Gateway to India in Longwood, FL

There are so many Indian restaurants in the Central Florida area, and I've visited so few of them when compared to other types of foods. Recently, I was able to give one of these Indian restaurants a try when I stopped into Gateway to India in Longwood for lunch. Gateway to India is located along 434 in an old Pizza Hut building. They had a lunch buffet for $10.95, so I went with that. It seemed a little pricy for lunch, but still probably a better value than ordering from the menu. My buffet experience included two plates of food, filled with chicken masala, tandori chicken, various vegetarian dishes, naan, and rice.

I enjoyed all of the food from Gateway to India's buffet. I've been to other Indian restaurants with larger buffets with lower prices for lunch, but the quality of food seemed substandard at some of these other restaurants. Here, the food seemed fresh and everything tasted good. I guess that's a plus of paying a few dollars more for a buffet!

Taj in East Village, NY

Another night in New York and I found myself looking for dinner again. This took me to the Little India section of the East Village where I ate at a restaurant called Taj.

 

They had musicians providing entertainment with sitar and drums near the entrance of the restaurant.

Taj offered a six course dinner for under $10, so that's what I went with. Course number one was a bowl of red lentil soup. The bright orange color of red lentils make soup look more enticing compared to their brown counterparts.

Course number two was a samosa appetizer. The vegetarian samosa contained potatoes and vegetables, wrapped up in a pastry-like shell.

The third, fourth, and fifth courses were all served simultaneously. These included a basket of naan and a big plate of rice for the table to share. The main course also came out at this point. This was the chicken tikka masala in my case. Cubes of chicken were served in an orange, yogurt based sauce and was very tasty. The vegetables that were also supposed to be in the dish were unfortunately nowhere to be found.

Course number six was rice pudding for dessert. I honestly wasn't counting how many courses we were served for the entire meal, so it was an unexpected nice surprise when dessert was served. It was an even nicer surprise when a second serving of rice pudding was brought to the table after we finished the first!

I enjoyed my meal at Taj. I really like these multi-course meals that all of the Indian restaurants in this neighborhood seem to all serve. They end up being a really good deal for the price, and I would much rather eat Indian food like this as opposed to the much more common Indian buffets.

Spice Cove in NY

Back in July of 2007, I visited Manhattan's Curry Row for some Indian food. This neighborhood is lined with Indian restaurants, each one with someone standing outside, competing with one another for you to come eat at their store. It sounded like walking down a carnival midway past the games, only dealing with food. On this visit, a restaurant called Spice Cove won my business.

Spice Cove offered a dinner special that included an appetizer, soup, and a main course for a really good price, so I went with that. Red Lentil soup was served first. It was really good, and the deep red color of the soup was great. I've never come across another lentil soup that color.

Next, the vegetable samosa appetizer was served. Yummy!

For the main course, I ordered Chicken Vindaloo. While I love spicy food, this dish was a bit extreme. The chicken seemed to be a variation on curry chicken, served over rice, but I could not handle the heat of the dish. I probably drank more water during the meal than what I actually ate. I did enjoy it, but after the meal wasn't as fun when I had to find a bathroom in the city at midnight to get rid of all of the liquid I drank to counter the spicy. Thank goodness there are Starbucks on every corner...

Curry Chicken from Mehek in Princeton, NJ

I'm running low on my supply of restaurants/food stuff to write about at the moment, so for the next few posts I'll be digging into the Watch Me Eat archives for previously unpublished food adventures. Memories are fallible, but I will do my best to keep these posts as accurate as possible. Mistakes in the details may happen though. Feel free to correct!

Today we are going back to September, 2007 to the lovely town of Princeton, NJ. After some exploring of the town, I ate lunch at an Indian restaurant called Mehek, located right across the street from the University.

Mehek had a take-out counter on ground level and a dining room upstairs. We ate on the second floor. It was after the lunch rush, so we were the only ones eating at the time. Because of this, I chose to order off the menu rather than get the lunch buffet that was offered.

I had the Curry Chicken. The dish came with a bowl of chicken and vegetables in a curry sauce, along with a side of rice, and basket of roti. I love the flavors of Indian food, and the food from Mehek was no exception. The curry was delicious, and I'm always amazed how much flavor the seemingly plain basmati rice has.

If there weren't six states between Florida and New Jersey, I'd gladly return to Mehek!

Taste of Tandoor

Driving home from New York, after sitting in almost non-stop traffic all day long, we stopped and ate some Indian food at Taste of Tandoor in Woodbridge, VA.

The meal was started with a garlic naan appetizer. They called it garlic naan, but I didn't taste any garlic.

I tried the Tandoori Salmon for my main course. The salmon was brought out on a sizzling skillet and was transferred to another plate by the waiter. I had never tried seafood from an Indian restaurant and I was pleased. The salmon was really good in it's orange yogurt sauce, cooked with onions and lime.

I wonder how many other people traveling along I-95 during an 1800 mile trip stop to eat Indian food?

Udipi Cafe

I really like Indian food. All of the spices and flavors mix together in a unique combination that makes Indian food really distinct, but it seems the majority of Indian restaurants in the United States all seem to have a similar menu to one another.

And then I tried Udipi Cafe in Longwood, FL. They serve vegetarian South Indian food (as opposed to the more common North Indian food?) which was really different from any other Indian food I've tasted (perhaps I don't know what to order). I visited Udipi Cafe for their $7.95 lunch buffet and was very pleased with the food.

The meal starts with everyone being served a dosai. Dosai are sort of like crepes stuffed with a potato filling.

From the buffet, I tried a bit of everything. The white mound up front is a idli, a rice/lentil cake. It was bland alone, but good dipped in some of the other food items. On the left there are two deep fried falafel-like balls made from sweet potatoes. And then there are several other dishes on the plate (most served over rice or roti/naan) that I can not name, although they were all delicous.

I went back to the buffet and sampled all of the soup-like dishes as well as some seconds on a few of my favorites.

For dessert, I tried this doughnut/cake soaked in yogurt:

I was stuffed after my meal of vegetarian Indian food. When leaving Udipi Cafe, two people in a Uhaul truck pulled up and headed into the restaurant. One of them pulled out a camera and took a picture of the front of the restaurant before entering. Was it a fellow food blogger?