by Trina G » Fri Jul 04, 2008 5:54 pm
When first walking up to the entry, it looked as though the restaurant was small and empty, however, passing through two carved heavy wood doors revealed oasis Dakshin. The walls are covered in weathered bare wood and accented with beautiful framed Indian fabric and three beautiful large glass hanging lamps are a nice focal point. What seemed to be an oddly placed canoe on the wall was later discovered to represent the mode of transportation used on Kerala's many rivers.
Once seated, we were greeted by the manager who asked right off, "How did you find out about this place?" As stated in a previous post, we too were the only non-Indian diners in the place. Since they've done little advertising outside the community, he was surprised the word had already gotten out. It was though we'd stumbled on some sort of underground restaurant-which enticed me further. He was very helpful in discussing menu items and offering suggestions. The menu is extensive but simply lists the names of the dishes. He did share that a menu with descriptions is on the way.
Our mango lassi's ($1.99) arrived alongside a plate containing cool wet towels scented with rose water for cleaning hands and face prior to dinner. The mango lassi's had a robust flavor of fresh mango. The badam milk ($2.99) was a nicely flavored "fluffy" (for lack of a better description) almond milk with crushed almond and pistachio on top. The chilli caulifower manchurian ($4.99) was great. It is a battered and fried cauliflower dish with a nice sauce offering just the right amount of chilli seasoning heat.
We ordered dal makhani ($7.99) , veg nilgiri korma ($7.99), matter paneer ($7.99) and baby potato manchurian ($7.99) for dinner. All of the entrees were delicious and came with rice (looked as though saffron and bay leaves were used to flavor), mint & tamarind chutney, a mixture of onions, green peppers and cabbage arrived for the naan (we ordered the bread basket [$5.49] that comes with garlic, chilli and spinach naan). The dosai we saw coming from the kitchen looked wonderful but there was no room even for dessert on this visit.
The meal ended with the delivery of fluted bowls filled with warm water and a slice of lime to clean your hands. The check totaled approximately $52 and was delivered in a dish containing three bowls of after dinner treats Indian-syle. Two bowls had candy coated fennel, one of which had a wonderfully floral rose flavor, and the third bowl was filled with green cardamom pods (I wasn't so brave to try a plain pod-maybe next time).
The service was a little slow but the plasma TV's offered lively Indian dance music, on what looked like an Indian version of MTV only with more music videos and no drunken debauchery, that helped to pass the time. We'll definitely go back again and I recommend you go before this avant garde Indian restaurant crosses over to main stream. There is something very special about being a "fish out of water" on occassion.
P.S. After dinner we walked three doors down to an awesome Indian grocery-Subzi Mandi. If you are ever in need of ANY Indian ingredient this place is gauranteed to have what you need.
