Cost: $38.71 before tip (this included drinks, entrees, naan, dessert, and tax).
Rating: Don't go. Ever.
I took my sister to Taste of India tonight, the middle restaurant in a trio of Indian lunch buffet/dinner places directly across from the Woodley Park Zoo/Adams Morgan metro stop. As the three restaurants all looked pretty identical, and all had the same amount of people crowded into their outdoor patios, my sister asked why I had chosen this one over the two others.
"I looked at the menus," I told her, "and this one was the cheapest."
I ordered baingan bartha,
and my sister had the chicken biryani.
The biryani wasn't at all spicy or particularly pungent (which my sister appreciated -- she doesn't like heavily spiced foods), and tasted mostly of cashew. The baingan bartha had about twice as much onion and garlic as it did eggplant, and tasted mostly of cilantro.I also ordered gulab jamuns for dessert, which my sister had never seen or tasted. When she saw them -- that is, it, as the entire palm-sized dish was filled with one enormous, lumpy gulab jamun -- she said "I'm not tasting that until after you do."
I tried to explain. "It's not supposed to look like a --"
"Shh!" She stopped me. "Don't say that word in the restaurant."
I tasted it.
"You don't have to eat this," I told her. "In fact, I'd rather you didn't."
But she tried a bite, and then another one. And then she stopped. And then we left.
As soon as we were out of hearing range, she gave her verdict:
"That turd thing was nasty."
It took just about a half-hour for me to become sick, and then five minutes for me to become sick again. Hooray!
I guess cheapest doesn't always mean best, or even good. In this case, cheapest meant indigestible.
4 comments:
Hi, just found your blog recently. You should try Haandi in Falls Church, or Bombay Bistro (I think) in Fairfax. Also, there's a modern Indian restaurant in Chinatown called Rasika that is excellent.
Gross!!! There should be a spoiler alert for this kind of thing :)
Also:
You've been tagged! If you're feeling up to it, write a post on six of your unspectacular quirks. (I didn't make this up :)!
http://pocobrat.blogspot.com/2008/06/tagged-for-six.html
I *know* you'll say you already did this, but... but... this is another blog entirely :P
I am automatically turned off by desi restaurants that have unimaginative names like "____ of India" or "India ____" (insert Palace/Taste/Spice/.. as appropriate).
I know it is the easiest and cheapest way to advertise that this is an indian restaurant, but it reeks of banality and is unimaginative.
/rant
Minerva's (locations in the suburbs in VA & MD) has the best Indian buffet I've found in the area, and my (Indian) husband agrees. If you go on the weekends they even have Indo-Chinese food, like Chilli Chicken. It's pretty amazing.
Another one of my favorite sorta-Indian places in Kabob Palace in Crystal City. It's technically an Afagani place, but they serve a lot of South Asians. They have two places right next door to each other - a sit down resturant & a 24-hr "quick food" place (with seating). Best kabobs ever - especially the lamb - and the meal comes with the kabob, rice, naan, and a side or two. The choele is out of this world
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