There is a Hyderabadi restaurant here in Waltham called Kabab & Tandoor. I went to it once when it was still a temptingly dumpy little hole. It was delicious, very spicy and offering lots of dishes unfamiliar to me, and it was full of people who I assumed to be native consumers of the cuisine. Yummy. So when I noticed that they'd moved to a fancy new storefront right on Main St, complete with gilt script on the sign, I thought perhaps that was a good sign, that they were coming up in the world and the spicy dishes were perhaps turning enough profit to pay for some banquettes and fancy lamps.
We went to the new and improved version tonight, and the food is still really good. There's a full menu, which makes it a lot easier to figure out what you're eating, and there were more not-Indian folks in the place for sure. It offers a mix of familiar Indian-restaurant favorites and unfamiliar sounding things, often involving goat or mutton, which to my way of thinking is always a plus. The decor is really rather good, with soothing mustard yellow and leaf green on the walls, modern lamps (detectably from Home Depot but who cares, they chose the one attractive lamp at HD, so bonus points for them!), and some appealing art.
We got a chhole, which was well balanced and sparkled with raw onion and cilantro, and a paneer makhni, which was a rich red creamy spicy treasure. I suspect they make their own paneer, as it had a very good texture and there was plenty of it. There was also a goat passindai, an earthy meaty gravy full of chunky soft-braised goat and herbs. The raita was unusual, very runny and as it turns out quite spicy. I asked the waiter and he said they mix the yogurt with cream, and spice it with garlic and ginger and green chilies. Delicious, especially on the chhole.
We were too full to try the sweets, but there's a full roster. We'll be back many times, to try all those things we've never had before, and perhaps we should bring friends, so we can order more dishes... Yum!
They are shutting down Gourmet magazine. This is not detectably a spoof, though I haven't started digging yet. WTF? The single best-known, oldest, flagship food magazine? The one that hasn't yet succumbed to the quagmire of SUCK that pervades all the other food magazines I've looked at? Are they joking?
sigh.