Indian Food...Reco's?

I am ashamed to say that, despite considering myself (an albeit budding) foodie, last week was my first experience in a genuine Indian restaurant. Since I was downtown, I went to Kyber Pass, which is on Wacker next to the Hyatt Regency. It was awesome, and my hunger for more Indian food has just begun. Any recommendations?

Welcome to LTH. Use the 'search' function at the upper left for Indian, India, Naan, Samosa, Tandoori, Boti, etc and you'll see scores of relevant threads. You can also check the GNR list - Great Neighborhood Restaurants - a few forums down.

If you're eating solo, I'd do the buffets. I think there's better food to be had at non-buffet places (that's pretty much a universal truth) but it's so inconvenient to just order one or two unfamiliar Indian things (in typically huge portions) and slowly figure out what you like. In the downtown area, I've been impressed with India House, and Gaylord is much more impressive on weekends when they put on a fancier spread. Indian Garden downtown used to be good, some say some outposts of that chain have gone a bit downhill, but I don't know if the downtown one is or isn't among them.

Here's a good post and thread that talks about a lot of these places:

http://www.lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=79951#79951

Mike G wrote:If you're eating solo, I'd do the buffets. I think there's better food to be had at non-buffet places (that's pretty much a universal truth) but it's so inconvenient to just order one or two unfamiliar Indian things (in typically huge portions) and slowly figure out what you like.

The lunch buffets offer excellent value and the ability to try many different items and eat as much as you like. However, the food is frequently better when cooked to order. It's worth noting that almost all of the places offering lunch buffets can cook food to order if you prefer to order it off the menu. One "hybrid" approach is Tiffin, where their lunch buffet includes tandoori chicken which is cooked to order and brought to your table (although the last time I was there, about a month ago, I thought the food was not quite as good as it had been in the past).

Caveat: I haven't been to the Indian places in downtown Chicago; my experience has been with lots of Indian restaurants on Devon Avenue as well as the two in Evanston and the Curry Hut in Highwood.

Another note - what I sometimes do is go to Devon Avenue and walk down the street, reading menus (and even entering and asking to look at the buffet) to find a place that sounds/looks good. The stretch of Devon (6400W) from Western (2400W) to Sacramento (3000W) is full of Indian and Pakistani restaurants, one after another after another.

It's worth noting that almost all of the places offering lunch buffets can cook food to order if you prefer to order it off the menu.

I always feel too guilty to order the exact same thing that's sitting there approaching its throw-away time, though. Anyway, as a class (sweeping generalization alert) the buffet places tend to serve a more similar menu of more mainstream, gringo-popular dishes, and you find more interesting stuff after a while elsewhere, but they're ideal for people wanting to try a wide range of stuff that's all new to them.

Or you can attend an LTH lunch and have a wide range of made-to-order food at the table...

Mike G wrote:Or you can attend an LTH lunch and have a wide range of made-to-order food at the table...

...or you can attend an LTH lunch at an Indian place and all get the buffet.

Like you, I'm a budding foodie, and I also recomment walking back and forth on the Devon strip and just looking at different options. I went to Udupi Palace for the first time last night (thanks to the crazy ice storm, finding parking was not a problem). My only experience w/ Indian food over the years so far has been eating at Standard on Belmont/Clark, Arya Bhavan, and Viceroy. Oh, and Baba Palace a couple of times.

Anyway, the food at Udupi was pretty good, though I was so disappointed with the puny amount of filling in the gigantic dosa crepe shell thingy. It was, like, 2 spoonsful of potato My friend and I split the dosai and chana entree, and my friend got coffee. Tab was, I think around 22 bucks, which isn't too bad, but we were still a little hungry afterwards. I was hesitant to get naan and samosas to keep the bill affordable for us. Also, it also felt like the service was rushed like they were trying to make us hurry up and leave, though the place was near empty. And the waiter kept pressuring me to get masala tea though I kept saying no thanks. We ended up going next door to Sukhadia's and getting masala tea as well as the fried syrup balls. Overall I liked the food at Udupi. Eventually I have to try Mysore Woodlands, but next time I think I'll hit up Uru Swati , Annapurna or another chaat-type place. 10-15 dollar entrees are a tad steeper than I'd like to pay except on special occasions, being a budget-conscious student and all.

binofhay wrote:My friend and I split the dosai and chana entree
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we were still a little hungry afterwards. I was hesitant to get naan and samosas to keep the bill affordable for us.
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10-15 dollar entrees are a tad steeper than I'd like to pay except on special occasions, being a budget-conscious student and all.

For your particular situation, I strongly recommend one of the all-you-can-eat lunch buffets. They are typically around $7.95 during the week, $8.95 on weekends. They have a variety of dishes, always including some suitable for vegetarians. Many of the Devon Avenue restaurants offer this; Mysore Woodlands does not, though. (I ate there for lunch a few weeks ago and wasn't all that impressed with it; it was okay, but no better than many other Indian places.) The two Indian restaurants in Evanston (Bombay Kabab House and Mount Everest) both offer a lunch buffet as well.

I have been to Indian buffets before but always for dinner. It's tended to be 10-12 bucks for dinner, but I didn't know lunch was that much less. Do you know how late the buffet lunches go til? The only problem w/ lunch is, I usually don't have much of an appetite before 2pm (even if I skip breakfast).

As far as I know, there are no buffets serving South Indian food. (Evanston's Bombay Garden used to, but the masses have spoken and the place no longer exists.) But even Northern-style buffets will have many vegetarian options. Coincidentally, vegetables and legumes are less expensive than meat.

binofhay, a dosa should not have very much filling, as it should be all about the dosa itself. Filling ruins the crispness. The "fried syrup balls" are called gulab jamun. You should also know that Udupi has a weekday lunch special where you can get any dosa and an appetizer for something like $8. At least they used to; I hope they still do.

binofhay wrote:I have been to Indian buffets before but always for dinner. It's tended to be 10-12 bucks for dinner, but I didn't know lunch was that much less.

Yes, those are the lunch buffet prices. I'm pretty sure $7.95/$8.95 is what Bombay Kabab House charges; Mount Everest might charge a dollar more, some places on Devon a dollar less. Many of the Indian restaurants, including Bombay Kabab, only do buffets for lunch, not for dinner.

binofhay wrote:Do you know how late the buffet lunches go til? The only problem w/ lunch is, I usually don't have much of an appetite before 2pm (even if I skip breakfast).

They might go till 2 pm in some cases, but freshness may start to be an issue after the lunch crowd dies down around 1:00-1:30.