Take-away Curry

Apparently, Central Square in Cambridge is Indian Food Central. I have noticed a few Indian restaurants, but when you actually look them up, man, there are a lot! I walk by India Pavilion every day, and I knew about Shalimar, the Indian grocery store next to Harvest Co-op (and their take-out counter in the back), as well as the possibly-affiliated Shalimar restaurant across the street. But there are several more.

I decided to get Indian for lunch a few days ago, and I was faced with the daunting task of deciding which one to go to. Desi Dhaba? India Pavilion? The other one around the corner?

I decided to head towards the Charles River and go to the take-out counter in India Food and Spices, which is on River St, south of Central Square. I have tried the takeout counter in the back of Shalimar (not the restaurant but the grocery store across Mass Ave.), but it was kind of dirty, and the food was served cold (but microwaved if you desire it). The food was okay, but not good enough to pass up trying a new place.

In contrast, India Food and Spices is at least cleaner (I wouldn't say it's spotless, but it is okay), and the owner doesn't microwave the food for you, and makes the roti right there for you.

The food was quite good, although the portion was small. I think the value here is in the lunch specials, which I didn't get, since I wanted a lamb dish. The lunch values are only available for vegetarian and chicken dishes. Not only do you get the main dish, plus rice and chutney, which is standard with any entree, you also get roti, raita, and pickle. I ordered roti, raita, and pickle separately, but he only gave me the roti (at least I didn't pay for the raita and pickle, though). I also got a mango lassi and a cup of Reena's saffron pistachio ice cream, which is one of my favorites. Unfortunately, the Reena's both here and at Shalimar had a grainy taste to them, like the ice cream had melted and then refrozen. I've had Reena's before (a long time ago, though), and I don't remember it having that texture.

The best part about the meal was the onion chutney that came with my lamb korma. It was to die for! I went back to see if I could just buy a big container of it, but they don't sell it. I got prepackaged commercial frozen cilantro chutney instead, which is actually pretty good. It comes in small cups for convenient serving, and I confess that I ate a cup by myself with no bread or any other dipping starch.

Second Dinner

Dinner tonight was a flop. We tried a new recipe- chicken and broccoli casserole from The Six O'Clock Scramble Cookbook. I think the word "casserole" should have warned me off, but I wanted to try it. The Six O'Clock Scramble Cookbook is somewhat hit-and-miss with us. The positives are that the recipes are easy, relatively inexpensive, healthy, and tasty-sounding. The negatives are that the recipes tend to not produce enough food to feed my husband (who eats A LOT, although you wouldn't know it from looking at him), and they tend to be somewhat bland. I think the blandness is in part so the recipes appeal to kids, since the hook of the cookbook is quick, family-friendly dinners. The recipes are somewhat adventurous, given these constraints, but I often find that I need to add a teaspoon of salt to any recipe from that cookbook, because the author almost never includes it in the recipe. We don't eat that much salt at our house; we eat far less than most people. There are some real winners in that cookbook, though. The chicken tikka is a favorite of ours, and there's a spinach noodle bake that is also very tasty. I sometimes bulk it up for my husband by serving a fried egg on top.

Knowing what I know about the overall blandness in these recipes, I decided to punch up the flavor. I sauteed onions to add in with the chicken and broccoli, and when I made the sauce to pour over the chicken, broccoli, and onions, I added lemon zest and salt. I also mixed in a tablespoon of butter into the breadcrumb/shredded cheese mixture that we put on the top before baking.

I didn't think it was that bad, but my husband hated it. He forced himself to eat a small portion. Then we went for a walk, with the idea that he might be able to pick up second dinner for himself. We walked to Harvard Square, and walked around a lot before finally settling on The Garage, which is this food court type building. I had ice cream at Ben and Jerry's (still better than Emack and Bolio's), and my husband had a burger at Flat Patties. Although I liked the fries, which were thinly cut and well cooked, the burger didn't go over so well. I am not sure what the problem was, only that he didn't like it, although he ate almost all of it. He said he might be in a picky mood. I said that he was only allowed to reject one dinner per night! He came home and had a bowl of Weetabix. My opinion of Weetabix is a whole other post.

Chacarero

A few weeks ago, I took the T to Downtown Crossing to check out that famous non-food-related Boston institution, Filene's Basement. Well, it was everything that I had been promised. Too bad it is closing down, although I understand the closing is temporary.

I took the opportunity to grab a sandwich at Chacarero. Chacarero started as a food truck, which is automatically endearing in my book! I am not a huge sandwich fan, but these are pretty good. How can you not love something with avocados, green beans, and beef? The small sandwich was still too enormous to eat in one go, so I just kept eating it whenever I was hungry for the rest of the day. The sandwich bread doesn't really hold up that well for more than a few hours, but it was still fine. Great food, and a great food story of an immigrant who gained success by hard work and a good product.