Indian Sunday Lunch

Sagar has a very interesting and colorful ambiance... that's pretty vibrant in comparison to the hues and tones outside

Vaibhav invited me to grab some Indian cuisine over at Calle Alonso Heredia 22~ which interestingly was just near the Peruvian restaurant I've been to a few weeks earlier. I was skeptical that I was heading to the right place because the deeper I went into the neighborhood, the less likely it seemed that an Indian restaurant like this would be there. Well~ guess I was wrong again. This is Madrid, after all.

I arrived 25 minutes late... and interestingly the boys haven't started yet. They seemed pretty hungry!

Vaibhav reserved a table for 10... but in the end, 6 people made it: Stefano, Paolo, Enrico, Vaibhav, Basil and yours truly. I arrived 25 minutes late... Vaibhav apparently messaged me on Whatsapp but I didn't catch his message (until I got home, interestingly). When I reached the restaurant, I said hello~ sat down~ and fortunately, they had already ordered... which meant the food would shortly make its way to our table (yay!).

Yum, yum and triple yum! Chicken curry, lamb biryani and naan made it to our plates (and eventually mouths)!

Vaibhav ordered a whole host of dishes~ from butter chicken (one of my favorites), chicken curry, lamb curry, something like 3 baskets of naan (I think the official count rose to 4 baskets~ especially since Paolo liked it a lot), lamb biryani as well as plain biryani. Some of the boys ordered Kingfisher and Cobra beer to douse the food down their throats. For the rest, water!

Never really tried Cobra beer before. Perhaps next time!

I'm personally a big beer fan. In any social setting, I would prefer beer over wine or any hard drink. I'm likewise proud that my family founded a beer company over a hundred years ago (if you must ask, we sold it and someone else ran it... but we're still credited for founding the company). Anyway, I was really curious to try India's Cobra beer... but I felt I already exceeded my beer limit for the week (well, I felt it was about time to shed some pounds. So beer's one of the first things to go~). Well, this one will have to wait.

Sagar actually offered a variety of naans~ from garlic, onion, wheat, cheese, etc. Again, I was tempted to try... but from experience, I knew the butter chicken was going to be heavy. And I dreaded the idea of falling asleep after this meal (there's so much you can do on a Sunday~ didn't want to throw it all away in exchange for siesta). 

There is it! That magical bowl of butter chicken!

I enjoyed lunch a lot. Vaibhav claims it wasn't as good as it should be (the chicken, for example, should be softer / more tender). But for the Italians, Basil and myself, we were pretty happy with what we ate. I've eaten many times in Indian restaurants~ and I would say that this place was pretty spot on (and well, the owner was Indian too. So with that I find some solace that this is the real deal).

I would later discover that it was apparently Stefano's first time to eat in an Indian restaurant. He says he likes it a lot~ but of course there are still other cuisines that he enjoys more (I tend to agree with him~ especially if you've had a chance to sample exceptionally good dishes from that cuisine. Take Korean food for example!). But that said, maybe if he gets to try other dishes, he might shift his choice (ah~ I suddenly remembered Punjab Grill by Jiggs Kalra in Marina Bay Sands~ that place was really good!!!).

Enrico looks really happy here! Anyway, it was an awesome lunch! Til next time! :)

So, that was that! Perhaps in the coming weeks I should probably exchange photos of beers and rich food for water and salads! This blog should serve as a pretty accurate online journal of sorts. We'll see~~~