Kanchan B.
Yelp
I've heard a lot about this restaurant's catering division from various of my Mum's friends. Apparently, its the go-to place in Orlando's Indian community for ordering catering, especially for weddings and graduation parties. So I was excited to find out they also had a sit down restaurant, but I was warned repeatedly to make sure to call the restaurant and confirm they were open, as some folks had turned up and the place was closed, hours of operation non-withstanding.
Duly warned, I called and confirmed they were open one Saturday, as this restaurant is a bit of a trek for me, since this place is located in the Airport area, and I live in Apopka, a good hour away. Its located in a very unassuming plaza, and mum and I almost missed the turn-off into the parking lot. Once we entered the place, it felt like time-warp to a 1980s restaurant in Bombay (side note: the city will never be Mumbai to me). There was read vinyl seating, a massive TV showing a bollywood movie with SRK and Kajol and then to the fair side was 5-6 containers of Indian snacks like chivda, gathia, etc.
Mum and I were a bit taken aback by the prices in the menu, and decided to get the Gujarati Thali ($18.98) to share. I'm glad we split it, because this was a massive plate of food! We got to choose x2 lentils and so for my choice I got (a) Dudhi Chana which is lentils with squash and then mum's choice was (b) Undhiyu which is Gujarati mixed veggie that takes ages to cook and mum said was very difficult to make for the Indian home cook. Along with these two lentils, we also got Daal, 4 rotli, rice, spicy pickle, raitu, papad, sweet (dessert), onion tomato salad and Kachori (so that's a total of 11 items!). The sweet we got was home made cardamon srikhand, which tasted amazing.
I really enjoyed the food. I'm not a pickle-fancier, but I checked with the server and their's was made in-house and you can definitely taste the difference compared to a store bought pickle jar! I also liked that this restaurant showcased regional Indian cuisine and plan to come back to try the other two thalis. We also purchased 2 pounds of dokla and this also tasted wonderfully authentic. As per the server, everything is made in-house except for the paneer.
However its a four star for me, because of the Indian snacks (also made in-store) that we purchased. After we got home, one bite confirmed that the chivda, gathia, and chakli that we had purchased was under-cooked. It tasted raw, as if the chickpea flour hadn't been baked/ fried for the correct time and gave us upset tummies.
So while I do recommend coming here for the cooked food, I dont plan to purchase the snacks ever again!
Yelp 19/2018