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Flavors of India served up in St. Pete
By WILMA NORTON © St. Petersburg Times, published October 18, 2000 Indian food has long been hard to find in Pinellas County, especially in St. Petersburg. And we've looked. We fell in love with Indian cooking on a trip to Montreal almost 15 years ago, and since then we have had only a handful of good Indian meals around here. So, we were both excited and a bit dubious when we heard that an Indian restaurant had opened in a motel on U.S. 19. A friend whose parents are from India headed there as soon as it opened and gave the food high marks for authenticity, but a thumbs-down on atmosphere. The restaurant has the look of a motel lounge, with a bar tucked in the corner and decorated with Budweiser and NFL posters. It sounded like the perfect take-out candidate. The two samosas ($2.99), stuffed with lentils and assorted vegetables, were lightly fried and the size of my hand. They came with two dipping sauces. The navaratan curry ($8.99), according to the menu, contains nine kinds of vegetables in a mild, creamy curry sauce with cashews. It comes with white rice. There were tons of vegetables, including peas, carrots, baby corn and snow peas, cooked just past crunchy but not yet mushy. We didn't find any cashews, though. The rogan josh ($10.99) contained chunks of tender lamb, lots of fresh ginger and a hint of lemon in a creamy brown sauce. It also came with rice. We loved the taste and the seasoning, but not the heat. I had ordered both the lamb and the vegetable dishes "medium." All of us, even our children, like a fair amount of oomph in our food. But both these dishes were hotter than we expect medium to be. Our 8-year-old and I kept gulping water. We will ask for mild next time. (We steered the 2-year-old to the plain white rice and the milder tandoori chicken.) The chicken ($10.99) was the traditional bright pink, marinated in yogurt and Indian spices and cooked in a clay oven. It was tender and juicy and cut into four or five pieces. It came with marinated raw onions and green pepper slivers on the side, wrapped in foil. We also got several pieces of thin, crispy Indian bread on the side. The restaurant offers about 20 entrees, most in the $8.99-$10.99 range. They include machli hara masala (boneless fish in green masala or coriander, mint, green chili and curry leaves) for $10.99; murgh jhalfrezi (boneless chicken in green peppers and spices) for $9.99; kasmiri pulao (saffron flavored basmati rice with dried fruits) for $8.99; and tandoori jhinga (shrimp marinated in spices and cooked on a skewer in the clay oven) for $15.99. Ajanta Indian Cuisine
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490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
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From the Times Taste section From the features wire |
