I had first heard of Surya when Aarti used to mention that she loved to order Seamless from there since it was close to her place in the West Village but then it sadly closed before I could try it out myself. Luckily it reappeared not too far from it's old location recently, so we decided to give it a try in person.
The decor is super casual and informal like most of the places on Bleecker Street but don't let that fool you. The food is excellent and packed with lots of traditional flavors. The menu has your standard Indian line-up of samosas, tandoori meats, and paneers. It's so hard to order just one or two things so we ordered a lot knowing that we would end up taking some stuff home. We started with the cauliflower chili fry ($7) and the baby lamp chops ($12) for me - it was the only meat dish we got for the night (that's the great thing about Indian food is that you can order a TON of great veggie friendly food). For entrees we got the spiced okra ($13), mutter paneer ($13) and the daal tadka ($13). The cauliflower chili fry were bits of crispy cauliflower coated in a spicy tomato sauce. Super super addictive. Perfect combination of crunch, tang and heat. It reminds of how great of a substitute cauliflower can be - this dish was sort of like a fake buffalo chicken. I also really enjoyed my one meat dish of the night, the baby lamp chops. They were indeed baby, as they are pretty small but they were tender and spiced well. It would make for an excellent entree if they had larger chops. As for the entrees, they were all wonderful and packed with spice. The okra dish was huge - lots and lots of chopped okra with tomato, onion, garlic and cumin. There was no gooeyness at all which can sometimes happen when making okra. The mutter paneer was a bowl of delicious peas and cheese. We had originally wanted to get the paneer makhani which was a similar version with tomato gravy but when they listed butter as one of their key ingredients, we switched to the mutter paneer to be "healthier" but honestly it's probably not all that much better for you. Lastly the daal was an excellent use of yellow lentils mixed with ginger, onion, tomatoes and cumin. Despite eating several rounds of food, we still had a ton of leftovers and I can attest to the fact that it was all still awesome the next day.
I also want to give a shout out on their mango lassi. Fucking amazing. Thick, sweet and full fat deliciousness. I could have had a whole pitcher of it, but really 1 glass is probably all anyone should have in one sitting. While the food was great, the service was a bit on the slow side although I'm mindful that there were only 2 guys working the floor of a pretty packed restaurant. I've always loved Indian food and while this place is kind of in the middle of NYU-land, it still offers really quality Indian food in a low key atmosphere. Total bill: $45/pp with tax and tip
Photo Credit: Yelp
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