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| - I heard about Zaiaka thru an ad. It is about 30 minutes out from Pittsburgh, so I would normally not travel so far to try an Indian buffet. However, it got good reviews by others, and is near the Sri Venkateswara Temple and Hindu Jain Temple. I figured that they catered to those audiences, and if they are still around, they are probably good.
I was not disappointed. While the buffet is not one of the megabuffets, all of the food was extremely tasty. By my recollection, the main dishes included chili chicken, tandoori chicken, fried cabbage shreds, string beans with coconut, lentils (dahl), matar paneer (peas/cheese), lamb vindalu, tika masala chicken, curry chicken, malai kofta (vegetable balls) and an eggplant dish in sauce (don't recall the specific name). They had pakoras for appetizers and gulab jamun and some fruit (cut mellon, grapes) for desert. There wasn't really salad, but a collection of condiments including small pieces of lettuce, sliced tomatoes and cut up onions, as well as pickles, hot green chilies and some sauces. Plain naan was brought to the table and rice was on the main buffet.
Having gone only once, I don't know how consistent the buffet choices are, so you might see something different.
Everything here was well marked (except for the sauces -- I heard fellow diners talking "I think that's mango chutney but I'm not sure.") More than that, the hostess answered peoples' questions, in detail, about what was in the dishes. I guess this is driven in part because they are proud of what they made, and in part because they have a very diverse clientele that seemed to include a lot of Indians (another good sign for an Indian buffet). From my experience with many from that region, different sects have different customs with regard to what they will or won't eat, so clear explanations of what was in each dish would be appreciated. I certainly appreciated it as well since I like to know what I am eating.
To give some examples of why I think this buffet was so good. None of the food was greasy -- not even the pakoras. All of food was fresh -- none was old, stale or dried out. All of the food was well seasoned. It all tasted good. All of it was an appropriately edible temperature. All of the meats I tried had their bones removed. The pickles were very flavorful -- not oily or salty. The gulab jamun was fluffy and mild -- not syrupy sweet, not a dense golf-ball ball of milk powder.
You could not want anything more for service. Quickly seated, plates rapidly removed, drinks always kept full. All questions answered.
My only surprises were the Lamb Vindalu and Chili Chicken. I had never seen a vindalu on a buffet, though I have eaten it before. Typically, vindalu is scorchingly hot (and usually has potatoes in it -- this had only lamb). I had seen chili chicken on several buffets (not as universal as matar paneer) and it is usually spicy. Both dishes here were not spicy at all -- still well seasoned and flavorful, but no heat at all. Most of the time, pickles are usually spicy too, but not here. I commented on my observations and got a strange answer: we wanted to make sure that everyone had something they could eat. Well, yes, but I was not suggesting that everything be spicy. There are meat dishes on the buffet and a large number of diners who were vegetarian and could not eat meat. I was also pointed to the green chilies, which were in fact very hot. However, one could not really slice them up and incorporate them into a dish (I tried!). I was also told that diners could ask for regular (traditionally seasoned) vidalu sauce on the side to add to their dish. I might have done that if I had known. Now you do! I also noticed that other buffets do offer some kind of hot pepper or chili sauce as a condiment that one can add to a dish. You can mix that in, unlike a cut up chili. I recommend the restaurant make that small addition if they are opposed to making even a single dish spicy.
$9 + tax + tip -- great value for money.
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