The Realms of the Exotic

So for our anniversary we went to lunch at Tandoori Oven. It's only a block away from our apartment and we've been wanting to try it for . . . well, about a year now. I'd seriously been looking forward to this for, like, a month. Trying new food = awesome.

We walked over there - and that was definitely a good thing since it was a buffet! I have to admit I was a little nervous since I've only had the tiniest of tastes of Indian food at the Food & Wine Festival. (unrelated note: food & wine is also so the only place/time I've ever gone to a concert that was not orchestral/symphonic in nature . . . Shay's still jealous that I went to a Beach Boys concert, lol.) But it was good!! I was hoping to like everything, but fully prepared to not eat very much at the same time. It was a really weird feeling.

Verdict: YUMMY!!! Okay, I have to admit that I discovered (well, reaffirmed really) that I have a very American palate - I'm totally used pretty bland tasting food compared to pretty much every other ethnic food ever. So some of it was totally delicious - the tandoori chicken, the super spicy chicken tikkla . . . something or other . . . The biyami. The breads. Yum. Major yum.

Some of the other things were a bit much, but I think I could acquire a taste for them - the spicy coconut rice topping thingy for instance. The combination of coconut and spiciness was tasty, but just a little too odd for me - but maybe next time.

Then there were a couple of things that were just plain . . . anti-yummy. For example, saffron may smell good (I really wouldn't know) but it tastes pretty nasty. The saffron pastry square things totally reminded me of these cookies my friend Cyd (who lives in Logan now, yay!!!!) made back in college. She bought this Shakespearean cookbook from the Shakespeare Festival (soooooooo have to get down there some summer soon . . . ) and made cookies flavored with rose petals and (I think) orange peel. Because apparently that's what they flavored things with back in the day. They smelled really good. They tasted like soap. They smelled like soap too actually, but soap smells good. I've never eaten soap, but I imagine it would not taste good. I imagine that they would taste a lot like the soap-scented cookies. Or the Indian saffron pastry thingy.

Best part: the drink. By far. I had a strawberry lessi, which is a strawberry/yogurt drink. Sooooooooooooo good!!! Tasted more strawberry-y than pretty much any strawberry flavored anything I've ever had and super smooth and creamy. YUM!! (side note - there's also a sweet lessi made with rose petals . . . and rose petal ice cream. The ignorant American in me wants to go around telling people that Indians eat soap.)

I think I love Indian food. And my future book club restaurant picks have probably been influenced. Heck - my future any restaurant picks have been influenced. :-) Also - best anniversary ever. Not there was a lot of competition . . . yet. :-)

P. ost S. cript
So, as many of you know our song was "So Close" from Enchanted. The plan was to actually do the dance they did in the movie - how awesome would that have been?! - but that kinda didn't happen. The whole "Luke not knowing how to dance" thing coupled with the whole "we kinda gotta find a couple of jobs" thing combined with the "my mom never believed me when I said I didn't care about tiny reception detail x so I spent more time shopping than I'd expected" thing combined with the "it's a half hour drive back to my bed no matter what time of night I leave" thing and . . . well, life in general it just didn't happen. Sad. :-( Anyway, here's a totally cool version of one of my favorite songs ever.