India in the Country

One of the drawbacks to living in the “far end of nowhere” is that we don’t have very many good places to eat.  We have an Italian place that basically serves nothing but pasta (not even with wine), a Mexican chain restaurant, and several local establishments that are more lunch than dinner destinations.  Well I can announce that we have finally acquired a restaurant that rivals some of the best in the “big city”.

Since we had been working cleaning out the garage all day (we still have several more days to go), we were too tired to cook so we went to the Bollywood Masala restaurant.  I am sure you could not guess from the corny name but this restaurant specializes in Indian cuisine … which happens to be a favorite of ours.

I had a Tandoori Chicken, Sally had a Chicken Biryanis, and we shared an order of Daal Makhani with Naan.  The Tandoori Chicken was served on a sizzling plate smothered with onions and peppers (the presentation reminded me of fajitas but the taste was so much better).  The chicken was fork tender and the spices were perfect.  The Chicken Bryanis was cooked with rice, nuts, herbs, and Indian spices and served with a katchumber salad (which appeared to be yogurt with finely diced cucumbers).  Once again the flavoring was spot on and the chicken was tender and delicious.  The Daal was a mixture of black lentils and red kidney beans flavored with butter and garnished with ginger and coriander.  The taste was incredible, rich and smooth and creamy and when put on basmati rice was a meal in itself.  One advantage of Indian food is that the presentation is made to order for sharing.  Each entree comes in its own serving dish which makes it very easy to serve yourself some of everything which we both did (several times). 

So what do you pair with an Indian meal?  Although the owner (that’s right the person who was taking our order was both the owner and chef) stated that he had some Indian red wine; I thought the better of it and settled for some Kingfisher beer.  This turned out to be an excellent choice however I am intrigued by the wine and will probably have to try it the next time we visit.

We finished off the meal with Chai Tea.  I am not a tea lover but this was a very good finish to the dinner.  Unfortunately Indian desserts do not involve chocolate so I had to wait until I got home for a proper dessert.