The menu-bait was in place. Once we heard that Holy Cow in Surry Hills served cherry and coconut naan bread, we snapped up a booking instantly (my aversion to restaurants with bad puns slipped into a convenient lapse). So when we turned up and ultra-fine-combed the menu and couldn’t find the dish at all, we went into a culinary panic and pondered what our Plan B could be. We were so keyed up about the idea of tasting it that the glum prospect of going home without doing so was hugely disappointing. “We just have to order it confidently!” said Tabitha. The whole Chinese whispers about the coconut and cherry naan bread had been traced back to Michael, who touts Holy Cow as his favourite place to eat in Sydney. Surely he’d know about its unexplained disappearance from the menu? Or how we could go about summoning a fresh-cooked batch of it for our table? Tabitha emergency texted him and his reply was a very comprehensive “Dunno”.

Damn.

In the end, we resorted to the old-fashioned technique of just grilling the waiter and it turned out that the much-anticipated bread masqueraded under a different name – Peshawar Sweet Naan ($4). Even though it sounds desserty, you can have it as a starter, or to accompany the savoury dishes or as a sweet end note. We decided to have it as you’d usually have naan – with the main dishes (Nathan even uses his wholemeal roti as substitute cutlery). The idea of cherry and coconut with spicy chickpeas or almond ‘gravy’ may sound weird, but is wonderful and so moreish that it will make you abandon any polite notions of sharing – this is snatch-worthy bread!

The above pic, of course, does not feature naan but Vegetable Samosas ($5.50), which were nice but a little cold for our liking. Next time, we might just stick to a mono-diet of Peshawar sweet naan. It is that good.

Holy Cow, 456 Cleveland St, Surry Hills NSW, (02) 9698 9220