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Rasika, with 2014 James Beard Award Winning Chef Vikram Sunderam, and Rasika West End, Modern Indian in Penn Quarter and West End


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He'll be doing an internship for several months at Tandem Winery, located in the impossibly named town of Sebastopol.

And then he's coming back, but I'll have to let him disclose what he's doing when the time is right.

Cheers,

Rocks.

Who knew the Crimea was such a hotbed for viticulture? And I thought it was all about Russian/Ukrainian brides, Tennyson and folks who kill over delicious Baklava?

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We had dinner at Rasika for the first time a few weeks ago and absolutely loved it. We walked in embarrassingly underdressed and without a reservation, but were treated very well. It’s clearly a hip place but lacks the often accompanying snootiness. I like that Rasika offer small plates, so you can get two to three dishes and not be stuck with a full order of any one thing. My husband and I shared the meat and vegetarian tasting menus, which was a great way to survey the menu. It was way too much food, but we have a good idea of what to order next time—definitely the crispy spinach appetizer and the dal. As a bonus, the wine list is MUCH better than most Indian restaurants.

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Um, it is Sebastopol, CA...

Imagine my embarassment when talking to Sebastian on Friday and thinking he was really going to Eastern Europe. :)

jenrus and I decided to go to Rasika after reading about the news on Friday. Sebastian has always been a gracious host and is one of the reasons Rasika is at the top of our list of favorites. That and the food. It was as good as it always has been. We have yet to try a dish that we were unhappy with on our several visits. This time the deeply flavored yet delicately cooked lobster masala really stood out.

We'll miss Sebastian but we'll keep going back for the cooking. And we'll look for Sebastian when he returns to DC.

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Was told tonight the chef has a new menu on the way. I was told when but was so panicked by the thought of losing my chicken makhani that I don't remember. I believe in the next month or so....Fortunately, some of the favorites are staying (including my makhani and the palak chaat) but should be fun to see what new dishes he comes up with.

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Lunchtime at Rasika with colleagues: Server takes drink order. Server returns with iced teas. Server spills iced tea all over one diner's back. Server stands there like deer in headlights as other diners hand napkins to doused diner. Other servers help clean up mess. Main server finally asks doused diner if he wants to go to bathroom to dry off. Doused diner returns with jacked on and zipped and soaked shirt in hand. Meal resumes. Meal ends. Bill comes. Nothing removed - not even iced tea. Manager asks how meal was. Diners tell him it was terrific, save for iced tea that wound up on somebody's back. Manager looks stunned. Manager apologizes to doused diner. Manager pulls aside server for brief lecture. Diners speculate that server never told manager about accident. Credit cards come back, bill unchanged. Manager returns to give doused diner business card. Manager tells doused diner to call if he needs anything. Diners shake heads.

I've eaten at Rasika multiple times - probably 10 to 12 in the last year. I've always liked the service there. On this visit, however, it flat-out sucked. Not only did my friend get an iced-tea bath but the waiter tried to talk him into keeping the yogurt in the palak chaat even though the guy specifically asked for it to be removed because he has issues with eating dairy ("but it's only a tiny amount, and you won't even notice it," the waiter said) -- and then he forgot my friend had ordered dessert and insisted that, in fact, he hadn't. There was also a water glass on the table that took 30 minutes to be filled, and the iced tea glasses were removed too early in the service, without the server even asking if we were done with the beverages. (But hey, at least the chapli kebab was delicious.) Maybe we were wrong to expect that the restaurant would at least comp the beverages. But the way the issue was handled wasn't particularly satisfactory and, in fact, annoyed the sheesh out of us.

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But wait, there's more...

I'd forgotten this detail, which I'm copy-pasting from my friend's letter to the restaurant.

"I felt that the waiter's response was absolutely unacceptable. He used profanity before apologizing to me, and began to mop the tea off of the floor before offering me a towel or napkin to dry off my soaking neck, back and shirt. I went to the restroom, changed into a jacket and returned to my seat."

And this: "The waiter, however, didn't return for about fifteen minutes. When he finally arrived to take our order he made a joke about being afraid to come back to the table. Perhaps he wasn't kidding?"

Good times! (Not.)

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And now, for the final word (he said, having a conversation with himself).

The restaurateur Ashok Bajaj is a class act. I thought as much the first time I was introduced to him, and I believe it even more now that my friend has told me that Mr. Bajaj personally responded to his complaint in near-record time -- on Restaurant Week Saturday, no less. He apologized profusely for the incident, offered to pay for my friend's dry cleaning and then asked that he return to the restaurant for a meal, offering to send him a gift certificate in the process.

Well done, Mr. Bajaj!

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And now, for the final word (he said, having a conversation with himself).

The restaurateur Ashok Bajaj is a class act. I thought as much the first time I was introduced to him, and I believe it even more now that my friend has told me that Mr. Bajaj personally responded to his complaint in near-record time -- on Restaurant Week Saturday, no less. He apologized profusely for the incident, offered to pay for my friend's dry cleaning and then asked that he return to the restaurant for a meal, offering to send him a gift certificate in the process.

Well done, Mr. Bajaj!

Thanks for keeping us posted. How horrible of the server, how professional of Mr. Bajaj.
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The restaurateur Ashok Bajaj is a class act... Well done, Mr. Bajaj!

We have had similar experiences (well, not the spilled iced tea, thank goodness) with iffy service at Ardeo, part of the same empire... any bad service brought to the manager's attention has been quickly and generously addressed. Great customer service in that regard.

They did a pretty great job last week at Restaurant Week, too... that palak chaat really is the bee's knees. The only thing I didn't care for was the kebab, but everything else (including black cod, chicken makhani, and carrot dessert) was delicious. Will definitely be back.

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After getting hammered in and out up and down left and right every night, every night during Restaurant Week, the last thing I want to is to hit a brother presumably in the pangs of the same misery. Yet after a breathtakingly incompetent half an hour into Bebo (fifteen minutes before eye contact with bartender? server looking up at me with "oh shit" instead of "hello princess"? Nyet. ), we moved to Rasika and couldn't be happier. Cozy seats at the chef's counter. Professional, courteous service. Palak chaat, delicate crispy gorgeous as ever. Humble lentils turned into satisfying depth of dal makhani. Braised lamb (salli boti) came as cubed lamb instead of a shank I enjoyed on previous visits, doused in sauce of sweet deliciousness so ubelievable that when a chef came out, he offered to fix us up with more sauce. Calamari in tangy tomato sauce, miles away from the usual mediocrity. Everything so good, you forget it's Restaurant Week.

And bread basket, note to self, do not forget bread basket, or else the delicious sauces will go to waste lingering at bottoms of plates instead of being mopped up and thrust in mouth.

Cannot wait to return.

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Is there a better snack food in the area than Rasika's palak chaat? Discuss.

It's a dish I constantly find myself thinking of -- much like the otherworldly nam kao tod (spice level five, please) from Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas.

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Is there a better snack food in the area than Rasika's palak chaat? Discuss.

It's a dish I constantly find myself thinking of -- much like the otherworldly nam kao tod (spice level five, please) from Lotus of Siam in Las Vegas.

If you want an Indian snack replacement I would surely recommend the SEV MURURA CHAAT at Passage to India, Bethesda. You can request them to spike it up. Only drawback - you got to eat it fast before it starts getting kind of soggy after 15 minutes or so. What I like best is that you can eat the Lentil basket that they serve it in too.

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Is there a better snack food in the area than Rasika's palak chaat? Discuss.
Maybe the goat cheese kulcha? Mmmm. We celebrated a friend's birthday here last night, and that's what I'm remembering. Well, that and the Devil Queen cocktail. Snow Queen vodka, Cointreau, horny melon juice, and pomegranate juice -- this was an outstanding, well-balanced drink. I usually don't like house specialty drinks because they're almost always too sweet (specialty drinks at Zaytinya come to mind), but this was well considered and well made. An unfortunate inhalation allergy marred the evening a bit (not blaming the restaurant at all), but I might risk it again for the kulcha and the Devil Queen. Or else ask the server to bring them to me on the sidewalk. :blink:
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We got to Rasika for the 1st time Friday night. Was spur of the moment, we had no reservation and just grabbed a bar table. Was not a problem getting a table around 7:45ish in the bar area (there's about 10 in the bar, plus ~10 stools at the bar itself). The bar crowd ebbs & flows throughout the early evening, and was quite crowded by 10pm or so when we left.

The waitress, Gina, was enthusiastic, bubbly, pleasant, informative. She knows the menu very well. Since we were going for small plates, we just asked what she recommended and went with it. First, we had the crispy spinach (Palak Chaat) & ginger scallops. Both items go on my "desert island" list. The 4 scallops were seared to perfection in a lovely sauce, and the spinach comes in a very healthy portion that gave each of us 2 reasonable small plate helpings. The baby spinach preparation was so unique and delicious... one of those items that you wish you could make at home, but couldn't even come close... in other words, the reason you eat out at culinarily unique places like this.

For our second round, we had Gina bring whatever else she most recommended. After all, she was batting 1.000 to that point. The Seekh Kebabs (lamb) and Tawa Baingan (eggplant, potato & peanut sauce, stacked up in a multilayered Napolean-style) were an excellent continuation. They were delivered by the owner (I'm guessing), who described both items for us, since we had no idea what was coming.

Ordering the dishes as we went (rather than all at once at the beginning) worked very well, gave the meal a very relaxed feel, and made for a well paced, pleasant.

For dessert, we split the chocolate somosa, a lot like a Filo dough version of Parisian pain au chocolate. It was a little dry around the edges, but center oozed chocolate goodness.

Bottom line on the meal was very very reasonable: $68 plus tip, which included a ginger martini, V&T, 3 glasses of rose wine (very good).

My ratings:

4.5 of 5 for food

5 of 5 for service (we didn't even order anything specific & had great meal, plus made a new friend...)

Overall give it a 5 of 5. We raved about it all weekend to friends, and we'll be back soon!

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Rasika was on point last night.

Started with a selection of small plates

Palak Chat (The much talked about Crispy Spinach)

Tawa Baingan (Eggplant and Potato Napolean, was excellent)

Calamari Chili Garlic (last time I had it the presentation and flavors were cleaner, but was still tasty)

Main Course we split an entree and veggie side dish and a basket of bread

Lamb Roganjosh (da bomb, lamb was so tender, sauce was awesome)

Dal Makhani (I love this dish, lentils taken to their highest level of creamy rich goodness)

Dessert

Cardamon ice cream (a simple refreshing way to end dinner)

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Headed to Rasika tonight for the first time. Obviously will be getting the Palak Chat since I've heard so many good things about it. But what to get next? I had Indian last night (Murg Makhani) and would like to do something different. I'm not a die-hard fan of lots of curry, but I could be up for something new. Entree suggestions?

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Lamb Roganjosh.

I ended up going with the Lamb Roganjosh tonight since I had Makhani last night. It was definitely good, but beforehand I wasn't sure how I felt about lamb (figured why not give it a try?) and I realized it's not my favorite. I think I'll stick with chicken from now on (or maybe the wild boar if I'm fealing adventurous). One of my friends got the makhani and it definitely was tasty. I would likely get that next time, or maybe some of the veggie dishes. One of my other friends wasn't sure if she liked Indian food, so she ended up with chicken biryani and realized there was stuff she liked on the menu. I think we may get her to branch out next time!

Besides our main courses we got a bread basket (good, but nothing stood out as spectacularly different from any other place) and of course the palak chaat. I have no idea how they make that dish or what they put in it, but it seriously lived up to every single good thing I'd ever heard about it. I had high expectations and they were met. That dish is ridiculously delicious. I could've eaten the whole thing by myself even though it is a generous portion (enough for 4 of us to have a decent amount each). I will certainly order that every time I return to Rasika. So crispy and light and airy and sweet. Yum.

We discussed getting some veggie half dishes or other apps, but I'm glad we didn't since I'm still stuffed an hour and a half later. I have the lentils on my list for next time though.

I had read about silverware issues at this place and it made me laugh once I started using mine. I was able to keep my fork on my plate and off the floor, but it was definitely a balancing act! Those things are weighted really strangely. And the knives sit funny on the table. Bizarre.

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It has been well over a year since I have been at Rasika, far too long because I loved it the first time that I was there, so we headed back there on Friday night. We stuffed ourselves on Thursday, leaving us wth little room to eat on Friday during the day, so we were starving when we got there that night. Unfortunately, this time around, Rasika didn't hit the spot.

The restaurant was beautiful, as always, with a pretty good crowd right after Thanksgiving. Our waiter was, to put it lightly, intrusive and overbearing. While I generally grin and bear it when he comes over every two minutes to see if we are ready to order, I wasn't in the mood on Friday night, so I put him in his place. I felt like a dick telling him that "we will motion to him if we need him", but I felt that it was necessary in this case. He asked us if we were ready to order a total of eight times before I told him to back off, an unheard of number of times since 1) it is a nice restaurant, 2) it wasn't full and 3) it was in the first 20 minutes and we had just ordered and got served our bottle of wine.

Do you guys think it is fine to simply tell the server how to act when it is getting that bad?

Anyway, the service may have rubbed me the wrong way, but the food wasn't that much better. The Galouti Kebab had a good flavor, even if a bit chalky, but the Malai Chicken Tikka was well overdone, very, very dry. The Black Cod, traditionally one of my favorite types of fish, was mushy and oily. Not in a oily fish kind of way, but in the we-cooked-it-in-way-too-much-oil kind of way. We didn't finish it, sent it back, and got it removed from our bill. The lemon cashew rice was way overcooked and mushy as well and the Palak Paneer never showed up. We ordered it, asked for it again, but never received it. It did, however, show up on our bill, but was quickly taken off once we complained about never receiving it. The bread basket was, unfortunately, the savior of the night, each different type of bread was fresh and wonderful. The date and toffee pudding was fine, but I could have used a good deal more date flavor, it was our second favorite dish other than the bread.

Overall, it was a pretty below average trip for me. Luckily, I have been to Rasika a bunch of times and always enjoyed it, so I will chalk it up to a bad experience. But, my dining companion, who has never been there before, will likely never come back. I know that it is tough to be "on" every single night with every single dish, but sometimes that is the only chance that a restaurant will get.

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The Black Cod, traditionally one of my favorite types of fish, was mushy and oily. Not in a oily fish kind of way, but in the we-cooked-it-in-way-too-much-oil kind of way. We didn't finish it, sent it back, and got it removed from our bill.

It's my understanding that Black Cod is no longer in season in Alaska. Not sure whether this was fresh, from other waters. Or frozen. In either case, that may partly explain why it wasn't as good as you remember.

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Ended up finally getting to Rasika last night with my wife and a couple friends. Highlights included the crispy spinach that was recommended by a few people on this site (this is not a dish I would have normally ordered, so the recommendations were especially appreciated!!), the potato cake on yellow lentils, the crab and rice cake, the bison entree (one of the spiciest things I've eaten recently--and damn good) and lastly, the date and toffee cake.

Service was good overall. There were moments of awkwardness when the multiple appetizer plates came out and there was hardly any room on the table to place them. We ended up passing the plates around quickly between the four of us, scraping a quarter of each plate (6 apps overall) onto our individual plate and handing the empty dish back to the server. I wish more restaurants would take the size of the table into account when figuring out their plating style and size of their plates. (Please don't take this as me picking on Rasika. This is a common problem at many restaurants.)

I will definitely be returning to Rasika and highly recommending them.

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Every single time that I see a store opening in a strip mall, it eventually becomes a restaurant. On any given night, you will see the restaurants of our city and suburbs filled wall to wall with people. So why, in a hyper-competitive environment like the restaurant industry, do we rarely find owners/manager/servers that seem to give a damn!? It is sad, but I see it almost every single day of my life.

At the same time, it makes it even more endearing when you actually find a restaurant that does give a damn. Rasika is one of those restaurants.

Like I said last week in my most recent post about Rasika, I had a bad experience. It was a shock to me because I have had stellar experiences up to that point, but at least with Rasika, they are willing to listen to this criticism and try to do something to make it up to the customer (who, in this case, was me).

I didn't expect anything from Rasika, that was not my point when writing that last post, but they did read the post and respond to me via PM (Atul, who I believe is a manager there). Shortly afterwards, they followed that PM up with a phone call (Ashok, the owner) and were very apologetic and were willing to do whatever it took to make me, the customer, happy. Most restaurants don't even do that when you are at the restaurant and have a complaint, but to track me down after the fact and make amends, that really does mean a lot to me.

So, I want to take this time to thank Atul and Ashok, Rasika is a first class restaurant in DC and I am glad that they are working hard to keep it that way.

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Raisika for lunch during jury duty. I had a large appetizer of a kind of potato pancake topped with asparagus and other goodies that I can't otherwise describe and with a name a can't remember, but it was damn good, as was the chicken green masala. Just absolutely luscious. Went great with a Mosel by the glass. As you can tell, I don't know a lot about Indian cuisine, but I always love the food here.

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I thought we'd posted about this, but perhaps we all just thought the others had, and nobody actually did. We went to Rasika Wednesday, March 26, and had a lovely time. I'm still in a leg cast, though walking around some (and hopefully no cast by Friday! Yay!), so they seated us as close as they could to the door -- it was a nice gesture that I appreciated. We started with four or five appetizers, including the water chestnuts, which were slightly odd but delicious, and the ragda potatoes, as well as the lentil dumplings and -- of course -- palak chaat. Yum. We also had the chutney selection and two bread plates. I had the Lobster Moilee. The lobster was a meh for me -- giant pieces, but not quite right (chewy and fishy and impossible to cut -- seriously). The sauce, however, was AMAZING. Let me repeat that: AMAZING!!! I had it with the lemon cashew rice, which I adore, and it was fabulous. I wish that I could just eat that rice and the lobster sauce for every dinner. Tripewriter had my second favorite dish -- the bison chili roast. It was lovely -- tender and spicy. Our friends had the Bengal Fish Curry and the lamb, both of which were good, but none of which (in my opinion) came close to that lobster sauce/lemon cashew rice combo. We each had an opening drink, and then two of us had beer with dinner. The four of us split a gulab jamun, and we all had leftovers. The grand total for this affair? Pretax, $229. Why do we not go there more?!

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Last night was my first experience at Rasika, and the restaurant really shone. I had just completed a multi-month project work at work and was looking for a last minute chance to relax and enjoy a good meal. A scan on OpenTable revealed a 6:30pm slot for Rasika, a place my wife and I have been meaning to try for quite some time. Not having had the time to check DR.com for dish recommendations, I scanned the menu and was overwhelmed at the number and variety of choices, many of which looked very good. Fortunately, I noticed that they have a four-course tasting menu that looked pretty reasonably priced at $55. We were glad to put ourselves in the waiter's hands and have him select the courses for us.

We started with the crispy spinach Palak Chaat that a few people on this board have praised, and I would agree with their assessment. I doubt I would have ordered the dish if the waiter hadn't insisted that it was their "signature" appetizer. The crispy texture was unexpected, and the yogurt and chutney sauce was very delicious. Still, I think I preferred the second savory a bit more, which I think was the Sev Batati Puri. Little biscuits with a fantastic tamarind chutney on top with a bit of crispy vermicelli for texture. The next course brought my single favorite dish of the evening, the Fish Chutneywala, a perfectly cooked piece of tilapia with a very flavorful, quite spicy mint-cilantro sauce. We also had the crab cakes, but I wasn't quite as big a fan of these. The orange sauce was a bit overwhelming and the flavor of the crabcakes quite subdued. By the time the two curries arrived -- Chicken Makhani and Lamb Dhansak, we were becoming dangerously full. Both curries were very good and served with their own different rice, basmati for the chicken and a flavorful brown rice for the lamb. Still, we managed to maybe eat half of each entree before just becoming too full. Fortunately, we managed a tiny bit of room after a few minutes for the closer of apple beignets and cardamom ice cream. The beignets were very flavorful, and just the right size to close the evening. To drink, we had a bottle of Kabinett Riesling that took extremely well to each of the courses, especially the more spicy ones. Finally, service was very good throughout.

We are definitely eager to return, but I would probably forego the tasting menu (too much food!) and focus mostly on the savory appetizers and other small plates. While the curries were both very good, I didn't get the sense that they were a cut above, say, the Delhi Club. But the first parade of small dishes made the experience quite memorable, and not at an outrageous price.

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My primary criticism of the tasting menu is that the ten of us actually added two courses to it for a total of 14 or so which included as many as FIVE courses being served at once while another wave featured three. While the food was good to very good I was actually shocked that they thought they could force food like this on diners leaving little to any opportunity for pacing. . When you are spending $1,650 for dinner for ten this was not appropriate service. For myself it was outrageous. Two best dishes were the crispy spinach (included in the tasting) and Black Cod which was not. I must also add that I did not think we had an "excess" of food; rather they seemed to cook for eight and served ten. I would be interested in others' opinions from our dinner

I must also add that Rasika falls far short of, say, the best of Manchester where Akbar or EasteEASTE are exemplery. London's two Michelin star Vineet Bhatia (formerly of Zaika) and interpretive Indian is the best I have ever had. My last visit to Vama on Kings road several years ago was to a restaurant more similar to Rasika as are Akbar and EasteEASTE. For anyone who finds themself near the town of Preston, about 30 minutes north of Manchester, Shajan-for me-is the best traditional curry restaurant in the U. K.

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I am headed here with some friends tomorrow. Does the tasting menu require participation of the entire table? The website doesn't provide any clear guidance, from what I can tell.

And in any event, it appears from the posts above that the value-added of the tasting menu may be questionable. Maybe I should just go a la carte. What are must-haves besides the palak chaat and possibly the black cod? I love chicken makhani but it seems like something that shouldn't be ordered when there are so many creative options available.

Also, are the desserts quality or merely an afterthought? I just love saying "gulab jamun"!

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I ate here the other night and got the lamb rogenjosh, which I've always thought was delicious. We also had an appetizer of chicken kabobs or tikka...whatever, it was cooked perfectly (nice and juicy) and came with a mild green sauce. Also had the appetizer that is grilled cottage cheese, and have always thought it was interesting and tasty (and also comes with that green sauce). My wife got the fish caldine and it was smothered in sauce, but the sauce was good, so she didn't mind (and neither did I). Obviously, if you don't like the sauce, you're SOL. The naan is good, and since each plate seems to have an abundance of sauce, there's plenty of opportunity for dipping.

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I am headed here with some friends tomorrow. Does the tasting menu require participation of the entire table? The website doesn't provide any clear guidance, from what I can tell.

And in any event, it appears from the posts above that the value-added of the tasting menu may be questionable. Maybe I should just go a la carte. What are must-haves besides the palak chaat and possibly the black cod? I love chicken makhani but it seems like something that shouldn't be ordered when there are so many creative options available.

Also, are the desserts quality or merely an afterthought? I just love saying "gulab jamun"!

I don't believe that the tasting menu requires the participation of the entire table. I do think that going a la carte is the way to go. I've never done the chef's menu, though, so it may have special features of which I am not aware. As for must-haves, I really, really loved the flavor of the lobster dish with the (extra $) lemon/cashew rice. Now I want it! Thanks a lot ;)

The gulab jamun is lovely -- it's an elegantly plated version of a traditional dessert. It's not huge, but by the end of the meal, you'll be grateful that that's not the case!

One warning I would have to offer is that although the food is great and the service good, the noise level is appalling. I'm in my mid-30s, and when I went out with Tripewriter and our friends, we mostly sat and smiled at each other because it was so hard to hear what anyone else was saying. We did talk about the food, but we sure didn't have the nice chatty meal that we had been anticipating. I think Sietsema said that Rasika is 85 decibels, which is pretty darn loud!

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yep, I've always had great success ordering 3 of the little plate dishes, splitting a main, ordering a half order of one of the veggie dishes and a basket of bread. That usually makes a large meal for 2 people.

Throw in another main and that was plenty of food for three of us. Black cod and palak chaat both lived up to their reputations. I was actually disappointed that my friends did not want to order more of the spinach. Given the sweetness, it could have been a great dessert.

I also liked the sauce that came with the lamb roganjosh, although the meat itself was so-so. Daal makhani and paneer bhurjee were pretty standard in terms of preparation, but the superior quality of ingredients was evident.

We split the apple jalebi with cardamom ice cream for dessert. Great texture contrast, and I don't even liked apples when cooked.

Only criticism is the a la carte naan. An unnecessary rip-off. But the bar was kind enough to make non-alcoholic versions of its cocktails.

Final bill was quite reasonable. One of the best price/quality ratios around the city.

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Hi there. I made a reservation at Rasika for my brother and I. He lives down South and doesn't get a chance to eat Indian there. I did a search on Rasika on DR but didn't find a thread for it. So here's the bottom line: should I keep the reservation or go somewhere else like Heritage India or Indique?

I live in Rockville and both of us have eaten at Bombay Bistro many times, so that one is off the list.

thanks,

rob

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Hi there. I made a reservation at Rasika for my brother and I. He lives down South and doesn't get a chance to eat Indian there. I did a search on Rasika on DR but didn't find a thread for it. So here's the bottom line: should I keep the reservation or go somewhere else like Heritage India or Indique?

I live in Rockville and both of us have eaten at Bombay Bistro many times, so that one is off the list.

thanks,

rob

You'll be more than fine at Rasika - it's a more modern take on Indian, but then so is Indique.
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Depends on your mood. I might give the edge to Heritage on food, but the service can be annoying, the room is kind of meh and it's more of a neighborhood crowd. Rasika is a much hipper, high-energy joint (though with enough restraint that one can hear one's dining partner speak) with odd specialty drinks and people in cool shoes. If you want to relax and catch up, Heritage might be a better fit. If you want a "night out" I'd do Rasika.

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