quote:Originally posted by franklee new indian buffet "grand india buffet" at chester and kemper roads has the best indian food i've ever eaten, hands down.
I convinced my wife to give Indian food a try - she's never had it before, with me the "grizzled veteran" of 3 previous visits to an Indian buffet - and since we had a babysitter (one of my sisters) I took her out on your recommendation to Grand India Buffet. We were the only diners there the entire time, with two more arriving just as we left. Dinnertime buffet is 9.99, beverage and tax are extra.
We were able to sample a number of different things - naan, bhatura, three different curries (lamb, chicken, and meatball, the last of which was the mildest, tastiest, and also probably the least authentic), bright red tandoor chicken, a couple of varieties of pakoras, sambar, coconut soup, saag paneer......etc etc etc. I figured this was good for a first try since I had no idea whether she'd like anything, and she would probably find at least something she could tolerate but trying small samples of a number of different dishes. After the first plate, noting that they have dosas on the menu, I ordered one of these also well.
I thought everything was pretty good - not great, but solidly good. We both liked the mildest curry the best, and the hottest one (the chicken, oddly) the least. The naan was the best I've had so far, but I'v only ever had it at one other place, Akash on 6th downtown, and I know they are on no one's "best of" list. I took the bhatura as poori, but a helpful staff person told me poori and bhatura are quite different. I told him I'd have to try the poori off the menu next time. He was also quite glad to see I ordered the dosa, telling me that only one other place in town - Udipi - even makes these, and then comped it - "It's New years" he said. Nice, especially when you know they were losing money hand over foot that night with only us there. The wife had some kind of roasted green beans she also thought were good, but I forget what these were called. I did not think the green bean was a part of indian cuisine? I tried all the fried appetizers - the veggie pakora was again my favorite - and was surprised not only in the extreme differences in spice heat between them but also that there were no warnings about the heat level on any of the labels....about a third of the offerings had no label at all.
One question, folks - my understanding of "tikka masala" I that it is a sauce of butter, cream, tomatoes, onions, and spice, but I could tell no difference between the chicken tikka masala and the chicken curry, in seperate pans on opposites sides of the buffet station. Should there not be a notable difference?
I'm not sure we'll be back anytime soon, but that's probably more on the basis of how far it is from the house plus we'll probably try a few other recommended places (that happen to be closer by as well) next.
I will say this - for Mr McKee in particular :-) - it was much much better than the chinese buffet it replaced :-)
Aside: you know I had to make my 3000th post in this particular thread, right? Hehe.......yeah, I started this thing, but it's a group project now - ya'all have come together and made this thread great. Thanks. And Happy New Year!
