We try award-winning authentic Asian restaurant in Small Heath offering generous Bengali dishes & free food

Birmingham’s hospitality scene is ever-changing with several super venues having recently opened and more on the way.

But you don’t have to go to a new restaurant to experience culinary innovation in our city. There are some venues that have been around for a while and yet that will pleasantly leave you surprised.

Award-winning Poncho Khana in Small Heath got the regional chef of the year gong at the 2022 Asian Restaurant & Takeaway Awards (ARTA). With 4.3 stars and 450 Google Reviews, this Bangladeshi restaurant also comes highly recommended by its guests and is especially recommended by those hoping to try authentic cuisine from the South Asian country.

So, instead of picking a takeaway or cooking at home, we headed out on a weekend evening to the restaurant which is on 502 Coventry Road not too far from the Green Lane Masjid. My friends and I reached the venue at around 9pm on a Sunday evening, the area was deserted with only a few restaurants open.

Poncho Khana was easy to find with its brightly lit interiors and on entering, we found a homely vibe. We didn’t have to wait at all to be seated and were soon handed menus to choose from. Their vast menu offers everything from seafood to veggie to meat options to pick from - there’s so much choice, it could leave a Bengali person confused!

While we were choosing, we were served complimentary salad, onion fritters and even a simple chai came with three different options of sweeteners including date molasses - which ticked a box for me towards their authenticity.

After much deliberation, I picked Nargis kebab for starters and Chitol Kofta Bhuna - a dish that is common in Bengali households in India and Bangladesh but has been hard to find in restaurants in the UK.

The staff was quick to spot that some of us won’t be eating any beef products and let us know which dishes to avoid. My friends picked their own starters and for mains, king prawns bhuna, Ayre fish bhuna and chicken biryani.

While the Chitol kofta gravy and the Ayre fish gravy were similar in taste, the King Prawns gravy won our hearts and stomachs.

The biryani came with a very homely dal and was a unique experience for us since we were used to having a herbed yoghurt dip - raita - as a side with biryanis.

The restaurant also sells a wide variety of traditional Bengali desserts like chamchams, rasgullas and kanchagullas, and while we were deliberating whether to get some, they served us some complimentary ones. It was a Gulab Jamun with malai in the middle and tasted amazing.

While we had expected the food to be amazing at Poncho Khana, which it was, the hospitality was what turned us into fans. From the moment we entered to when we left, the friendly service provided by the staff was exemplary. From recommendations to suit our tastes to establishing a connection - they did it all. The only tip I would offer is to order conservatively because what we ordered as a party of four turned out to be way more than we could finish.