Sunday 18 March 2012

This ain't a garden of roses...

Actually, I don't think there was a garden to be exact. We sat inside anyway.

Girlfriends and I always end up craving Indian food at some point. We usually head to Mela (when we all lived "north").

I'm always on the hunt for a bargain and when I saw an offer on one of those online deal websites it was a perfect for our "catch up over curry" sessions. Bargain deal voucher ($30ish per voucher) was an all-you-can-eat buffet meal for two with drinks *(beer or lassi).

We were quite early for dinner. The buffet sit down in split into two sessions per night. Don't worry it's not like they kick you out really - it's just after an 1.5 hr session of all-you-can-eat Indian, really depend on how much you can eat. Sad to say I think for an Asian group, we did mediocre. That's not to say the meal was mediocre.

The buffet stuff gets set up around 6ish, but when booking they said to come by at 5:30pm. The dishes weren't ready (in bain-maries) until really 6pm. We had starters = papadums and they gave us plenty of time to ponder over drinks. We chose mango lassi.
Of course we had tried of EVERYTHING. Ok, not everything, we passed on the vegetable salad. Dishes included, the usual:
  • Tandoori Chicken Pieces
  • Samosa
  • Shish kebab
  • Vegetable / Onion Bhaji
  • Beef Vindaloo
  • Lamb Rogan Josh
  • Butter Chicken
  • Chicken Tikka Masala? I wasn't sure
  • Dahl
  • Aloo Gobi (Potatoes & cauliflower, love it)
  • Palak Paneer (spinach & cheese, for those who haven't tried Indian or doesn't know what this is... it's devine. Don't think of it as Popeye-spinach, it's completely different.)
  • Rices/Naans etc.
There were sides and desserts too. So it was quite a meal.

Ambience: 3.5 Stars
Reason: Great for a small group, it's more of a family restaurant. Saw a few families show up a bit later. It's not extremely romantic, slightly sparse but they've tried to deck the place a bit to be more than casual dining but it doesn't have Mela's feel of Indian diner. I've been to some small restaurants in Mumbai where they actually have the same sort of Bollywood decor but tiles and casual tables, so I guess to me it feels slightly more "authentic" and I prefer the casual feel.

Food: 4 Stars
Reason: I would've rated higher, but I spent the rest of the day drinking water non-stop. Might have been my over-confidence with the vindaloo or ... the negative side might be because there's some sort of MSG in the food. I will have to retry this place and let you know.

Additional info: Website & menu. You can order a la carte and take away. I ate there on the 17th of March. I've back dated this blog post.

Indian Garden Restaurant on Urbanspoon

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