Sunday, April 08, 2007

Family Dinner (Leela Lounge)

When my family gets together, we generally eat Indian. To be honest, I'm not sure how it started, but it really is our go-to cusine. With O being a vegetarian, it's definitely one of the easier choices and so I decided to find a new Indian place for us to try when he was here. I hit on Leela Lounge and knowing that we'd be coming from an Oliver Twist matinee (Theater for a New Audience - along with CSC my two favorite theaters/companies), I figured it was pretty convenient too. The theater ended up being west of Columbus Circle (usually they perform on 42nd), but even with the after-show talk, we were still really early and so decided to walk (I love walking, even more so when I know that there's a good, filling meal at the end of it).

By the time we walked into Leela Lounge we were pretty hungry - which is me trying to explain why I thought ordering 4 appetizers and 2 mains was reasonable for 2 people. But before we even got to that, mango lassis sounded really good and so we each ordered one. They were a beautiful yellowy-orange color (and reasonably filling)


The appetizers sounded great, they weren't super pricey ($6 or 7 each) and I was really hungry. O is pretty agreeable and so we ordered the previously mentioned 4: Spinach and corn fritters, Vegetable pakora, Samosa and (basically) Indian jalepeno poppers.

The spinach and corn fritters were a bit of a disappointment. They tasted okay if you dipped them in enough of the mint chutney, but overall for someone who loves spinach as much as I do, they just didn't quite do it. The samosas on the other hand were wonderful! They had mushrooms, which is a nice little twist, but I think it was the quality of the crust that really did it for me. Definitely a keeper.


The vegetable pakoras were okay. I guess I prefer mine with whole chunks of vegetables deep fried. These had a variety of vegetables finely chopped. The batter was great, but overall I'll stick to the more traditional inside. One bite of the jalepenos though and I knew I had something that both my brother and my dad (even though he wasn't here, having just introduced him to 'regular' jalepeno poppers in Ft. Meyers, I thought of him) would love. They were stuffed with potato and peanut and chili. Very different from 'regular' poppers, but appealing to a similar taste. I'd go back for them. And in fact, may go back the next time my dad is in town.



All of our appetizers had been vegetarian, which wasn't a hardship for me at all. But I wasn't as enchanted with the vegetarian mains and so O and I decided to order separately. He went for the tofu in a peanut chili sauce. It was good, though perhaps a little sweeter than I had anticipated. I think it needed a bit more heat (we had ordered it spicy), but it worked very well when I had a couple of bites with my spicier dish.



I went for the Lamb Gosht. It was heavenly! The description in the menu did not do it justice. It was a fabulous curry, but I almost didn't order it because the menu description just didn't do it for me. I talked to the waiter though and we settled on it. I was so very happy.



We ended up leaving with two very full bags of leftovers (they do a marvelous job of packing up). I don't think we even ate half of what we were given (so we would still have had leftovers if we had been rational and ordered 2 appetizers). The Lamb Gosht was fabulous for lunch today though - I gave the rest of the stuff to O for his car ride, but I'm assuming that he enjoyed it as much as he did yesterday. All in all, good Indian, with a little variety from the standard, for a very decent price.

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