The Food of Love
Taste of India offers quality fare, providing a sensual experience rich with flavors and aromas
by Kay West
Taste of India
1805 Church St. 327-5400 Open daily 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. (lunch buffet available) and 5-10 p.m.
Listen up, men. It has come to my attention that in spite of mountains of books, countless talk-show appearances by noted relationship experts, hundreds of hours of couples therapy, and gazillions of hints dropped daily by the women in your life, you are still puzzled—some might say clueless—about that age-old question: What do women want?
Here is my absolutely complimentary, no-strings-attached, sure-fire advice to all you frustrated fellows who wander about in a ball of confusion. My suggestion will at the very least save you the torture of attending the Dr. Phil Psychobabble He Said-She Said-I Know Show the next time he ambles into town.
Go right now to Regal’s Green Hills 16 and see Monsoon Wedding, the new film from Indian director Mira Nair. Set during monsoon season, the story chronicles four days in the life of a closely knit, boisterous, loving and very extended family gathered together for the wedding between beautiful Aditi, a young professional living in New Delhi, and handsome Hemant, a computer programmer and native of India now living in Houston, Texas. Gentlemen, let me tell you, within the 120-minute running time of this gorgeous film, a jubilant riot of color and music, are at least five concrete examples of what women want from the men in their lives. Some are as subtle as a secret, stolen glance, others as eye-opening as the dawning acknowledgment of blossoming love. Assistance in recognizing these moments of clarity is supplied by the women in the audience, who offer collective gasps of appreciation and sighs of longing as they occur.
Look at it this way. Premier tickets to Dr. Phil’s Nashville appearance in January: $160. The entire series of Mars-Venus books on tape: $200. Couples therapy: $100 an hour. A pair of tickets to Monsoon Wedding at Regal’s Green Hills 16: $15. I promise the rewards will be priceless, laying the groundwork for a night of L-O-V-E, love.
I must also advise that if you react as my party of four women did when we emerged from the theater in a dither of desire, you’ll want Indian food for dinner. As we realized, a steak and baked potato will do nothing to extend the romantic afterglow of Monsoon Wedding.
Our plans were to have dinner at a Green Hills restaurant. But after two hours soaking in a drenching rain of sapphire blue, ruby red, marigold orange, emerald green, brilliant yellow and rich purple, we realized that the brown-on-taupe-on-ivory color scheme of contemporary American restaurants wouldn’t do. The only suitable option was, of course, Indian food. While Shalimar is in Green Hills, and certainly a fine option for culinary gratification, we opted to try a newer restaurant, Taste of India on Church Street. A cell phone call at 9:45 p.m. found that they were getting ready to close, but that they’d very generously cook for us when we arrived.
Within 15 minutes, we were comfortably seated in an emerald-green booth, quaffing cold Kingfisher beers, nibbling crunchy fried pappadam crackers, and speed-reading the menu. Taste of India is in the former Peacock location, and though it has been through some remodeling and improvements, it has retained much of the same decor. While not as awash in color as Monsoon Wedding, the wall hangings, accessories and framed travel prints of India are certainly more vibrant than the monochromatic setting of most American restaurants.
With the imminent closing of the kitchen, we ordered quickly, and though the dishes were delivered to our table with speed, we did not feel pressured to gobble our food, nor was our dining experience diminished in any way. The servers were friendly and unhurried, and the service was attentive and professional.
While the menu offers standard Indian fare—several of the more unusual items that were on the Peacock menu are no longer available at Taste of India—the kitchen avoided the pitfalls that mar some local Indian restaurants: an overload of cooking oil that results in unappetizing pools of grease, plus the sense that everything tastes the same.
We began with vegetable pakora (mixed vegetables dipped in batter, then deep-fried) and samosas (tall, triangular turnovers stuffed with smashed potato and peas), and we jazzed the appetizers up with the trio of sauces found on every table: sweet tamarind chutney, cool mint chutney and onion-chili sambal. We also ordered sides of mango chutney and raita, to which Taste of India adds shredded carrots, along with the usual cucumber, mint and yogurt.
We sampled two breads. The white-flour rounds of naan were cooked puffy, flaky and lightly charred in the tandoori oven; the whole-wheat chapati, flat and shaped like a pita, was brushed with melted butter before serving.
A mound of perfectly cooked, saffron-studded basmati rice is delivered with all dishes and makes a fine base for the lamb, chicken and seafood stews; it’s also delightful on its own if you prefer to use your bread as a scoop for the thick sauces. Servers will ask if you want your entrée prepared mild, medium or hot. Mild is quite bland, and medium is spicy, but probably ideal for most Western palates. Hot is fairly searing.
Indian restaurants are extremely vegetarian-friendly, and Taste of India offers 18 options for diners of that persuasion. We were very pleased with the flavorful eggplant bharta—whole eggplant baked over an open flame, then mashed and cooked with onions and tomatoes. The meat entrées we tried were just as good. The bite-sized pieces of lamb in the rogan josh were tender, and the yogurt-onion-almond sauce thick and creamy. There was not much evidence of fish in the shrimp/fish saag, but plenty of plump shrimp reposing in the cooked fresh spinach. The tandoori chicken took longest to prepare, but the two legs, thigh and breast came to the table still sizzling atop a bed of onion, with quarters of fresh lemon to lend a cooling squirt.
Had we not arrived so late, we would have enjoyed a masala tea and sampled one or two of the quintet of desserts on the menu. As it was, the delightful notion of an enchanted lover tenderly presenting a sweet cake dripping in honey syrup was left to nestle in our vivid imaginations—nuzzling up to the lingering memory of men devoted solely to our happiness. Sigh.
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