Turkey Curry

rice

cooking up

The idea for this meal came from outside of casa rakkaleff (which is still a thing. white stripes metaphor, yadda yadda). It came from an Irregular Shed. Since he's half a world away, he can mention a boxing day dinner on boxing day, and we here can copy him also on boxing day. The internet. It's tops. (Why I waited to post this I have no idea)

So, yeah, turkey curry. In true casa rakkaleff style this was both a joint effort and made up as we went along. It started with onions. Then some peas and curry powder. Like, four tablespoons of curry powder. We don't play around.

Normally casa rakkaleff curry has diced tomatoes from a can, the juice of which is the base of the sauce (anybody who wants to argue over the authenticity of this need to remember two things. 1. the hot peppers that curry is known for come from the same continent as as the tomatoes. and 2. we're crackers). This time we went for chicken stock.

Of course, we weren't waiting for hours. Who plans out a meal more than an hour in advance [smart people? -ed]. We thickened it with some yogurt.

And it was good. I had the left overs for breakfast the next day. That's the kind of man I am.

finished product

Tandoori Tikka Chicken

Speaking of World Market. This marinade fell in to my basket while I was there. Luckily I just happened to have a kitchen full of chicken, skewers and electric grills.

No trick photography! This is a single, shocking shot!

The funny thing about this stuff is there's "No ... Artificial Colours", and yet the package clearly depicts bright red/orange (rorange?) chicken bits. How is this not false advertising?

It's easy. Easy peasy. In the directions they tell you to add orange food dye if you want orange chicken.

Mmm. Charry.

It's nice to have the choice to be honest.

Anyway, it's a simple and quick marinade. Yogurt and the packet. We had greek yogurt, which worked out very well, actually. I think I'll be doing this again.

Roti

I don't know why I'm not at Roti all the time. I went for the first time recently, after a break of a year or two. Trust me, I won't take that long of a break again.

The mint sauce was really spicy

It's strange, there's are a couple really bad reviews on urbanspoon. I'm all like, what!? no you didn't! But a close read reveals those bad reviews to be all about meat dishes. I've never actually had a meat dish at Roti. I was vegetarian when I developed my love of Indian food; by default I skip to the vegetable section and order Aloo Gobhi. So maybe they specialize in the vegetarian.

Or maybe they went through a bad patch during my absence. If so, they read those bad reviews too, and took them to heart. "No garlic flavor on the garlic naan" you say? Well now days there's about 6 cloves per, in big tasty chunks.

sets up some atmosphere

This time, the Matar Paneer was pretty fantastic, with pleasantly toothy goat cheese and scrummy sauce. I even enjoyed the Aloo Saag, which is something I normally don't do. My dining companion, a huge fan of Indian food, rated the meal in her top 3, nation wide.

Channa Kabob (chick pea paties) make for yummy appetizers (2 of 4)

So, a note on the price. Yes, it's a little too pricey for this blog. Again. Sorry, this keeps happening. The prices are only just over the line, and it's really good, so just save up an extra buck fiddy and get on with it.

Aloo Saag and Matar Paneer, so nice

Finally, the place is nice on the inside. Lots of nice details. I even took a picture of the ceiling (though I didn't come out). The serving bowls are fancy metal things. I really love the heavy steel water glasses; they make water fun!

[where: 530 Queen Anne Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109]

inda bistro for lunch

There's a rule that Indian restaurants have to have lunch buffets in the all you can eat style. India Bistro is no exception.

a landscape in curry

When you consider the food at an all you can eat buffet, you have to compare it to other quantity agnostic meal deals. It would not be fair otherwise. This is my long winded way of saying that I've had better Indian food, but not at a buffet. The quality is surprisingly high considering the sub $8 price tag for a bottomless plate of curry.

oh! chickpea salad!

There's not a ton of variety at lunch. Rice, three vegetable dishes, the standard red chicken, the lamb vindaloo, and Naan, of course. There are a bunch of salads though. A chickpea one, a simple lettuce one with a cool yogurt dressing, and two or three varieties of cucumber salad. I love salad, so this makes me happy.

more curry!

There was one vegetable dish that knocked my socks off. It was very saucy and it had some sort of dumplings, or something. I swore I would write the name down, but I've got a mind like a sieve. I did get a picture, it's the stuff in the left foreground above.

just one of several cucumber salads

The place is usually close to full at lunch time. On our last visit they seemed to get behind on the dishes and ran out of bowls. My lunch companions insisted we wait for some; this is the draw of the rice pudding. I've never really gotten the hang of the stuff my self, but I think we can take their actions as an endorsement.

To add to the general cacophony of voices during the lunch rush they play Indian dance music at high volume. It's kind of fun. I'm including this video; if you listen hard enough you can get your groove on.