Restaurant Review: India’s Grill

With coupon in hand, we decided to try India’s Grill in Mesa. I’ll be honest and say that I have not always the biggest fan of Indian food. I just haven’t had a lot of great experiences and all the “faves” of whatever group I’m eating with seem to be things I’m not too into. That said, the day before, our class was on Indian cooking, and we got to taste some spices and learn a little bit about how things are made. It sort or wet my palette for Indian food and I was excited to try this. This place isn’t too far from my office, and the location used to be a sort of upscale Mexican food joint, but we hadn’t tried it since it became India’s Grill.

The meal began with them bringing us a sort of cracker thing (which the internets inform me is called Papadum) with some delicious sauces. I was particularly keen on the green one as it was full of mint, which I love. Next came some Vegetable Pakora appetizers that were fried vegetable kind-of dumpling balls. They came with a sort of sweet (almost) barbeque-like sauce that I enjoyed a great deal.

For my entree I decided on the Lamb Korma (against the protestations of my Vegetarian husband) and thought it was delicious. I’ll be honest and say that I think this meal sort of made me come around on Indian food. I think as long as I can order something that sounds good (as opposed to dealing with a buffet or specials only situation) I’ll like it more. The garlic naan was good, though I could have easily gone for more . I will point out that each entree comes with a rice, which is nice as that is not always the case at Indian restaurants.

Finally, I will point out that service was a little bit sloppy. My chai took a really long time to get, and my friend got the wrong dish (chicken tikka, not chicken tikka masala). They were, however, not bent about us having a coupon and very accommodating otherwise, including offering to fix the dish they got wrong and apologies about the late beverages, so bigons.

All in all I would definitely return and was happy with our meal. Try it and see what you think.

The Menu

Yummy Crackers with Dips

Ben making a difficult decision

Veggie Fried Goodness

Le Chai

Another Split Dinner: Beefy/Beefless Stir Fry on the Fly

Knowing that I had about an hour to make dinner and eat it before rushing off to another activity, tonight I made steak stir-fry with a little baby bok choy, garlic, ginger, and green onions and a side of steamed carrots. I also fried some Trader Joe’s Thai Vegetable potstickers and made a bit of steamed brown rice. The thing was, is that I actually made two stir frys. I used my trusty pyrex ingredient bowls and precut all of my ingredients, arranging my miniature mise-en-place before getting the pans started and beginning the process. I’ll be honest when I say that I thought this was going to be a total cakewalk (no food writing pun intended).

Anyone who makes meatless meats will know that starting them at even similar times was a bad idea as while my grass-fed beef was still closer to red than pink, Brendan’s steak-less strips were beginning to stick to the pan and burn. What a mess. On top of that, the fact that I was going for authentico-ness meant that I had oil in both pans, and well, you just can’t stir both well at the same time, meaning that one was going to be popping/splattering/etc. I’ll also put forward that rice, no matter what type, never seems to want to get done on time.

At this point, I’ll point out that the meal came out well. Nothing was too well done, nothing stuck to the pan too much, and both the meaty and meatless entrees were enjoyed by their consumers. Still, I was just struck by the idea of making two “identical” dishes and being surprised that they weren’t going to turn out the same way. Perhaps it was my recent success with the taco meats, but I sort of thought I had this one in the bag.

I don’t mean this to be a ranty post, but just more of a “hey I just woke up and noticed this” sort of thing. It’s interesting to me that the more I cook, the more it remains a process and journey of sorts, and while some things get easier, it doesn’t mean that things will be easy all the time. Writing every day (or at least trying to) has been similar. While I feel like the quality of my writing has been improving, the difficulty of getting to the computer each day to post something that seems vaguely relevant or meaningful has remained.

All the while, I’ve been really happy to see my number of post climbing and climbing and knowing that I am accomplishing something. I am becoming a part of a community, and someone, at least, seems to be reading what I have to say. While maybe I can get a little whiny (see above), really, this whole project is celebrating my love of food – and my love of eating it. So to end on a positive note, here’s a photo of me as I currently write this, pin curls and all, listening to the delightful sounds of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and plotting my next meal. Speaking of eating, I could totally go for some sweets right now. Ah, well, tomorrow is another day. Ciao!

Avec l'orange