I really couldn't miss my bus today of all days, as I had (gasp) left my cell phone on Steve's kitchen table. The fault lies with whoever was messaging me pictures of the Leah Caroline's trip up the bay, and I was showing them to Steve before we left for work.
However, I had no way of letting him know if I was going to late rumbling into King George sky train station, so I couldn't miss my bus, which was hot and crowded with people by late afternoon. The sky train had a bit of AC whispering through the air, although not quite enough. Steve and I had plans to go to an Indian restaurant for supper - something different I had promised him as a belated (very belated) birthday dinner. Since Howard had frigged off to Newfoundland, this seemed a good time to go.
While sitting in the truck wondering where to find a restaurant, I remembered the one I was going to check out last Saturday morning, so we headed up 96 Avenue. Yup, still there. Yup, open. Good. Northern Tadka Indian Restaurant
Spicy aromas surrounded us when we walked in and chose a booth. A nice young waiter brought us water and menus, and then the difficult part began - what to order?
We finally decided on the Assorted Non-Veg Platter for an appetizer - a sharing plate with Fish and Chicken Paneer, and contrary to its name, topped with slivers of green pepper, onion and cilantro. Neither one us is fussy about cilantro, as we both discovered when we made our own salsa one time. The fish and the chicken looked the same, only the nibbling let us know which was which. We both liked it though - the fish was really good.
For main courses, Steve chose Kadai Chicken, and I decided to go out of my comfort zone even more and order a lamb dish. I don't relish eating lamb - I keep seeing those cute little woolly stuffie-like bouncers in a spring meadow. But then Indian food isn't really in my comfort zone either.
Of course, in the end, I don't really know what I ate - the minute I left to go to the ladies' room, the waiter came back and Steve ordered for us. He included a dish of Basamati Steamed Rice and Naan Bread to round off the meal.
The first thing the waiter brought was a plate of really thin crispy chip-like foldover thingies, and two dippers - a hot mint sauce, and a sweet brown sauce. The 'chips' were really yummy - neither one of us were fussy over the mint sauce, and I wasn't all that gung-ho for the brown one. But the 'chips' were soooo good.
What I really liked about this restaurant is that the food was served the way I would serve dinner - small casserole dishes on the table with serving spoons, and dig in yourselves. We worked our way through most of the food - we both enjoyed the chicken (Steve said it was like Butter Chicken, which he and Neil are mad about and I have never tasted), and the lamb was really good once I stopped thinking about Mary and her pet. Both dishes were served in a very rich spicy sauce which included tomatoes and green peppers.
The rice was very nice - and the Naan bread? Well, that was the best of all. Loved it. This traditional North Indian bread is baked in a clay oven - one side of it is flat and browned where it clings onto the wall of the oven and the other side is puffy and golden with airy light goodness. Yum. One bread that definitely does not need to be covered in butter.
We were stuffed at the end of the meal, and were unable to finish it all. Even I had to leave a small bit of Naan bread on my plate, even though I really tried to gobble it all up.
After dinner, we had a somewhat lengthy conversation with our friendly waiter, covering several topics such as:
- why there was nobody else dining in - because people won't drink and drive anymore, they do most of their evening business in take-out orders
- how expensive it is to get caught drunk driving
- how expensive it is to get a lawyer to fight and win against a drunk driving charge
No comments:
Post a Comment