What a great unexpected surprise of delicious Indian food in my hood! We didn't get to do too much research on Indian restaurants that night and since there are not many great Indian restaurants in Central and North Phoenix, I didn't feel compelled to put in the effort. Learned helplessness you can say. After driving around before our movie, we found this wonderful restaurant and will be coming back for more.
Tandoori Times has great ambiance with fun Indian art on the wall. Our servers were very pleasant and you can tell they were happy working there. We tried the lamb briyani, saag paneer, and chili naan. Although they had some innovative and creative Indian dishes we decided to stick with more traditional dishes. The saag had a slightly more watery consistency than what I am used to but the taste was incredible. The lamb briyani was light and not so oily like other briyani dishes. My favorite was the chili naan, which was light, fluffy, and tasted awesome baked with chilies and cilantro. Their side "condiments" was unique, which included a mixture of pickled chopped ginger, lemon, garlic and other spices.
We were so glad to have tried this restaurant and hope to be back to try their other dishes.