joncephine

I'm usually much better at remembering restaurant details, but we had an amazing meal at Aroma in Shirlington last year after watching Match Point (so, November of 05 or so). We eat at a fair number of Indian places, and perhaps we just ordered well off the menu, but we thought it was fabulous. Has anyone else been?

Today we moved from Crystal City to Silver Spring. This was a momentous journey for E and I (me is grammatically correct, but with "E" it sounds strange), signifying the next step into the rest of our lives. If anyone needs a recommendation for movers, by the way, PM me because ours were fantastic. We managed to move with a minimum of injury, (impressive, since we do little withOUT injury) and spent the balance of the day unpacking. After struggling to hook up the DVD player, we decided to go out to dinner. E had mentioned RTC earlier in the day, but now he felt that he was underdressed with really really bad hat hair, so he didn't think he would enjoy it (not to mention, we were walking in on a Saturday night hoping something was available). Luckily for us, RTC is actually on the way to everything else in downtown from our apartment, so I convinced E to stop in with me and see what might be available. We got there, and Michael H. was helping out behind the host stand. We asked how likely it was that we could get seated and he told us that there was little chance in the dining room, but if a table opened in the bar, it could be ours. We eyed an empty two-top and started making movements towards it when the couple in front of us mentioned that they would be willing to sit in the bar as well (they must have asked the same question a moment before). I thought this was the end of our night, until Michael L. came around and gave the couple ahead of us the choice of the bar table we saw or the other bar table, on the far side of the front door, looking into the kitchen. They chose the high table, so we took the four-top by the window. We also discussed which Michael was which (since we didn't actually know, having never met either) and whether or not having that discussion was equivalent to being "that guy" who name-drops and fan-boys*. We started off with the bread and duck schmaltz, which I would have asked for even had I not been encouraged to on this board, because I love the word schmaltz . We also got the pickled vegetables, which I only picked at but that E enjoyed. The bread was marvelous, and I do agree with the Washington Post** review that we could eat the bread by itself. Probably an entire loaf in one sitting. Our waiter was great (Antonio? I think?) and we waited to order wine until we had decided what we wanted. By the time we made it to that point, a great guy (who gave off a sommelier vibe, but I don't know if he was) came over to ask if we had made our drink selections. We ordered a bottle of the 1997 Rioja (unfortunately I couldn't remember anything beyond that) and he seemed very pleased with that. Either he thought we made a good choice, or he was happy to get the bottle off of his hands. We assume the former, since we enjoyed the entire bottle. As the same guy poured our wine, he pointed out that the reds did have a slight chill to them (to touch, really just about cellar temperature, maybe 55-60 degrees? I appreciated that they did it and really thought pointing it out was a nice touch) and poured a tasting into both of our glasses. He also asked if we were following Ray's around, since we pointed out that we had just moved to the neighborhood from Arlington***. Just before coming out to dinner, we watched "Battle Goat Cheese" on Iron Chef as we unpacked the living room. This was a great goad to our appetites, and definitely influenced our ordering choices. We ordered the figs as the appetizer. E almost cried. They were exactly what we wanted them to be - sweet, slightly salty from the prosciutto, and with a wonderful bite of cheese in the center. The little pile of prosciutto in the center of the dish was a surprise - I don't think I had ever seen a protein garnish before. We could have licked the plate. Next came our salads - I ordered the waldorf which was great, and E ordered the Caesar. I thought I would win this course until E said, "I hate to do this since there are only two of them, but you HAVE to try this crouton." I wish I knew what they were so I could duplicate them at home - it was such a great touch, not to mention a great crouton! We had a bit of a delay at this point, which was covered up by wine refills (we actually didn't pour all night - I was amazed, since we were sitting in the bar area) and our discussions, which ranged everywhere from our new apartment to the de-beatification of St. Christopher****. Right as were beginning to notice that we hadn't gotten our food, Michael L. came over and told us that E's dish had been overcooked, so it was re-done. This delay was a huge positive for us - it allowed us to re-gain our appetites before the main course came out. Plus, we have such a wide range of inane topics to talk about that we have barely had a pause in the conversation for the past six years that we have been together. E ordered the filet with bleu cheese and I ordered the fried chicken. I had a bite without the gravy and my heart melted with happiness. Then I had the gravy and knew that I had made the right choice in ordering. E was making similar noises over the filet, so we exchanged bites. I swear that the filet actually melted in my mouth, and E insisted that the main course was a tie. I have been 4 weeks without smoking, and maximizing tastes like these is in the top ten reasons I chose to quit. Our waiter made a joke about E not liking his dish, since the entire thing was gone rather quickly. I took a little longer because I enjoyed the carrot salad and every last crumb on the plate might have been eaten. We also ordered the spinach, which was at least as great as it was at RTS a few months ago (and that inspired me to start eating spinach again, therefore qualifying as a life-changing experience). Dessert-cheesecake. I have gushed enough for you to insert your own gushing here. We might have actually licked the plate. Overall, a great experience, I can't wait to be back (Bar results do come out this Friday - is it presumptuous to make a reservation? would people be there to take it over if we had to cancel? which we won't since we'll be celebrating because passage is going to happen...I'll decide soon enough, but if anyone feels strongly about it let me know . Michael, since I know you read this, thank you so much for opening this place and giving us another reason to love moving to Silver Spring. *I recently learned about FANBOYS conjunctions, by the way...not that the conjunctions exist but that acronym works...no particular reason to note this except just as a tribute to dork-dom. **Fair disclosure: I do work for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions which is a subsidiary of the Washington Post. Combining my two notes, anyone want to teach SAT? ***In an odd coincidence, we actually used to live on N. Queens Lane, which if any of you know Colonial Village, would share a backyard with RTS if there was no fence. Despite living less than 500 feet away for a year and a half, we never went, usually because it was not in our price range at that time. We went to RTS for our anniversary this year, but that was the first, and thus far only time visiting. So, in a way, we are actually following them around. ****I stand corrected. *****I’ve just taken so long to write this review that I’ve missed my extra hour of sleep. After such a great meal, it was completely worth it.

Most of my places that I'll never go back to involve incidents and don't necessarily involve the food. However, some of these are still talked about many years after they happened, so it is worth remembering. -Mandalay in College Park: a waiter informs me that since someone else at my table has already ordered what I wanted to order, I needed to order something else. I tried to laugh it off, and insist on what I wanted, but he refused to take my order. He actually left and came back and made me order something different. And it wasn't good. So I have never been back (and may never be, even though we moved to Silver Spring today). Every time I try to order something that someone else has ordered, E reminds me of this incident, even though he wasn't actually there. -Korean food at an unnamed place on Little River Turnpike: we go with a birthday party of about 20 people. I order what I want to order, the waitress (see a pattern?) tells me that I don't want that (it was a pork dish). I tell her to come back to me, and I order something else (another pork dish). She tells me again I don't want that, and don't I want some nice chicken teriyaki. At this point, I have no idea what I do to waiters that says "Clearly, you know what I want to eat" but I order a fourth dish to finally get something to eat, and I also ask for another glass of wine. When they brought the panchan out, those of us who had only had Korean once before actually had no idea whether we were supposed to nibble on them or wait until we had our entrees cooking. We also had no idea what they were. But regardless. Our table had two grills, which the waitress fired up to help us barbecue different dishes. One of the grills immediately went out. The only way to keep it lit is to actually hold down the lighter-button and constantly re-light the flame. She chooses to do this over my shoulder (had to be someone). For about six or seven minutes she tries to get the grill hot enough to cook on, until one of my table-mates volunteers to hold it down, so that she doesn't have to keep standing there. As we leave, she asks me if I want more wine (since my refill had not yet come) and I responded in the affirmative. Eventually, we just give up on the second grill, and some food is just barbecued back in the kitchen. Some just sit at the end of the table without ever being cooked, and some never arrive out of the kitchen at all. What does come out of the kitchen? Two additional glasses of wine, which after such a painful meal my roommate and I drank gratefully. The second table of our group? Everything worked perfectly well, they had a wonderful meal. I think we just had the unfortunate luck of sitting at the kid's table that night. -We’re on our way home from a visit to E’s parents’ house in MA when we decide to meet friends in Cambridge for dinner. We decide to go out for Indian food, at a neighborhood place a few blocks from their apartment. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of said Indian food (I had a lovely paneer dish, E had a passable vindaloo) and dinner was going quite well until I nailed my head on a plate. Which the waiter was holding. Which I managed to chip. WITH MY FOREHEAD. Eating out can be hazardous to my health. And the sanity of waiters EVERYWHERE. So, bleeding profusely from my forehead, I leave the restaurant to collect myself. My friend comes out to check on me and to make sure I'm not losing it in Harvard Square, and I'm not sure whether she is happy to see I am laughing hysterically, or wondering why they just CANNOT TAKE ME ANYWHERE. Today? You can identify me by a visible scar on my forehead. And a fear of plates with corners. [Don, if you feel this is so off topic as to be deleted, let me know]

We celebrated the defeat of the GRE at Dino a few weeks back. At some point in the meal, I looked at my friends and thought how far we had come - we had clearly moved into our Young, Urban, Professional stage and out of the Tequila Grill post-bac happy hour stage. We went in, on a Saturday night, with no reservation, to see if they had anything available for 5 (!). Needless to say, the staff told us not to bother, and we walked out to contemplate our next options. When we were about to go, one of the staff comes out to tell us that we could get full service, not to mention olives, at the bar. We sat around it and ordered a bottle of wine and munched on the balsalmic onions. I can only comment on the food that E and I ordered, but what we had was pretty good. -The roasted garlic small plate was what we were looking for, and the tomato mostarda on the side was a great accompaniment. -The trio of bruscetta was also great, though not too conducive to sharing since breaking the bread apart was quite difficult. -the Pappardelle ai Cinghiale was a little dry, but a good size to split between us (luckily, we had skipped lunch)! The highlight of the evening (aside from the waitstaff who went out of their way to let us know we could eat at the bar) was sitting at the bar and sampling both from the end of the summer mixed drink menu (the mixed drink with Thyme in it was especially refreshing and a geat bellini) and previewing the fall menu (we liked the pisco sour and the bartender gave me a sample of the Proseco with prickly pear juice that I particularly liked). Overall, thanks for a good time! [edited: also, big plus for being non-smoking! at that point, I was on day 4 of the quitting, and now I'm at 3 weeks!]

CrescentFresh, I have a feeling I saw you at Bebo on Friday night. Those of you sitting around the corner of the bar seemed like DR people (from the friendliness that you guys had for each other and the passing of the plates) and my boy and I were the people that took the extra chairs you guys had taken up after the people sitting at the corner left. We sat down, ordered our wine, and got up to wait closer to the hostess station (so that people could eat at the seemingly very crowded bar). E and I got to Bebo about 7:45-8pm on Friday. The hostess told us it would be about a 30 minute wait for a table for two. We headed over to the bar to pick up two glasses of wine, and had a little trouble attracting attention (probably because of the DR people having way too much fun in front of us!) until we snagged two empty seats. We decided, since we didn't know how good the staff would be at recognizing those of us who had put our names down, to wait over by the hostess station. We waited for close to an hour, and when we considered going and getting more wine, we decided to check again if our table was ready. Two people had just left the big communal table since they thought it was too cold, and the hostess told us that if we wanted those seats, they were ours. We looked over the menu (there were stacks of menu copies, so I had already looked it over once) and we decided to go with "plain" water, Il Formaggio Morbido Coperto da una polentina con Fetta di Pancetta ai Ferry as a starter. E ordered a salad as well, and we both ordered more wine (E the red that was described as "spicy" and myself the something/chardonnay mixture. His was better). After about ten minutes, our water glasses were filled. After another ten minutes, our waiter (who was great) came over to tell us that there had been a delay, but our polenta would be right out. At that point, the woman (who we took to be right below the GM, since she was walking around looking like she was supervising things) came out with our polenta and apologized for the delay. The polenta was good, but the Pancetta was better. The salad was a salad. Our entrees came out not too long after our plates had been cleared. E ordered the Lasagnette con Ragu di Carne e Bescamella and I had the Risotto of the day, which was the Saffron with shrimp. Our waiter came over to offer us parmesean cheese, and was a little surprised when we said that we were not looking for him for that, but instead for our wine, which had yet to arrive. He took our orders again, said he would put them back in the computer and get them right out to us. We got them when we were each about half finished with our entrees. The Risotto was good, but not transcendant. The bits with peppercorns in them were better than those without, and the Lasagnette was very good, or at least we liked it. Our waiter had gone out of his way to make sure we weren't expecting lasagna, so that was not a surprise to us. We ordered an additional order to go to bring home to our roommate, and our waiter pointed that item out as possibly the best item to travel with, since it wouldn't get (i guess) more mixed up in the to-go container. We finished our wine as we waited for dessert, the Tiramisu. We were not offered coffee, but we may have given ourselves away as not high rollers when we ordered plain water and didn't complain about the service foul-ups. The tiramisu was worth the wait (by now, it was 10:45). We practically licked the martini glass it was provided in. When our waiter came by with the check, the woman again came over to ask us how our experience was. We complimented the tiramisu and told her that we had a lovely time. Our waiter and she both apologized againfor the service mixups and we laughed it off, pointing out that this was only the second day that they were open. They thanked us for being understanding and made an offhand comment that other people were not as understanding about the service. And I am not saying that other people do not have a right to complain, but I am certainly willing to forgive a few hiccups on the second night a restaurant is open! E said that perhaps people did not realize the restaurant had just opened. I gave him a withering look and reminded him how crowded the place was when we got there. All of those people knew exactly who was running the place and when it opened. But seriously? The restaurant just opened! Of course there will be service problems! In all, we're sad to be moving on Saturday away from Bebo. We may go back, even just for dessert. One other fine-to-casual dining quirk: One of the departing diners picked up a printed off menu and asked the hostess if they would be taking phone-in orders. The hostess misunderstood, and said "Yes, of course we will take reservations." They do look like take-out menus .

On the recommendation of some over-enthusiastic people in our Tysons office, we hit Harry's Essential Grill tonight. First off, since we work stupid hours, we decided to go out to dinner at 9 on a weeknight. Which limited us to the Tysons neighborhood. When I called the place, they told me they were nominally open until ten, but that when it was quiet, the kitchen often closed early. When I asked how quiet they were, she suggested we get there ASAP. With that encouraging beginning, we headed over and sat in the back dining room by about 9:25-9:30 or so. We pored over the wine list and were fascinated by the bottles in the $14-15 range that didn't look like Boone's Farm. We settled on a $15 Argentinean wine that the waiter assured us that we would find "quite good - for a $15 bottle of wine." Luckily, we did, and luckily VA's corking laws allowed us to bring it home since it is just Tuesday. Our bread appeared within ten seconds of us being seated by a very sweet and conscientious waiter. E ordered a caesar to start and I figured I'd be fine with wine. It was heavy on the anchovies, but a serviceable caesar with two croutons. Nothing worth writing home about. I had the honey roasted duck with snow peas and potatoes - all of which was very good. Our service was so unobtrusive that at one point I actually asked my date if I had remembered to order something. The duck was sweet and good, but some pieces were cooked better than others, and perhaps the whole thing needed to be a bit rarer. E's pair of fillets with peppercorn mustard was pretty good - and the dark mushrooms on the side went VERY well with the sauce. Overall, I won the entree battle. The other thing of note was again a plus to our wonderful waiter. We were That Table tonight. Last to be seated meant we were the last to leave. We hadn't had a date night in a number of weeks, so we were entirely engrossed in our conversation about work and papal infallibility that we lingered for a good ten minutes after we had paid cash. No one rushed us out, and it was just the manager locking the door behind us that told us we were the last.ones.in.the.restaurant. Overall? I'd go back there but would not make a special trip. Unless we could have our same waiter.

We visited Corduroy in one of our first foodie outings, August RW of...2004? 2005? I cannot remember, but considering I walked 14 blocks in my sprain-your-ankle-more-often-than-not heels, it must have been 2005. My other of the sig type had the buffalo mozzarella cloud appetizer to start, and since I don't remember my meal he clearly won that round. Our entrees were both good, his was some sort of melt in your mouth dish with pasta on the side, so he won the next round as well. But when I didn't know what I wanted for dessert and the waiter said "You want the chocolate bars" -- let us just say that I won the dessert round. His lemon tart just couldn't hold up. We're still talking about those chocolate bars -- 2 years later.

You don't understand - that is totally becoming our wedding invite. We'll just have to schedule it to coincide with a DR.com picnic. And, I'll have to get my other of the significant type to propose. And, if I can get over my fear of internet friends, even attend a DR.com event.

E and I visited 100 King for lunch on Labor Day on our way back from Mount Vernon. The Pros: -The blue cheese that they chose for the cheese plate. -I liked the polenta souffle (though I do not remember blue cheese in it) with the mushrooms underneath -the baba Ghannouge (is that spelled right? that's from their website) was so great it had us licking the plate -The sourdough sandwich - though we were not asked how we wanted it cooked, it was still great. The Cons: -We had two wineglasses on the table (good). One of them looked like someone tried to wash it, but then it got dusty, with little hairs and was greasy (bad). When we brought it to our waitress' attention, she expressed dismay and immediately whisked it away. -We were seated right away but it took about 8 minutes for anyone to come and ask us what we wanted to drink, where we then ordered our meals. Then, we didn't get drinks for about 20 minutes -- after we had gotten our meals. -The two tables behind us (at the end of our corner of the restaurant) had dirty plates on them when we got to the restaurant -- and were not cleared until we already had our food. -The shoestring fries that went with the sourdough sandwich were cold by the time we got them. Overall? The food was pretty good, and enough for us to consider visiting there the next time we are down in Alexandria. However, the service made the restaurant not good enough for a special trip (for lunch, at least).

Speaking of riff raff, E and I ate there on Saturday afternoon. And we managed not to injure the waitstaff or ourselves*, and broke no glassware. That in itself should make it a good night! This was our first time at Oyamel (I know, terrible since we live right up the street - we didn't go to Rays until after we moved away from there, either) and we were quite glad we went. Whenever I go to a restaurant, I think I'm just going to start answering "Yes" to the seemingly ubiquitous question "Is this the first time you've been here?" I started defaulting to "no" after some chain restaurant followed that up with, "Well, welcome! We're glad you chose us for your dining pleasure today!" and offered no insight into the menu. Our server at Oyamel, instead, took it upon himself to steer us along the menu in some of the right directions. Also? E is NOT a tapas person. Which is probably the real reason we have not visited Oyamel yet. So, we started off with the squash blossoms and the 'mexican potatoes' which were fries with a little mole and probably a Oaxacan cheese (I didn't pay that close attention). I liked the squash blossoms, E liked the potatoes, but the mole was a little bitter for our taste - which we didn't notice since mixed with the cheese it was great. Then, as an "entree" (since E won't do just tapas) I had the baby pig tacos and he had the steak. I was very happy with the tacos, and we raved over the entree. This is where the bitterness of the mole was a little too much for us, so we just sampled the tortillas, but between the two of us, we practically licked the rest of the entree plate. And I topped it all off with the hibiscus margarita.... defintely a great welcome-back-to-home-after-a-vacation meal. Only dim spot? The salsa on the complimentary chips/salsa was great (it was the chipotle) but the chips were stale. We didn't worry about it so much, but it turned us off to the salsa antojito. --- *yeah, I might have a scar. on my forehead. from a square plate at a not-bad indian restaurant in cambridge. probably a story for another thread.

We have an anniversary coming up on Saturday night, and I had been hemming and hawing about where to go for dinner - Michael, this post sealed it for me. I don't care how long the wait is. Any place that takes the meats so seriously as to post that in a public forum has gotten our business .

Again, hate commenting after one visit but we hated this place. My friend lives right behind courthouse and since we eat at sawatdee about once a week we decided to try this place. We ordered a pile of sushi plus the pork katsu...i'm grasping for names here. The little cream cheese dumplings they gave us were weird, but not a big deal. The cutlet didn't have enough sauce and the wooden boat was the best part of the sushi. And when we say this place is empty we mean...empty. I haven't seen more than a table or two in here at a time, and when we went, we were the ONLY patrons in the restaurant at 8:30 on a weekday. The bill was comprable to what we would pay at an expensive sushi restaurant but the food did not live up to the bill.

Rio Grande was the locale of choice. We used to go weekly about two or three years ago for margaritas and lunch with a large group. However, we went once with poor service (as in, dropping guacamole on a guest and leaving the guest to mainly clean it up) and a set of too-rare fajitas that made us change our rotation. But we have a friend who just loves it (as we did) and I wanted to see if there was anything better out there. It is great to hear that Guajillos is on or at a similar level - we used to live right next door to Guajillo (in the condos, not in Greenberry's or Rays the Steaks) and would eat there occasionally. Since I'm a margarita freak, my memories of the food are a little fuzzy. But it is good to hear that they're doing well. After reading over the list, I think one of two things of Tex-Mex in DC -- either DC doesn't have a lot of good Tex-Mex or I just don't actually like Tex-Mex. Kate

Huzzah, no crow! I have never liked Guajillo very much, but that may be because I haven't been sober in a loooong time. Kate

Whoops, corrected that in the title but not in the body. This is the best Tex-Mex in the Metro area. K

The Delhi Club in Arlington - their bathrooms are downstairs, which isn't the issue. The issue is that the stairs start IMMEDIATELY on the other side of the door. So, when you see the girl who opens the door marked "Restrooms" and then immediately falls down the stairs, know that you've found me.

Tonight, I got an evite to a party. That party invited us all to a Tex-Mex restaurant that this individual said was the best in DC. I tend to not be as big of a fan of this restaurant, and I decided I needed a neutral set of evaluators to determine as to whether that individual was correct. As of now, I will leave the name of the restaurant out of it, and if it is brought up in a response to this thread I will let you know what it is. And if it is the first response to this thread you will get a VERY rare prize -- you will see me eat crow. Seriously. And I might give you a cookie. And the other 8 million dollar question? How would I spice crow?

My name is Kate, and I've been lurking on this board for a number of months. Surprisingly enough, I didn't actually have fear of posting for the first time - I am more nervous about the subsequent responses. I'm still curious as to how some people get up to 4 digits worth of posts! But, since I believe in irony, I'll re-post this post when I have 3,578 posts to my credit. Since I came to the DC area 6 years ago, my boyfriend and I have moved through several stages of eating out -- from "ooh, dennys!" to "if its ethnic, we love it" and finally to "almost-foodie." We're always looking for quality eating experiences for a value. At some point, we'll even move from a "value" experience to "ooh, let's spend money for the hell of it" as we make more money. I know the Rockwellians will help us make this transition. Matt Kantor, you and I can bond over a hatred of speed cameras, and I can bond with everyone else over great Indian food and Rieslings. _____ Kate "Its like the Olympics and the World Series multiplied by x, where x equals awesome."

I had a craving for water (wudder) ice and happened to be looking at the boards, and I wanted to remind everyone exactly how great water ice is in the summer. When my boyfriend and I started dating and I moved down here, I used to bring quarts down to DC on the Greyhound, as that is how obsessed I was with this product. Last year, some friends and I went to the Philadelphia Water Ice factory a few weeks before the Rita's opened to help relieve my craving for water ice, and we spoke to the proprietor. She is a transplant, and her water ice is shipped in. Her water ice will be familiar to anyone who would grab a water ice freom any number of places at home. I tend to find Rita's a little more liquid (not that I dislike it). Rita's also (I had always heard) made more in-house? (If they don't, someone correct me) She also has a selection of pretzels, but Rita's (at least at home) has those as well. Finally, I haven't been to the Rita's in DC yet, but I have been known to drive to Odenton from Arlington, CNU from Williamsburg, and then to Glen Burnie almost any time I am on 695. All of them seem to be exactly the same. Now I just need to convince my significant other he wants to go...tonight.

Just the lassi. I actually didn't even think it that odd that there were or weren't salt and pepper shakers until my friend asked about them. I tend to let the kitchen speak for itself.

A few months ago, a few other Indian-food lovers and I saw the sign for Tandoori Nights in Clarendon lit up and were excited to try another new Indian restaurant. Alas, we were fooled, as the only thing fully operational was the bright orange sign. Now that is has opened, we decided it was time to try again (last night). I was looking for a menu online so I could get the exact names of the dishes but I was foiled. You'll just have to go off of my memory. I did, however find Eve Zibart's review of Tandoori nights in Gaithersburg from 2002 plus this article originally linked on these boards. The interior is very sleek and...orange. As we were escorted to our table, we passed a glassed-in section that seems like it would be nice for a large group - though we did remark it couldn't be very good for a private party since it was glassed-in like the snake viewing rooms at the zoo . We were seated at a table, but there are several booths with hareem like drapes over the top which looked a bit nicer than where we were sitting. We had to pull salt and pepper from a different table, but our water glasses were filled within a minute of sitting down. Unfortunately, that was the highlight of the service. The papadums came out with three sauces - tamarind (which I love), an uninspired mint chutney, and what is apparently a lentil puree that looked like chinese mustard, but with a hint of (at least last night) citrus that made it excellent. My companion's salted lassi came out with not enough salt (which seems to be a common problem, or at least in my experience) but that was easily rectified. I ordered a glass of wine later, which unfortunately sat forgotten on the bar until I reminded the waiter. We skipped the starters, and ordered a lamb rogan josh, another lamb dish (i think it started with a P) and a vegetable and paneer dish which was billed as a chef's specialty. We also ordered a garlic naan and a plain naan to eat along with the dishes. The rogan josh was excellent, warm, but not as spicy as I would have liked, and I'm really regretting not knowing the name of the other lamb dish because that is one you should order. The potatoes were an afterthought, but the sauce was worth writing home about. My paneer and vegetables was just alright, which was disappointing. The garlic naan was just crusted with garlic, which i particularly like and the regular naan did the job. Overall, a good experience. Who else has gone (to either location)?

Yeah, I've been lurking off and on, but I've decided to come out in the open

I have been to the Delhi Club a few times, and almost always left happy. The last time I went, I had the lamb biryani, which wasn't bad. The Pista Korma is very good, as is the (chicken) Malbar curry. The only time I have been unimpressed was a lunch buffet with a friend of mine, but who isn't disappointed at a lunch buffet? Also, service wise, I accidentally hit the waiter as he was reaching in to replace my water glass - it went FLYING and smashed on the table. They politely moved us to a dry table, but my boyfriend made me feel pretty awkward. Generally, the space is nice but VERY small and with many tables crammed in - I hope they open their strip of outdoor seating soon!