| rev:text
| - When I learned that an Indian restaurant was opening in Surprise, I was delighted. There are several good restaurants in Tempe and Mesa, but I wanted a place that was local. Unfortunately, this place was a huge disappointment. This review is for the buffet. I prefer buffets because most Indian meals come with a lot of starch, and my diet consists of mainly meats and vegetables. I should also mention that I'm allergic to dairy, so avoid the Indian selections made with cream.
My dining companion and I went to the luncheon buffet on Monday, June 11th.
First, the PROS. Haldi is one of the few Indian restaurants that serves some form of protein besides chicken in its buffet. They offered not only goat, but also lamb. I only eat organic or pastured chicken, as commercially raised chicken is loaded with antibiotics. But it's cheap, so Indian restaurants that offer buffets usually serve chicken and ONLY chicken. So I'm grateful that these options were offered, as lamb and goat are cleaner than chicken.
Both meats were somewhat stringy. However, the sauce accompanying the lamb was surprisingly flavorful. This was the best part of the meal.
Now, the CONS (and there are a lot of them). There was only once non-starchy vegetable, and that was spinach with chick peas in a cream sauce. I had to pass on that. The goat was prepared as a Biryani dish, which is rice. I ate some rice because there weren't many other options. Well, the rice was frankly awful. The overpowering spice in this one-dimensional dish was hot pepper, with none of the fragrant spices such as cardomom, cinnamon and fenugreek that are supposed to give Biryani dishes their complexity. The biggest (unpleasant) surprise was the rice, which had none of the natural nutty, flowery fragrance that's characteristic of Basmati rice--a staple in Indian cooking. (In fact, Basmati rice is used in the Far East to heal the gut, due to its special properties.) This rice was dried out and utterly lacking in flavor. I suspect that Haldi either used Uncle Ben's, or such an inferior grade of Basmati (yes, there are grades of this rice) that it simply wasn't worth eating.
My dining companion had two of the chicken dishes. His assessment: they were drab and not worth eating. Even the nan (which he has had many times before in other restaurants) was not to his liking.
Ordering off the regular menu may yield a better selection of better prepared foods. On a different note, this small place has the ambiance (without decorations) of a fast food joint. The decor is cheap, which also makes the food seem cheap. I respect that the owner has put time, effort and energy into this place, and I like to support small businesses. But I can't help wondering: If the place is made nicer, will respect for the food follow?
Residents of Surprise have yet to find a nearby Indian restaurant that's worth eating at.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)