| rev:text
| - Please note that my meal, like those of other reviewers at pre-opening special events, was complimentary. My meal would have been $12.24.
This is an Indian fast casual restaurant, offering mostly bowls of rice, veggies, and proteins, along with other Indian-American staples like samosas. They are tech and feature-forward offering online ordering and pickup, Coca-Cola Freestyle machines, and even an automated hand washing unit for customers. The ambiance is clean, modern, and upscale for the market. Dishes are about $9-$13. You can BYOB into the restaurant and they are right next door to a wine store.
I ordered a Choolaah Meal, their basic rice bowl, selecting white rice over brown, and Paneer cheese as my protein with tikka masala as my sauce. It came with a piece of naan bread. For a drink I ordered a mango lemonade.
Everything was good. Rice was cooked to a perfect consistency and seasoned nicely with the right balance of salt and hint of butteryness. The organic Amish cheese had a nice satifying texture to cut and bite into and was firm without being rubbery. The cheese was just powerful enough to not be overwhelmed by the sauce, which was good but unremarkable.
The highlight for me was the naan bread, which was just perfection. Salted and seasoned just right, cooked perfectly. It tore beautifully and was just some of the best Indian bread I've ever had. Definitely not to be missed.
Speaking of sauces, a bar of pumps has several additional ones on offer. I tried the Tamarind apple sauce and the Choolaah Fire sauce. The apple sauce went quite well with the Paneer cheese, giving it a bit of sweetness. The Fire sauce is the lesser of the two hot sauces, and I don't think I'll be trying the Lava! Fire was more than hot enough for my tastes, a little bit goes a long way.
Service was outstanding and very fast, the kitchen was working like clockwork. Despite a huge line nearly out the door my wait to order was under 15 minutes and I had my tray of food less than 3 minutes after that. Even with the crowd, seating wasn't an issue for me dining alone.
The attached parking garage has 45 minutes of free parking, and despite the thick crowd and huge rush of people clamoring for free meals, I almost made it. I ended up paying $3 in parking, which of course was a fantastic value.
I intend to return to Choolaah as a paying customer, and I look forward to trying the local Bell & Evans humane farm chicken, their in-house ranch sauce, and one of the Tandoori wraps.
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