Friday, September 03, 2004

Go to Neelam's on Greenwood!

I feel sad that we've only gone there today and all this time, it could have been one of our favorite Indian places in Seattle.

All I had was the dahl and a roti, which the owner at first questioned: "Do you know what dahl is? It's more like a side dish." But it was all I wanted and a whole order is plenty of food. And as we chatted with him after the meal, he said I'd eaten like an Indian: scooping the spicy lentils up with pieces of bread. Mm, mm.

Kevin opted for the $9.95 meal platter with more dahl, raita (which I stole and he didn't try), yellow rice, channa masala, and a naan. A damn good naan, too. The owner, larger man (who admitted to being diabetic), noted Kevin's skinniness and begged him to eat more, bringing additional rice and dahl until Kevin was completely full. The owner smiled and told us that is how you feed someone in India--keep bringing them food until they beg you to stop. I remarked they must be full at that point, and he laughed and shook his head. "Not full. Content," he told me.

We also learned about fruits. Kevin ordered a mango juice, which on first taste he thought was too tangy to be just the juice, that it didn't taste like mango juice normally does, so he asked the owner. The owner began telling us about the many varieties of mango--how some, like the ones normally used to create the pulp that's used for bottled mango juice, are gigantic, their name translating to "jackass" or "donkey," and that they often have flies inside them and the flesh is the texture of banana, and that they are oversweetened. The mango juice he served Kevin, on the other hand, was from a good variety of mango, not too sweet, a bit sour, and a much better texture.

And then he brought out a glass of the regular stuff to prove his point.

The stuff he served originally was definitely better.

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