A Veneer of Paneer

With the days regularly above 110, it's been hard to summon to will to leave the house. We could drive up to Utah for the night for the Shakespeare festival, or we could avoid that nasty 25-foot trek to the car and stay in the nice air conditioning watching Dead Like Me marathons. Whenever one of us opens the front door ("Gah! The heat! I can see it!"), we're sure we made the right choice.

But yesterday I guess the spirit of adventure won out, or maybe it was just that I needed an antidote after spending seven hours consolidating our two extensive mp3 libraries. (Seven hours. And I haven't even finished the ID tags. If you knew how much I hate underscores and track listings within the file name, you'd understand. Or at least have pity that I can't manifest my OCD by Swiffering the dusty molding in the bathroom or something.)

Mike loves Indian food, and all during the school year I kept saying, "When summer comes, we can hit one of those Indian lunch buffets." But, you know, I say a lot of things during the school year. Things like, "When summer comes, we'll go to the Utah Shakespeare festival."

Me, I was neutral on Indian cuisine. For almost ten years Mike's been boggling that I'm not all over Indian, but he comes from Australia, which is sometimes like Britain, and having just finished Bill Bryson's articulate and witty (if rarely and forgiveably flawed with political asides) Notes from a Small Island, I now know that Indian food is to the Commonwealth what hot dogs are to our country (and I am jealous).

Most of my Indian experience has been basmati rice (love at first bite), oversmelling other people's lunches (wow, that's pungent... and, uh... runny-looking), and Ethnic Gourmet boxed dinners (nice but a little "processed" tasting for the price). Not bad experiences, but not enough to grow a relationship.

It's summer, though (damnit!), and I was ready to get out of the house. Even if it meant eating out without a coupon. Let's do it!

First we had to pick a restaurant, and normally I'd like to spend, oh I don't know, seven hours on this, with the Google mapping and the reviewing and the.... okay, let's just say that this time we went to Vegas.com, found five restaurants in the database, threw out Gaylord at the Rio (already know that it's about $45 per person), and then picked the one that mentioned having both northern (meatier) and southern (veggier) cuisine. We picked Gandhi.

After a quick stop at the library (books now four days overdue thanks to our hobbit-holeing), we turned into the strip mall at the NE corner of Flamingo and Paradise and found this:

Well. Okay. And then, next door:

When in Vegas, never be fooled by the "Voted Best..." banner. For one thing, if you look closely, some of those banners are from, like, eight years ago. Also, the newspaper's opinion poll has "critic's choice" and "people's choice," and the latter can be easily manipulated through online voting. Also, everyone has one of these banners, including Roberto's Tacos, probably the most foul place I've ever eaten in my life. (Woe to Mike who didn't believe me and just had to get all excited that there was 24-hour Mexican across the street and try it. Many flushing noises later...)

This is not to say that sometimes the best doesn't win, but the banner is no real guide. (Just look at the locals' casinos and try to find one that hasn't been voted Best Slot Club.)

Reviewers had said this place wasn't much to look at, and the searing sunlight wasn't doing any favours to the bland architecture, it's true. Still, this is right by UNLV, where you'd expect to find gems tucked into crusty stucco pockets. (I still haven't decided if UNLV itself is a gem or the pocket.)

Brave and hungry, we walked in.

Ahhhhh....

First, the smell. Light, gentle, not acrid. Not like the chicken curry Mike makes that has me on the sofa, in the next room, yelling, "The fan! Full speed! BLEHHHHH!" and putting aloe vera on my burnt nose hairs.

Second, the service. "Two?" The hostess took a pitcher of water from a stand and led us to a booth. (Alas, my seat was capable of moving into the pathway between dining room and kitchen with just the slightest push - I don't want to talk about it). The room was almost empty at 11:30, and as she filled our goblets (located next to the handsome linen napkins) she asked what we would like to drink?

Me: "What do you have?"

Her: "mm mmm mm mmmmmm, mmmmm mmm, mmm-mmmm mmm mmm..."

Me: "Hmm. Actually, I think I'm fine with water."

Her: "mm mmmm mmmmm mmmmm, mmmm mm mmm, mmmmmmmmmmmmmm....."

Me: "Yep, just water. Thanks."

Mike: "I'll have a Coke."

So she was a little soft spoken. It's a very quiet place. It turned out that water was just fine, as they refill your glass after almost every sip with discreet hospitality. (Except at the end, which may be their way of saying, "You have eaten enough. Now bugger off and sweat spices all day." That or I'm just paranoid. You should've heard Mike doing his Apu voice afterward: "Oh dear, here come two fatties, oh no, we will take an enormous loss today, it is very bad." You had to be there, of course.)

The buffet itself is a compact 25-item offering (including sauces), which probably puts some tourists off in this town where most buffet lines are twice the length of our apartment (and we've got a shotgun design), but it's everything you need. Oh, and it was all vegetarian except for a couple of chicken dishes at the end - HEAVEN.

Mike, despite his carniclivities (new word! like it?), was likewise transported to a harp-ready cloud. Mmmm. I didn't get a picture of his plate because, well, it just wasn't the sort of place where I felt comfy taking photos. Also, my fork wouldn't stop moving. But here is my first plate (of two):

I can't remember what all is on here, which is a shame, as it's kind of what I want to eat every day for the rest of my life. Here is what I remember:

• green chutney featuring cilantro (not visible here - I'm such a beggar for cilantro as it is, but this was amazing)
• yogurt "balls" with flour and spices in a spicy sauce (front/center - total trepidation on this one - clumps of yogurt in a sauce? - but it was faaaaan-tastic)
• basmati rice with peas (cooked in ghee - num num num)
• potatoes with peppers (at right - tasty, but a little heavy for the weather)
• naan bread (not pictured)
• papadoms (I can't spell it, but they're so delicately seasoned and, mm, mm, mmmmmmm)
• lentil thingie (in foreground, nicely seasoned and enjoyable but I have some lentil aversions so it wasn't a repeater)
• spinach and cheese thingie (back right - gloopy, but flavourful, and that's what the nan is for, right?)
• veggie fritter (not pictured - good, but a little like a tough falafel - would have been great if I hadn't sopped up all the sauce with my nan)
• dumpling (white spaceship in the back - the only downer - too bland on its own and not as good with sauce as the papadoms or nan)
• red chutney (a lightly fruity, not too tomato-y, chutney of the sort I'm used to; terrific, but nothing could beat that cilantro chutney)
• lightly fried bulghur with a little sugar (bottom left - surprisingly pleasant)
• yogurt and raisin "salad" (not pictured - I'd have called it "soup" but whatever... it was soaked up by my rice on the second plate, but what I could taste was good)

I'm sure I'm forgetting something. We spent most of the meal too happy to talk - Mike happy to be back on familiar culinary ground, and me happy to have entered the gates of a new world (and not have it suck).

I think the look of Indian food had been putting me off for awhile, too. Let's be frank: a lot of it looks like baby poo. But now I have to wonder if maybe baby poo has been underestimated, because this stuff was SO GOOD. Somebody lick a diaper and let me know.

Then we had to leave. I didn't want to leave, but I hit what Mike says is a known entity in eating Indian - the sudden wall. I was suddenly and instantly full, and couldn't even pretend to pick at the plate. I looked longingly at the bits of nan and papadom and, sigh, the yogurt clumps. Oh, those beautiful yogurt clumps. Please come home with me, little yogurt clumps, please be my BFF!

New problem: what to tip? What did our meal cost? If there was a sign, we missed it.

We only had four ones (and no fives), so we went with that. I was sure it would put us close to 20%, but I forgot about Mike's Coke. The final bill was about $25 (I'm still not sure because Mike paid), so the tip was within the acceptable zone for good service (unless you're one of those people who now considers 20% the minimum - if so, sorry - and then there's the whole other issue of "buffet tipping" that it hurts my head to even think about discussing), but next time we'll know.

Afterward we made our first trip to the Riviera, and it's not even being imploded, so I don't know what got into us. It's the nicest of the north end properties (Stratosphere, Sahara, Circus Circus, the pile of dirt that was the Stardust... I don't count the Wynn as north-north). We signed up for slot cards and got a whole dollar each of free play. Whee.

Three observations about the Riviera:

• I'm pretty sure anyone can get into their pool. I don't know if they're supposed to, but no one was checking room cards and no signs about being a guest were about. It sure did look inviting, too.
• The steps down into the restroom, with the lounge and the padded furniture and all that? Very nice.
• Their ICE show looks pretty neat. I bet a lot of people think that this time of the year, though.

We also checked the half-price ticket booth next door. Nada, but the fans were welcome.

We went back past the Riviera, passing the statue of a well-known sight around town: the back ends of the Crazy Girls performers. Flickr is full of photos of men, um, interacting with the structure. Mike refused. So I told him I'd do it and he could take the picture. "Ahhh! No! No way!" So I said, well, we have to take some kind of picture. "No! We're better than that!"

(No, honey, we're not.)

Then it was over to Circus Circus (Slots-a-Fun advertised free ice water, but again, those extra 25 feet!) where I finally got to see the midway upstairs and where the circus acts go. I'd been waiting two and a half decades for the experience and... well, maybe I'll give it a second chance when school is back in session. Never mind the midway or even the Adventuredome (below), there were so many kids pressing the borders of the casino section that it was all pretty unpleasant.

(Not that kids themselves are unpleasant, but they have unpredictable flight patterns when you're trying to walk around them; put a whole bunch of them together, and I challenge any air traffic controller to bring half of us in safely.)

All in all, a good day. Not like today, when I have to go to the bank to deposit a refund check, and even though it should only be 94 when the bank opens, I do have to wonder what I'd pay just to just stay in the tower, looking at those 25 feet from a very comfortable distance.

Comments

[Heather in Emmaus]

that DOES it. I've been craving indian food for a week now!

Were those yogurt balls malai kofta? And sag paneer - that's the spinach thing you had. Yum. those are two of my faves. You lost me on the cilantro thing, though. I hate the stuff (unless someone has already put it into Thai food, then I can tolerate it). Tastes like soap. Blegh.

As for baby poop and licking diapers - I've got a ready source. Any time you want to visit for a sniff or a lick, come on over. :)

[Shari]

The yogurt balls were called "punjabi curry" - alas, that seems to be a catch-all name for lots of things? (At least so far I'm banging my head on the wall for Googling a recipe.)

No cilantro?! But it's my fave! Actually, isn't the soap-smell issue one of those genetically predisposed thingies? Like being able to roll your tongue - either you can or you can't? So, I will forgive you on the grounds that you were born "cilantro challenged." *duck* :)

[Heather in PA]

Hee hee. I suppose so. I *can* roll my tongue, so I suppose that's some consolation. I also can't detect the 'asparagus thing' (sorry if that's TMI) and I can't see the 3D images in those stupid hidden image posters. THOSE, I am convinced don't actually work and anyone who claims otherwise probably insists the emperor's new garments are fine indeed. ;)