The Best Indian Restaurant

          Hello! I hope you guys are doing well and had an amazing week. Welcome back to my blog! I am excited to review this particular cuisine, and I can’t wait for your thoughts and input. We’ll be following the same format as the previous post; incase you haven’t read it, I suggest you to check it out. For this post, I will be covering the cuisine that presents a range of flavors as vast as the country itself: Indian cuisine. This time, three restaurants – Kabab and Curry, Amber India, Aachi Appakadai - will be judged based on the same factors as before.

            My dad flew down here a week earlier than planned to surprise me, and took me out for dinner to Amber India. I have never been there before, and we had such a lovely time. I got the opportunity to meet his colleagues and friends from the Bay area. The restaurant is located in Santana Row, and walking there is not impossible, but something I don’t recommend. Having my father in town, it was easy to commute from one place to another. My dad picked me up from my college and drove to Santana Row; he joked around saying that he was like my own personal uber driver. Santana Row was filled with lights, and the atmosphere was lively and refreshing with live music playing in the background. Amber India was busy on a weekday, and the atmosphere was filled with indistinct conversation. Next to the bar, the wall gorgeously decorated with texts from Bhagavad Gita and attracted my attention the first thing I walked in.

Butter Chicken

Platter of Kebabs 

For appetizers, we ordered Paapdi Chaat, Vegetable Samosa and a platter of Kebas: an assortment of chicken tikka, sheek kebab and barra kebab. The juicy flavors in the sheek kebab and the tender meat made it melt in my mouth. Chicken Tikka was by far my favorite dish of the day; the smoky flavor of the well-marinated chunks of chicken, grilled to perfection on a skewer, is to die for! For main course we ate the regular Butter Chicken and Chicken Biriyani. The butter chicken is a classic, authentic dish originated in North India. According to Wikipedia, “The origins of butter chicken can be traced back to a man named Kundan Lal Gujral, who ran a restaurant called Moti Mahal Delux in Peshawar before the partition of British India. With the partition of British India, Moti Mahal moved to New Delhi. Butter Chicken is regarded to have been first introduced by Moti Mahal in New Delhi”. The creamy sauce of the butter chicken is as deep as its history, and made with variety of ingredients. For desert, my dad and I walked to Pinkberry and shared some frozen yogurt.

Chicken Biriyani 

         The next restaurant is Kabab and Curry. Last Sunday was an exciting day, India was playing a crucial match and my friends and I were eagerly awaiting the Indian cricket team’s first game of the 2015 world cup. We began gearing up to witness this game of cricket, and in the midst of preparing for this exciting night- getting all the homework done, Streaming the live video online and waiting for the fun to begin - I felt like something was missing. However, the game had begun and started to get intriguing. Everyone was watching with great excitement, while celebrating and munching away on snacks. This was when I recalled passing by an authentic and traditional looking Indian restaurant on Isabella Street.  I felt like Indian food at this moment was probably the missing element and after the First innings or during halftime, we decided to indulge in their well-known butter chicken curry and infamous array of kebab’s.

We brought back Chicken tikka Masala, and a mouthwatering Clay oven chicken seekh Kebab. Eating these delicious dishes of excellent flavor and authenticity, while watching an interesting game of cricket made us feel at home. The right mix of a legendary sports game, great company and exceptional Indian food was all that was needed. Generally, the walk to this place takes about thirty minutes, and it can be tiring. With an important cricket match going, we couldn’t risk missing a single second of it! My friend decided to rent a zip car and drove down and brought us all back some food. The food was normal as usual and nothing spectacular.

The next restsurrant is Aachi Appakadai. It is a south indian based restaurant which delivers chetinar food. It is located 2.4 miles away from our campus. Hyderabad, the city I come from, is known for biriyani: a rice dish mixed with marinated chicken cooked in high temperature. Unfortunately, it did not reach up to my expectations and it was nothing like Biriyani. The next dish I tried was Chicken Appam. Haveing come across a number of different types of appams in my life, I can safely say that the one at appakadai was on of the best ones I have ever tasted. Firstly, appam is similar to a pancake but it is made out of a rice batter and served with chicken stew. The one at appakadai was authentic and tasted like a slice from heaven. The texture wasn’t grainy; it was smooth and enjoyable at the same time, and the chicken stew was out of this world. It had the right amount of spiciness and went extremely well with the appam.

It’s safe to say my favorite restaurant Aachi Appakadai and I highly recommend you to try this different, unique, not-so-famous kind of Indian food. It wins in all factors: food, ambience and flavors.