They Just Opened an Indian Restaurant in Town!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Passage to India
3115 Chatham Road
Springfield, IL 6270-something

I’ve never had Indian food, but the place was packed last night so it’s obviously da bomb. Therefore, I invite all of you to recommend a nice, non-threatening Indian dish for an Indian food virgin.

CAVEATS
[ul]
[li]I don’t do spicy food very well. In fact, Taco Bell® mild sauce is right around my upper limit.[/li][li]I’d rather avoid anything that’s really “out there,” like stewed monkey brains :eek: or anything like that.[/li][/ul]

TIA

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Chicken tikka bhuna is mildly spiced. Dhansak can vary between mild and ‘quite’ spicy, and is heavy on the lentils if made properly. Massala dishes are heavy on a creamy sauce and usually quite mild.

Tip: if you do get a spicy one, don’t drink water. Milk or yoghurt are more effective (which is why yoghurt is often served as an accompaniment in Indian restaurants).

3

Firstly, I loooooooooooooooooooove Indian food.

Secondly, Indian food, at least not as served in the US, does not contain very many “exotic” ingredients, other than spices you may not be used to. They use non-scary meats - chicken, lamb, pork, some serve beef.
The meatless dishes may have some unfamiliar ingredients, but nothing scarier than paneer - which is a firm cheese.

They will usually be willing to reduce the spiciness of dishes if asked. The only spiciness problem I’ve ever run into is them not believing me when I say I really do want my Vindaloo “very spicy.”

If you’ve never had Indian food before, and don’t like too spicy, try Tandoori Chicken.

It is non-threatening. Of course, compared to other Indian food, I find it downright boring, but I don’t hold that against the folks for whom it is their favorite Indian dish!

Some of my favorites, when I first started eating Indian food:

Papadum - some restuarnts bring these out to start you off, without having to be asked. They are crispy wafers with spices in them - but not actually HOT. They are so yummy. I like the ones that are heavy on the black pepper and cumin.

Samosas - these are deep-fried triangular turnovers. Can have meat in them, but I like the potato and pea ones mysels. If they bring you the trio of condimenst (one bright orange and chunky, one dark and purple-y, one green) use the purple one to dip the samosas - it is tamarind sauce and is fruity and yummy. Mmmm.

CAUTION: If you don’t like spicy - do not even touch the orange-red lumpy condiment - it is onion chutney with tons of hot pepper. I love it on naan, but it is not for the faint-of-sewat-glands. Or if you want to kiss anyone later.

Chicken Korma, or anything “korma” is usually not too spicy. It is a cream-based sauce, slightly sweet, with nuts and sometimes raisins.

Try also some of the breads, naan and poori are both wonderful. If they onion or garlic naan, that’s a good way to get a feel for the flavors of Indian food without risking too much spice.

If you like spinach, try anything “saag.” Yum yum yum, and not very spicy.

I looked to see if I could find a web page for them, so I could ook at their emnu, but a quick search didn’t turn one up.

Hope this helps.

4

Here’s what I’d normally recommend as a full not-too-hot meal.

Starter: poppadums (also known as pappadums or any vaguely similar combination of letters) with mango chutney – not spicy – and cucumber & mint raita – another non-spicy dipping sauce made from a yoghurt base.

Main: chicken (I avoid red meat in Indian restaurants. Couldn’t tell you why) tikka bhuna.

Side dishes: pilau rice (long-grain rice with a hint of saffron and other herbs and spices, but not hot), bombay aloo (potatoes) and a garlic nan (leavened soft bread).

In general, nan refers to unleavened bread (plain, garlic or keema are popular, the last one being filled with spicy minced meat). Aloo refers to curried potato, the most common being bombay aloo (fairly plain) and sag aloo (spinach and potato). Sag – aka saag – is, as Motorgirl says, spinach and paneer a kind of cheese.

Tandoori dishes are cooked dry in a particular oven and served ‘dry’. Balti dishes (if they have them) are variations on the main dishes, but I’ve not noticed a huge difference in the flavours.

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Did I mean leavened or unleavened? I can never remember.

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Any decent Indian restaurant will either describe the degree of heat for each dish on the menu, or offer varying degrees of spiciness, or both. So if you tell the waiter you’ve never tried Indian food before and aren’t used to/don’t like hot spices, s/he should be able to help you out. In fact if this is the first Indian restaurant in your town I bet they’re getting that request a lot right now.

Flodjunior’s favorite Indian restaurant type dish is Chicken Tikka Masala, which is Indianrestaurantese for cut-up chicken in a masala sauce. As Crusoe mentioned, masala sauces are generally pretty mild. If there’s something like “Tandoori Mixed Grill”, that would give you a chance to try several different things - you can ask for it mild, and if they give you little bowls of sauce on the side, just ignore them or try them with caution. Oh, and order some naan/nan to go with your meal - it’s a type of bread, great for sopping up sauce and for helping your tongue recover if you eat something too hot.

Indian restaurants that cater mostly to the non-Indian community aren’t likely to have anything too weird on the menu. The vegetables are likely to be things you rarely see, particularly in the vegetarian dishes, and they use a lot of lamb which isn’t common in most parts of the US, but that’s about as exotic as it gets.

Enjoy!

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Mmmmmmm, Indian food! I love it, but I can never remember the names of the dishes. Like Motorgirl said, if you like spinach, saag dishes are delicious.

Some Indian restaurants feature Tandoori dishes, which are almost like BBQ - I think the food is cooked over charcoal in a clay oven. I love Tandoori chicken.

And the bread…the place near me has this onion bread…oh, man, I’m outta here. I’m getting some Indian food for lunch.

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Palak Paneer – its creamed spinach with cheese curds in it. Really good and not spicy.

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First off, praise the gods you have his yummy culinary opportunity. Then go there and order…

aloo mater - peas and potatoes in a yummy not-too-spicy sauce

OR

mater paneer - the cheese-curd stuff everyone’s talking about with peas

paratha - soft, yummy wheat bread to sop up the last bits of sauce with

lassi - a yoghurt drink and the reason for my continued existence :smiley:

And don’t be embarassed to order things “very VERY mild”. They should be accomodating to your Western taste buds.

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Indian food is actually not all that spicy, depending on the region. The further south you go, the hotter the food gets. And Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to the contrary, Indians don’t use “weird” ingredients. Indian food also doesn’t use curry powder, which is an abomination to God and man. Chefs use a combination of freshly ground spices for each dish; the most common are coriander, black pepper, cumin, and cardamom. Usually, the food is cooked using ghee, AKA clarified butter, instead of oil.

Chicken Tandoori is a good call. It’s chicken coated with turmeric and baked in a clay oven called a tandoor, hence “tandoori.” Chicken Dopiaza, a Madras specialty, is chicken cooked with onions. Aloo Mutter is potatoes and peas. If you really want to avoid spices, go for anything with “dal” in the title. Dal is legumes, usually lentils, ground into a paste and cooked into a thick gruel. I also recommend going for raita, yogurt flavored with cumin, cucumbers, and tomatoes, to cool your palate if you do get anything too spicy.

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Oh, god, yes… Mango lassi. ::drool::

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Oh yes. What is the green one, and how do you make it?

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My brother-in-law is Indian and he often brings food over that his very traditional mother has cooked. It’s not just spicy, it’s spicy on a whole other level. I ate something, cried for about 15 minutes, drank three glasses of milk, and could still taste it an hour later (and I love spicy food). Obviously, I was quite hesitant about eating at an Indian restaurant. It was actually really good. I think they hold back on a lot of the spices for weenies like me.
:stuck_out_tongue:

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The green one, is coriander chutney/relish. By coriander I mean the leaf of the coriander plant, known as Cilantro in most American restaurants.
I personally think cliantro tastes like soap, so I avoid the green one, but lots and lots of people like it. It is not very spicy.

Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe for it is:

3 cups fresh green corainder, without stems and roots
1/2 - 1 fresh hot green chili, coarsly chopped
1 1/2 Tb lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp roasted ground cumin
freshly ground black pepper

Combine all in a food processor or blender. Blend until smooth.
Store/serve in a non-reactive dish.

BTW: Madhur Jaffrey is my all time fave Indian cookbook author. Followed in a respectable second place by Julie Sahni, whom I prefer for vegetarian dishes.

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I asked a Hindu friend of mine about an Indian restaurant here: If they serve beef they aren’t Hindu, if they serve beer they aren’t Moselm. What are they?

He chuckled and said “They are probably Christians.”

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You must have an asbestos tongue, or a different chutney. Around here that’s the hot stuff but we don’t get the orangy stuff, just purple-brown and green.

I’ll second the tandoori chicken and Naan (which is leavened). If they have “menus” thats a good way to go; by “menu” I mean a dinner made of several different items, usually with an appetizer, bread, entree and dessert as opposed to a la carte. The place I used to go to called that a menu: vegetarian menu, chicken menu, etc.

Samplers and buffets are also a good way to see what you like.

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This just reminded me that my favourite Chinese restaurant has become an Indian place.

I was driving past the other week and instead of “New Mandarin Delight” it was “Taste of India”*. I was quite pissed, but maybe I’ll check them out some time. I’m a little leery of Indian food because I do not do spicy.
*Names are a guestimate

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You must have an asbestos tongue, or a different chutney. Around here that’s the hot stuff but we don’t get the orangy stuff, just purple-brown and green.
**
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LOL! I do like spicy foods, but do not have an asbestos tongue. :eek:

I think they must be giving us a different chutney. Either that or yours has more green chiles in it.
Or maybe ours simply seems tame next to the orange stuff, which I love.

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A very daring (and sometimes slightly stupid) friend of mine once told the waiter at (what was then) our local Indian restaurant, “I want it like Mother used to make. And I mean your mother.” The waiter grinned.

Flodfriend sat there with tears running down his cheeks and smoke coming out of his ears. He had to blow his nose every thirty seconds. But when the waiter asked (still grinning) how the food was, he sighed with pleasure and said “Heavenly!” :eek:

Oh, at that restaurant the “green stuff” was wonderfully sour and just barely spicy. It used to be my favorite. Now we’ve moved to a new city and at our local place now the green stuff isn’t sour at all but it’s hot enough to make your toenails curl up. So it does vary.

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Reading that, I think Flodfriend and I would get on :). I pulled the same stunt in Thailand. Result: a tom yum soup that caused chemical burns. Absolutely delicious.

rastahomie, plenty of naan, plenty of raita (cucumber and yoghurt dip, tangy and cooling) and plenty of lassis will get you through anything. Stay away from vindaloos, go for anything korma, passanda or mughlai (and ask the waiter if they have anything good and not too spicy - there might be a house specialty that’s just right for you). If you get to feeling a bit more adventurous, try rogan josh - it’s a lamb curry, very nice.

But bear in mind, I have the aforementioned asbestos tongue.