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Taj Mahal II: Electric Vindaloo
By: The Law Reviewers
Thanks to globalization, there is finally Indian food in the Central Business District (or the CentBizDiz to those of us who just made that up), let’s hear it! Nope, we’re not talking about Stephan Pyles’ latest foray into East Asian/Middle Eastern/WhateverSideoftheBedheWokeupon fusion, but the cleverly-named Taj Mahal, which is the bold newcomer to the West End/El Centro/Creepy Empty Parking Garage cheap lunch scene on the west side of downtown (711 Elm St., (214) 741-4225, sorry, no web site, we looked). This is not to be confused with the beloved and longtime Taj Mahal restaurant located at Central Expressway and Meadow Lane, or with the other 5,421 Taj Mahal restaurants located in every country but India.
This new Taj Mahal looks a lot like the former Bar & Grill it replaced (it even still says "Bar & Grill" in the window) with some inexpensive tables and chairs spread throughout a pretty bare open dining space. A tandoori oven in the kitchen is about the only Indian touch in the place other than the food. The big non-Indian atmospheric highlight was a flat screen tv featuring re-runs of the Jimmy Caan soap Las Vegas with special guest star Jean Claude Van Damme (he was available). The first two weeks of Taj Mahal’s existence featured a $5.99 lunch buffet with awkward drink service. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you are a wealthy germaphobe, the lunch buffet was just an introductory deal. Henceforth, Taj Mahal is order-from-the-menu only, but with the same awkward service, and, while the quality was better when we ordered off the menu, we preferred the problems of the buffet to a $16 okay Indian lunch.
When we sampled the buffet on our first visit, the chaana masala was tied for the largest disappointment. Chaana masala, or chickpeas in spicy sauce (that’s Easttexasspeak), is a simple and ubiquitous dish in Indian cuisine. Think charro beans or bbq beans. But the chickpeas here were raw and it was painfully obvious that the sauce was added to the garbanzos at the last minute -- inexcusable for an Indian restaurant, even in its first week. The other ubiquitous Indian dish, chicken tikka masala, consisted of burned chicken and a bland tomato cream sauce. If the chaana and chicken tikka masala isn’t good, that’s not a good sign. At least the chicken was of decent quality; too often we’ve seen the lesser chicken parts hidden in tikka masala sauce. Strangely enough – or perhaps smartly enough – these two items do not appear on the menu (the chicken tikka masala may be labeled as chicken curry on the menu ($10.99), but we were not about to spend eleven bucks to find out). The buffet saved itself with fluffy basmati rice, acceptable tandoori chicken pieces, an interesting beef masala (holy cow? apparently not), and standard-issue dal (lentil soup).
On our return visit, the buffet and its six dollar bargain was gone. The menu is priced the same for lunch and dinner, and was on the pricey side for the d?cor/location/quality. But, the quality was better a la carte, and Taj Mahal finally passed muster for one of the three items needed for a successful Indian restaurant in the western hemisphere other than chaana and chicken tikka masala: samosas ($2.99, two per order). Piping hot and properly crispy on the outside, the potato and pea pastries were a little on the too-spicy side but otherwise on the mark. Standard-issue mint chutney was strangely paired with ramekins of ketchup and Pace picante sauce (This stuff’s made in New Delhi!? Get a rope!!), so our awkwardly quiet team of servers quickly replaced one of the ketchups with the standard tamarind chutney.
Aloo gobi ($8.99), another standard vegetable dish consisting of potatoes, cauliflower and onions was the best dish we tried on both visits. The potatoes and cauliflower were appropriately spiced and the bowl was scaldingly hot, as if a fresh batch was whipped up just for us. On the server’s recommendation, we tried the goat curry ($12.99). The chunks of goat meat and bone in the onion “gravy” were a little intimidating, but the meat was tender and the gravy was sweat-inducingly spicy. We also ordered one “simple” naan ($1.59), or flatbread cooked in the tandoor oven, which had a nice crispy crust and a fluffy inside, although we could have done without the clarified butter smeared on top.
All in all, Taj Mahal is a welcome addition to the downtown dining scene, but we fear for its future, as the price-for-the-quality leaves much to be desired. Perhaps some lunch specials would help. Some name confusion may help, too.
On our famous Bollywood five-gavel scale, where five gavels is the rain dance scene between Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan in “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,” and one gavel is the totally unnecessary scene in “Magadheera” with Bramhanandam and Hema that did nothing to further the plotless plot, we give the downtown Taj Mahal two gavels, or the proposal dance scene in "Fast Forward" where Akshay Kapoor’s character proposes to Bhavna Pani’s character.
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