Either try going with Tandoori Chicken (where it’s spiced, but it’s grilled chicken so that might work out better for you), or you can try going for Butter chicken and the such, but order it very mild. Also, you can try Pakoras (veggie or chicken)- it’s a lightly fried appetizer, but that plus the brown chutney and there should be again not very much spice, and it can be filling to get 2-3 appetizers instead.
But try going over to the Tandoori side of the menu then instead of the curries if you want to avoid some of the more unique spices and curry powders- that or try sticking with the mildest kormas if you want to avoid heat as well- hence the Butter chicken suggestion- when it’s made really mild… it’s just blah- so mild and bland, but a few of my friends prefer it that way. But again, try playing around with appetizers instead and you might find a few things in there (samosas, Puri, idli’s or rus if the place has them, and dosas can be made to suit milder tastes).
I personally love Vegetable Korma, but mild veggie korma comes out nice and yellow (basically feels like a creamy desert) while the hotter Veggie Kormas come out brown and red… always amuses me when I see the differences in colors in peoples dishes.
From my Maddhur Jaffrey cookbooks, she gives a recipe for Pork Vindaloo, claiming it to be fully authentic, and I believe her. Vindaloo she says is a Goan dish, and Goa has a high Christian population, so pork wasn’t verboten there.
I just came back from my first trip to India, and to back up what has been said earlier (by Jimm I think), Indian food wasn’t significantly hotter there. I grew up on Indian food in the UK, and the locals who had travelled to the UK did indeed say they thought the Brits were crazy for how extra spicey they liked stuff. In the states, however, I do find I need to jog the chef’s arm when he is holding the spices over the pan to get any kind of sinus clearing flavor.
The biggest difference I noticed about the cuisine was how restaurants aren’t referred to as vegetarian in India - it was the meat serving restaurants that were referred to as non-vegetarian. And even they had the vegetarian portion of the menu first, with the meat part hidden at the back.
The thing to remember with Indian food is that it is a huge place, and has many different cuisines. Travelling from Delhi to Mumbai to Bangalore showed a lot of different styles of cookind. For the poster earlier who didn’t like Indian food he had tried, I’d suggest the more Persian type of cooking - the biryanis and kebabs.
I spent last summer in Hyderabad, which has a large Muslim minority. I used to go by a butcher’s shop every day that advertised pork, and I once wondered aloud to some coworkers how much business they did, and my Hindu colleagues (the once who weren’t vegetarian, anyway) told me they liked pork quite a bit and that it was very popular.
Being vegetarian myself, I haven’t paid much attention to the availability of pork in Indian food in the US or in India.
villa, I had trouble getting spicy food in India. Despite my insistence that I like spicy food, I felt like they were always gringoing it up for me. Bah!
I used to lunch regularly with Indian colleagues. One day it came up that I was going to have more guests for a dinner party than I’d expected. I said I’d just have to put more water in the soup. One of them said that on such occasions in India they said “put more chilies in the curry.”
Most Indian food you get at restaurants here are stewed for a long time, aren’t they? If that’s the case, the cheap fatty beef cuts are exactly what you want. More expensive steak/loin cuts toughen up through extended cooking.
Half indian chiming in. Anaamika, I have a question for you - is brown basmatic rice REAL? As in, does it exist, or is a marking ploy? I can’t find anything on it. It doesn’t have the same texture as white Basmatic to me.
Anyways, back to the topic. Do the buffet suggestion. Try to remember the names. Also, don’t go to the ‘de facto’ place that everyone goes to in town. It’s probably the least authentic and there won’t be any pressure to learn how to pronounce dish names. Also, they may recycle buffet food (Sunday buffet = Saturday’s unused food) like this one place in my town does. Do your research before you go.
Apologies if this has been covered before, but there’s a distinct difference between South and North Indian food. You wouldn’t get clam chowder in North Carholina or grits in Maine, would you? My family is from the North - think curries and lamb galore. South indian food tends to be very vegetarian. Crepe-style thin pancakes are a staple, called dosa.
I often joke to the SO (a former strict vegetarian) that the only place you can get a 100% authentic every time , (no chicken base or shady instruments used on meat products without washing) vegetarian meal is at an Indian restaurant, because lots of Indians are vegetarian for religious reasons. They’d never dream of violating that trust with their customers. I highly recommend south indian food anytime you’re with a vegetarian friend - they won’t be relegated to a boring afterthought pasta dish, like they would at most restaurants.
Also, I’m not surprised to hear more and more pork or beef dishes are on menus. My dad loves a good steak, and I’d love to see beef prepared by an Indian restaurant. Lots of immigrants are becoming more lax. Does my dad ensure there’s not a slice of pepperoni or a shred of beef in the house when my relatives visit? Yes, but that’s another story…
To the OP: don’t take the attitude of this poster, either
I agree - the best way to avoid the tragedy of being whitespiced (thank Og I now have a word for this!) is to demonstrate familiarity with the food and ideally, the culture. For Indian food I’m often with my group at work, who are all Desi, so we get it nice and spicy with no problem. But when I’m alone, I ask for it “Indian style” and also ask for some “chopped masala, tikai”. Works just great.
Similarly, in Thai restaurants I order larb (which I love, and make my very best effort pronounce it the Thai way) and Thai sticky rice. They seem to recognize me as an experienced Thai food diner and bring it blisteringly hot, just how I like it.
I work in India about half of my time and I love the flavourful dishes which are redolent with spices but lack chilies (the cook in our house is NOT allowed to use them at all - much to his dismay).
Just about all of his dishes are delightful and soooooooo tasty without causing pain on eating them.
I have never understood why people are so enamoured of “chili-hotness” in Indian food. For me it just drowns the actual flavour of all of the other delicious spices.
Too much of chili peppers, for me, just ruins otherwise tasty and distinctive regional combos.
PS. I have a delicious Goan Vindaloo recipe (called vindelicious in my house) which I will copy and post this weekend.
I think I would use the years of my life as currency to pay for kheer if it proved necessary. Kheer is to rice pudding as Dom Perignon is to Bartles & Jaymes.
A common Indian restaurant dessert in my city is Ras Malai, cheese balls served in half-and-half which has been flavored with rose or orange water and cardamom. It’s heavenly, and not particularly sweet.