I haven’t had much experience with Indian food. To be honest, I have only eaten at one indian restaurant, for a lunch buffet. And I didn’t like it. On several other occasions, I have had homemade indian food. (In fact, I make a mean lamb curry…) And the homemade stuff was generally pretty good, so I wasn’t going into this dinner with a biased view.

The Big A and I started off with some chicken samosas (deep fried pastries filled with mildly spiced chicken). These were awesome, and next to the naan, were the best things I ate there. The pastry was EXACTLY like the pastry they use to make natchitoches meat pies (New Orleans treat, pronounced : nachadish). The garnish sauce with these little fried pockets of deliciousness was also yummy.

For our main course, we ordered both the nawabi murg kabobs (boneless chicken breast pieces marinated in sour cream, yogurt, ginger, garlic, and spices, grilled in tandoor oven and served in sizzling platter from Delhi) and the chicken tikka masala (marinated boneless chicken breast pieces simmer in a thick, spicy sauce made with onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and spices). We asked for medium spice and I found it to be a little more spicy than I could handle without having to take a drink after every bite. However, the flavor was really good. The Big A, who really likes indian food, thought dinner was awesome. (Maybe he should have wrote this review?) I thought the food was delicious and I would go back and try it again (with mild spice…). The naan was awesome. The plain was much better than the naan with roasted garlic. And the saag? I hated it. But I am not a big fan of cooked spinach.

I had a glass of Chenin Blanc from India with our dinner and it was very good. It had a nice tart fruit flavor that help off set the spicy food.

The service at this restaurant was impeccable. Never an empty water glass. Never a dirty plate. The only confusion was when someone other than our waiter brought out our entree and the people sitting next to us (who ordered after us) had ordered the same thing. But he figured out who ordered first and everything was fine.

The interior of the restaurant was beautiful. They had magnificent paper lanterns covering their ceiling. I spent most of dinner contemplating how to make them. The art was rich and colorful. Apparently they have (or had) erotic art, but it must have been behind the curtain that separated the bathrooms and kitchen from the rest of the restaurant.

All in all, I would totally go back and try it again!

The address of the restaurant is:
1888 Solano Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94707
(510) 526-4373

and reservations for the weekends are recommended. To see their menu, click here.

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