That is why it arrives looking like rice and eats like a curry. The yoghurt on the side is not a garnish, it is there to cool the spice as you go, and the salad cuts through the richness.
Nothing in the kitchen is cooked with MSG and nothing arrives frozen. The spices come from Raj's Spice and Groceries, the Indian grocery a few doors along Beaumont Street.
Each one is layered the same way. The difference is what is underneath the rice.
Savoury rice loaded with chicken chunks and caramelised onions, served with yoghurt and salad. The one most people order first.
Basmati layered over tender pieces of lamb with spices and caramelised onions, served with yoghurt and salad.
Beef cooked down with smoked spices under aromatic basmati and caramelised onions, served hot with yoghurt and salad.
Basmati with mixed vegetables and Indian spices, served with yoghurt and salad. The vegetarian option on the biryani board.
On the bone, cooked long and slow. Ask at the counter or check the ordering page for the day.
A plain naan at $4.50 or garlic naan at $4.90 for the yoghurt, and pappadums at $3.50 for the table. See the tandoor breads we bake to order.
Order ahead and pick it up on Beaumont Street, or have it delivered free after 5:00pm within 5km.
Meat and vegetables are bought fresh. Samosa pastry, naan dough, dips and sauces are made on site every day, and no dish is cooked with MSG.
Every dish carries its dietary codes, GF gluten free, NF nut free, DF dairy free and V vegan, so you can order without a conversation about ingredients.
Kuldip and Sylvia Sangha opened the counter at 116 Beaumont Street in 1998 and the cooking has not moved since. The dining room was added in 2011.
Chicken, lamb, beef and goat biryani are $18.90 each and vegetable biryani is $17.90. Every biryani is made in the large size and comes with yoghurt and salad included, so there is no small or medium to choose between.
A curry with rice is two separate things on one plate, sauce poured over plain basmati. Biryani is cooked as one dish: the meat or vegetables are cooked down with whole spices, the rice is cooked separately, and the two are layered together with caramelised onions so the rice absorbs flavour from underneath rather than sitting in gravy.
Biryani is aromatic rather than hot. The heat comes from whole spices such as cardamom, clove and bay rather than chilli, and the yoghurt served alongside cools whatever heat there is. If you want something milder again, butter chicken or a korma is the gentler choice.
Vegetable biryani at $17.90 is the vegetarian option, made with mixed vegetables and served with yoghurt and salad. It is not vegan as served because of the yoghurt. For vegan dishes look for the V code on the menu, including White Cholay, Eggplant and Potato and Mixed Vegetables, or take a look at our vegan Indian menu in Newcastle.
Yes. Biryani is one of the dishes we put on for catering across Newcastle and the Hunter, cooked at a scale that feeds up to three hundred, and we can supply a bain marie where a hall has no kitchen. Menus are built per event rather than picked off a list. Our catering page has the details.
We are on the Hamilton end of Beaumont Street, with the Indian grocery next door. Eat in the dining room, order ahead for pick up, or have dinner delivered.
