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July 3, 2006
Gaylord India Restaurant and more...
Nearly every Friday night, my fiance, Frank, and I go out to eat. Usually, it’s a small mom-and-pop restaurant in West Los Angeles, like Tokyo Fast Foods, 11921 Santa Monica Blvd.
Last weekend, we tried a chain restaurant - Ono Hawaiian Barbecue 12115 Santa Monica Blvd. - which we have now decided is more like “Oh NO!� The seasonings on our fried mahi-mahi and chicken katsu just seemed a bit off, and the food was far too greasy for our taste. The fact that our meals came with two scoops of white rice and macaroni salad dressed with a thick coating of mayonnaise didn’t help, either.
But this Friday, we decided to splurge and go to Gaylord India Restaurant in Beverly Hills. We made reservations, but the restaurant, located at 50 N. La Cienega on “Restaurant Row,� wasn’t crowded at all.
We were also pleased to discover that the lighting was bright enough for us to see our food and the music in the background was played at a volume that still allowed us to carry on a conversation.
The waiter first brought us some papadam, thin, crisp lentil crackers with three chutneys - mint, tomato and a sweet tamarind. The chutneys went perfectly with the appetizers we ordered: vegetable samosas, wrapped in crisp pastry triangles, and vegetable pakoras, or vegetable fritters. Both were perfectly seasoned and blissfully non-greasy.
We split a whole order of chicken tandoori, which was moist, subtly smoky and so tender the meat slid right off the bone. Garlic naan flatbread arrived at our table hot, fresh and just melted in our mouths. When we finished, we still had half a chicken left and were too full to sample any of the desserts, which included everything from an assortment of sorbets to an intriguing one described as dumplings in syrup, served hot. Total for dinner, counting a lemonade for me and a diet Pepsi for Frank: $43.
Our waiter was not only friendly and happy to describe each dish in detail, he also seemed to really enjoy working there.
Posted by at July 3, 2006 1:49 PM