when my grandparents came to visit, my mom suggested we go to the host after having gone for the dinner buffet before. we went to the richmond hill location, conveniently situated in a sheraton hotel with lots of parking and a shopping centre attached.
i don’t eatindianfood that much, so this would probably be the thirdindianbuffet i’ve been to. i’ll try my best to give a helpful review of this restaurant compared to the others i’ve eaten at.
so, for my first plate… tandoori chicken: bhindi amchuri (okra), papadum with mint yogurt sauce, samosa with tamarind sauce, potato wedges with tamarind sauce, kaju matar paneer (looks like tofu), amritsari choley (with chickpeas). back: rice cakes with lentil sauce
this restaurant definitely has the most plentiful selection of curries compared to other places i’ve been. this was probably my first time seeing rice cakes and the crispy papadum at anindianbuffet before.on the website, the butter chicken/ murgh makhni is considered award winning and i thought it was quite good. the sauce had a strong tomato taste and the chicken wasn’t too dry. i ate this with the naan, though i thought that the naan here wasn’t as soft as the kind i tried in vancouver because it was sitting at the buffet for a while after it was freshly made.one thing i would definitely recommend getting seconds is the rice pudding. i think they add rose water to it which gives the milk a very distinct, fragrant taste. there are also raisins and pistachios inside. this would be my favourite dessert.standing in the back corner of the buffet are two cooks who made these appetizers in front of you. this was my first time trying bhalla chaat papri, which tasted like biscuits covered in tamarind, mint, and yogurt sauce. i liked this more than the pani puri, which were these thin crispy, hollow bulb-shaped snacks that had beans and chickpeas inside, and were soaked in mint water. the taste was certainly interesting, i’m not quite sure if it was good or bad, but i would definitely recommend you to try theseindianstreet eats for yourself!alongside my second or third bowl of rice pudding, i also ate more than one gulab jamun. i’ve tried these popularindiandesserts at other restaurants before and they are really sweet but delicious. gulab jamun is a dumpling made from curdled milk and deep-fried, then soaked in some sweet syrup water.
the jalebi was prepared on the spot by another chef in the corner and i watched him squeeze batter into spiral shapes in a pan filled with oil. when taken out, he placed them in sugar or honey water. i was surprised to learn that these were anindiandessert too because my iranian friend had brought a box of these at the end of ramadan (they are called zulbia in iran). these tasted chewy and really sweet as well.overall, i enjoyed my experience very much here. while eating, i had no idea how to pronounce anything and i was trying a lot of things for the first time, so writing this blog post led me to search up what all the menu items were and research their origins. the selection ofindianfood offered by the host was not only gastronomically pleasing, but gave me a lesson on culture as well!
until next time.