Text 9537, 75 rader
Skriven 2014-02-05 22:49:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: 9/ trip 3 143
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It was getting on towards lunchtime, and we were a little
peckish, so we decided to try our luck in Santa Rosa. Parked
in one of the handy lots and wandered town a bit. First
thing. Right near the parking lot I smelled something
appetizing, and I exclaimed that I wanted that, whatever it
was; but Lilli is not so keen on spicy food, so we decided
to look a bit further, which we did, wasting much possible
lunching time. Nothing within the area appealed, so Lilli,
tired and not in the best of moods, said, well, let's just
go to the place that smelled good, and I'll make do; so we
did. It turned out to be a joint with the imaginative name
Sizzling Tandoor, which sort of boded ill given her food
preferences, but we went in. It was close to the end of
lunchtime, but the buffet was still up ($8.95). Lilli
complained that she didn't want a full buffet, so the waiter
friendlily said that he would sell her one plate of food for
$5.95, vegetarian or chicken with rice; so we said fine.
Well, it turns out that it was his choice what to serve,
and what came out was butter chicken; she had expected a
plate of rice with maybe a couple pieces of tandoor, but no.
Luckily, as with all butter chicken, the sauce had almost no
spice, and she could eat it; she downed half; I finished it.

I went for the full buffet of course, which had these dishes
and several more that I didn't try.

Tandoori chicken was moist and delicious, mostly half-pieces
of dark meat, of which I fished out some thigh chunks, which
I cut up and sneaked bits across the table, hoping that we
wouldn't end up charged for two buffets;

the aforementioned butter chicken, actually pretty good,
a bit tomatoey for my taste, also a bit bland for my taste,
which of course is good for others;

a strange pork curry with green peppers, notable for the
use of fatty scraps, for which I was grateful, and my second
visit to the buffet was dedicated mostly to snagging bits of
fat and gristle;

chicken mushroom, rather ordinary, underseasoned;

vegan vegetable korma, sort of succotash in spicy cream
sauce, not bad for that;

vegan mattar tofu, which pleased me quite a bit, as it did
remind me somewhat of mattar paneer, which I like but for
the sordid aftereffects;

mixed dal makhani with a lot of hard lumpy kidney beans,
which I didn't care for (I like a smoother and perhaps
more cooked product);

Chinese-style noodles, just awful - salty with soy sauce,
limp, a caricature of chow mein.

There was a condiment table that had fruit, salad, sauces,
and dessert. I took special advantage of the hot peppers.

For dessert, excellent grapes (you'd think we were in
grape-growing country or something), an ordinary kheer, and
carrot halwa of which I had three servings.

Just before 2 a staff person came by and politely conveyed
the news that the buffet was about to close, and please take
whatever we wanted. Unfortunately, by then we were both
pretty full.

The place gets some pretty scathing reviews on Yelp. I'm not
sure about the sharp business practices described thereby,
but as far as the food goes, just follow your nose.

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