Adventures in Eating

I've been lucky. I was blessed by an abundant appetite (some might say too abundant but who am I to question it?), an avid interest in world cuisine and the opportunity to experience the food of many cultures without ever leaving my home town.

Las Vegas has always been the melting pot of the melting pot of America. Tell me a country or region and I'm pretty sure I can find you a group of people in Las Vegas who are from there, within a generation or so. Las Vegas truly welcomes everyone (I think that should be our next city slogan..."We don't care who you are as long as you leave some money at the tables." And Las Vegas has always embraced food. My grandmother would tell stories of the great midnight buffets on the strip while we ate tamales made by a lady down the street.

Part of my culinary education is due to the fact that my mother and grandmother liked to explore new cuisine as well. When I was growing up, once a week my mother would go to visit her mother. I'm sure it was much more enjoyable for them when my brother and I were in school but during summer breaks we would go along with them. It almost always involved shopping and lunch. Most of the time when we tagged along it was shopping at Kmart and lunch at The Country Inn (a much beloved but now gone restaurant that specialized in turkey, including wonderful turkey sandwiches on these amazing little yeast rolls.) But when we weren't along, or when my picky little brother wasn't with us, we would go to ethnic restaurants and crazy little ethnic stores that were treasure troves of the different, unusual or exotic. So through them I learned to appreciate Middle Eastern, Thai, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Greek, Cuban, Indian and a host of other types of food. I still love these cuisines today, although most of the time when we go out we eat American, Mexican, Italian, Chinese or Middle Eastern food, because my brother is with us, and while he is more adventurous than he used to be, he's still not quite as far along as we are.

Which leads me to last nights dinner. In an effort to get more stuff for decorating the house with, we spent the afternoon shopping and then went to dinner (ah, so reminiscent of days gone by, except back then we didn't have to lug a wheelchair everywhere.) There is a little shopping center not far from our house that while it has seen better days is still a good place to shop and eat (there is a Target and a Red Lobster so you got your chains covered). In a little section away from the Target there is little restaurant that has been many things. You know the kind I'm talking about, it seems to go out of business every six months or so, then like a phoenix arises as something new. This one has been a pizza place, a Brazilian rodizio, a family breakfast place, a gosh only knows what and now and Indian restaurant. India's Grill.

We hadn't been in the place since it was The Batter Beater. We only went there once, when it was newly open, because we remembered the original Batter Beater, a much liked breakfast place from when I was a kid. The food was fine but not as great as the memories of old and we weren't surprised when it went under. It then became the Insala Grill or something like it, honestly I didn't pay too much attention to that incarnation. I did laugh when it became India's Grill because they kept most of the same signage, thus saving the new owners from having to buy much more than a 'd' and an apostrophe. But I didn't think much about eating there until my mom read a review in Las Vegas Weekly, a lifestyle magazine I pick up free for her whenever I see one. The reviewer called the shopping center and the part of town that it's in "dreary-looking" and since it's my neighborhood I took a little offence. My mom read the whole review and he praised the food for its quality and said it was very reasonably priced. That was enough to convince my mother we had to try it. I was game so off we went, after a successful shopping expedition.

The decor hasn't changed much at all since the Batter beater days, when it was decorated to resemble a 1950's diner with pink walls and red booths and pictures of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe on the wall. The walls and booths remain, with Elvis and Marilyn replaced by black velvet paintings of Indian looking people and a few streamers of red and gold hanging in the window. If it hadn't smelled so wonderful we might have turned around. But we got ourselves to a table (they were very nice to The Graminator and ver accommodating of the wheelchair so bonus points for them) and ordered water (yes, we are cheap but also because water is good for you) and I ordered a mango lassi because it had been a long time since I had one. It was one of the best I've ever had, with fresh sweet mango. It was also one of the largest, served in a big Coca-Cola glass (I'm guessing these were left over from the diner too.) The $2.50 price tag was very reasonable, especially given the size. I started feeling guilty about ordering it but since it was shared by my mom and The Graminator (who drank the lion's share) I didn't feel too bad.

The menu at India's Grill is extensive, with over 90 items on the menu. And the prices are cheap. Like about half of what you would pay at other Indian restaurants in the city. With such a huge selection we were a little overwhelmed until I found the "India's Grill Specials" section of the menu. On it was a vegetarian or non-vegetarian Thali, which I think is Indian for 'buffet'. It is a large silver platter with little bowls of a lot of stuff on it. Like a smorgasbord of choices and we decided to get it to try a variety of things and gauge the quality of the food. So mom got the vegetarian option and I got the meat eaters special and we got an order of samosas for The Graminator and decided to just share it all. The samosas were huge and mildly spiced and fried very crispy. My mother's thali came with another samosa and onion bhaji appetizers, mixed vegetable curry and palak paneer (Indian cheese with spinach and spices) as the entrees plus dal makhani (a lentil stew with onions and tomatoes and spices), a delicious cucumber raita, rice, naan bread and kheer, an Indian rice pudding. Along with the raita, naan, dal makhani and kheer, my thali came with chicken tikka curry and lamb kahri as the entrees and a tandoori chicken leg as the appetizer (since I'm a white meat girl the leg was given to The Graminator.) Everything was so good but the stand-outs were the nann (I LOVE fresh naan) the chicken curry (I want more now, right now) the palak paneer, the samosas and the raita. And the kheer, the Indian rice pudding was so good I ate all of mine then got an order to go, to eat while we were watching TV last night. It's not thick like American rice pudding, but milky and sweet and really refreshing. I wanted to gobble it all up.

The decor isn't all that awesome and when we first went in they had Game Show Network on the television. But as the sun set and they changed the TV to a Bollywood music video channel it improved a lot. We had so much fun watching the videos that we ended up staying at the restaurant for two hours. No one rushed us and everyone checked in to make sure we were doing okay and that we fond the food satisfactory. It was excellent. And the total bill? Well, for one lassi, two enormous thalis (which had enough left over from the three of us eating it that we still had enough to bring home for lunch today, except no chicken curry, I ate all of that) and order of samosa's and a to go order of kheer, with tax and tip it came to $36 bucks. And I tip well, especially when people talk to The Graminator and treat her with respect. They do take out but then we wouldn't get to watch the Bollywood videos. My mom wants to go back just for naan and lassi on a hot day, but I'm hoping we go back a lot before then. So good. MMMMM.

So if you're ever in a "dreary" part of town, like the part around 95 and Decatur and feel like exploring a little cuisine wise, ignore the strip mall diner feel and fill yourself up on some really incredible Indian food (the chef is from Goa and if you call ahead to give him some time he'll prepare you a Goan feast) for a cheap price. India's Grill, 222 S. Decatur, Suite C-101. Call me, I'll join you!