It pains me to write this because Aarti had so kindly researched and booked a place for my birthday that she wanted to be "worthy" of my blog. While the experience wasn't terrible, it was clear that they were still having growing pains as they have only been open a few weeks.
We had a 8:30pm reservation on a random Wednesday night and they had informed us that it would be a little bit of wait while the people before us paid the check and they cleared the table. This was totally fine and we just chilled out in the bar but then 35 mins went by and still no table. Luckily the hostess felt really terrible and kindly offered to comp us any 2 cocktails which was a nice touch. We tried to order our cocktails but that took forever also. We had put in our order with the bartender, only to watch him not get around to making it until 15 mins later. By the time our drinks were ready, our table was ready. The menu here is Indian but not in the traditional sense. I wouldn't say it's fusion either but it's just got a different twist to it. The waitress said that most everything was sharable, so e started with the brussels sprout chaat ($14), the avocado and cabbage slaw ($18) and I got the Tamarind chicken wings ($18) as a meat dish.
The brussels sprout chaat was a huge dish of halved roasted sprouts topped with tamarind and mint chutney and yogurt. While it was a tasty dish, it didn't wow me at all. It tasted like a regular batch of roasted sprouts topped with yogurt that I could have made at home. Next I tried the avocado and cabbage slaw - this was a delightful salad with cashews, chili jam, lime and cumin. It was a great summer time salad that made me wish I eat or made more cabbage focused salads. Next, sadly came the chicken wings. I actually normally don't love chicken wings but this appetizer sounded really good and since I didn't have the room to finish an entire fried chicken entree on my own, this was the next best thing. First, it was a large dish - 4 large full chicken wings on the plate. The first bite I took was great - the sauce was fantastic and the skin was nice and crispy but once I took another bite I noticed that the chicken was totally raw on the inside. Plus it was just really hard to eat the entire wing - it felt like there just wasn't enough meat on there. After noticing that the 2nd wing was also highly undercooked, I had to say something, which I hate doing, because lord knows I didn't want to get salmonella on my birthday. The waitress apologized and offered to bring out another asap. Luckily this 2nd batch was much better - you could actually cut all the way through the chicken without any give or raw meat sightings. But it was still super hard to eat and very messy. I asked if they had any extra napkins or wet naps but they didn't - who serves wings with no extra napkins?!?
We were both still hungry so we got the cauliflower pappardelle ($25) which was served with breadcrumbs, chili, garlic and sage. So my usual beef with non-red sauce pasta kicked in again here. While the pasta itself was spot on and very homemade tasting, the dish overall tasted kind of plain without the red sauce. Cauliflower on its own doesn't have enough flavor to really carry a dish and you can tell they tried to spice it up with the chili (no pun intended) and garlic but it kind of missed the mark flavor wise for me.
I'm giving the restaurant the benefit of the doubt because I totally empathize with growing pains and they did try to make things right by comping us drinks and apologizing about the chicken. My experience here re-enforces my continued belief that unless you are really dying to, you shouldn't go to a new restaurant within the first month of opening because they need that time to make mistakes. I like what they were trying to do here, they just need to tightening things up a bit. Total bill: $120 for 2 with tax, tip and drinks
Photo Credit: Yelp
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