Categories
indian

Bhatti Indian Grill – Lunch Special

Oh dang, this was a great lunch special. You pick vegetarian $8.95 or meat $9.95 and they bring you a bunch of different food –unlimited all you can eat.

They first brought me a plate of chicken and kabab meat and a plate of chickpeas and chutney. I was wondering if that was all I was going to get because I was by myself. Everyone else was in groups and they had bowls of different curries, rice and bread. Luckily, they brought me that stuff and I was a bit amazed how much they gave me.

There were five bowls of curries –two chicken ones, lentils, vegetables, saag paneer. They were good and a bit of heat. I had to take off my sweater. Fluffy naan bread was perfect for mopping up the oily curry sauces.

This was so much of a better lunch than the place I tried two doors down the week before. I do like picking my own stuff, but that other place, I was standing behind two people that were super slow and in the way of the buffet. I think I was waiting five minutes for them. That’s a long time for a buffet that’s about 5 feet wide. That was $10 too and just vegetarian.

Good food here at Bhatti. Got super stuffed on lunch. Didn’t even need to ask for seconds. I did pay for it later on the toilet, but it was worth it.

Bhatti Indian Grill - 100 Lexington Ave (@ 27th St) New York, NY 10016

Categories
indian video

Me So Hungry Episode #1: How to Make Puri

My first video for Channel Three/21, featuring the talented Shonali Bhowmik. I hope you like!

Categories
homemade indian

Shonali’s Indian Food Dinner

Shonali made an Indian feast, trying out her parents’ recipes for the first time. I love her parents cooking and Shonali did an amazing job. The food was so good. I ate two and a half plates.

Got to meet Joachim and Liesl’s new baby. And Shonali also got Ike a birthday cake.

…and then he got really wired up.

Categories
homemade indian travel

Shonali’s Parents Made Indian Food (Nashville, Tennessee)

Day 8 of the Shonali tour: Made it into Nashville and Shonali’s parents made all this food for us. Probably the best food I had on tour. It got me afterwards though.

Family portrait…

After our meal, Shonali’s dad came out of his office and starting singing “Ching Ching Chu”. We thought he was directing it at me. I asked him to sing it again to the camera.

Categories
indian

Carb Diet Fail

I’ve been on a no-carb diet for the past three weeks and today was supposed to be my last day before I go on tour and gain all the weight back. But after band practice tonight, Matt and I went to Punjabi Deli and I ate the rice. So close to finishing the goal. Only a few more minutes until midnight. I fucked it all up. It tasted good though …but I do feel fat now.

Punjabi Grocery & Deli - 114 E 1st St (btwnn 1st Ave & Ave A) New York, NY 10009

I also got a new camera today …the Sony HX9V point and shoot. A lot of DSLR videographers are raving about the video quality …and from the videos, it looks sharper than the Canon DSLRs. Perhaps it doesn’t have the shallow depth of field, but at wide angle, it’s freaking amazing for such a small thing. Shoots 1080p at 60fps (only $350). That’s insane. Motion a little flickery on Youtube, but I think that’s a Youtube thing. Looks better on Vimeo.

Anyway, I bought this for pocketable quick video, but I’m really impressed at the stills …especially compared to my Canon S90 that I’ve been using for a year and a half now. The HX9V hardware and optics doesn’t seem as good (f/3.3 lens vs f/2.0), but I feel like the results is comparable and maybe a little better through the software trickery. For the low light, it takes multiple images and somehow composites them to look decent. It’s slow shooting this way, but the resulting photo is pretty good.

The faster lens on the S90 is a little brighter, but a little more washed out and more noise.

I know video is looking darker in low light compared to the S90, but I still can’t wait to shoot some sweet HD video with it. Look at what Cheesycam blog did with this camera…

Categories
chinese indian

Tangra Masala – Indian Style Chinese Cuisine

This Ramen and Friends outing took us to Tangra Masala in Elmhurst, Queens for Indian Style Chinese, which I guess is the style of Chinese food served in India. The serving staff was Indian. I wonder if there were Chinese in the back cooking. Or Indian-born Chinese? I’m confused.

The menu is a hybrid of Chinese food with Indian flavors. It tasted really good and spicy. My favorites were the Lollypop Chicken appetizers with the chipotle-mayo style dipping sauce, Tangra Masala Goat and Fish with Chili Sauce. A lot of the dishes ask if you want it wet (sauce) or dry. The consensus was that dry was the way to go. More flavorful and not drowned in gravy.

Tangra Masala was filling and made me sweat. Downside is that there is no alcohol and you can’t bring it in. Dang. Just trying to get my Tangra Masala on.

Check out Ramen and Friends and Kika Eats‘ review.

Tangra Masala – 8709 Grand Ave. Queens, NY 11373

Categories
indian

Apna Punjab Restaurant

I’ve been waiting for this place to open up for a while …I guess because I’m missing the hole in the wall Indian spots around the Curry Hill area. They’ve all become trendy. Well Apna Punjab is a little hole spot. Not a whole lot of selection compared to say Chadni or La.Sani. I got the Goat Curry with Chicken Biryani ($8). I don’t think that’s a common combination, but he gave it to me anyway. I think a meat and veggie over regular rice is $7.

The meat was tender. Maybe dry overall, but the green sauce helped that. The flavors were good though. The Biryani was flavorful with spices and dates. Much better than the Biryani I got from a street cart a week before, which I swear was the same exact thing as halal chicken over rice with maybe ground pepper for an extra dollar more than chicken over rice.

In the end, I feel like Jerry Seinfeld wanting to help Babu succeed. I want the little guy to win. But dang, it’s hard to give an endorsement. $8 lunch at a tiny hole and with so many good Pakistani restaurants a few blocks away. That being said, I feel like a very very bad man. … The food is good enough though. If it was next door to my office, I would eat there again.

[update: I just found their business card in my back pocket. They are open 24hours 7days a week. I’ll give them an extra star for that]

Apna Punjab Restaurant & Grill – 203 E 25th St. (btwn 3rd & 2nd Ave) New York 10010

Categories
indian

Kitchens of India – Pav Bhaji

I love the convenience of microwavable Indian packets. My local C-Town now sells them, although at $3 instead of the 99cent packets I got at Patel Brothers way up in Jackson Heights. At least it came with a free CD of Indian music. Good listens while waiting for the microwave.

Also heated up some parathas I had left over from Patel Brothers a long time ago. Those are great, but so bad for you. 268 calories for one piece …and I had a couple.

Kitchens of India is good, but I don’ t think I’m as satisfied knowing that it’s not 99cents.

I recognized the last song on the CD. It was this Panjabi MC – Indian Knight Rider song that Jay-Z does, but without Jay-Z.