Do you ever have find yourself in the middle of an evening after a long day of hard work, and it’s nearly dinner time and even though you have plenty of food to prepare in the refrigerator, you’re just too tired to care? On those evenings, do you sometimes also find that you don’t have the interest in devoting an hour or more to sitting in a restaurant, but also don’t feel like stomaching fast food? When situations such as that arise, we have a handful places from which we order reliably good takeout. Bombay Bistro is one of them.
When you hear the name Bombay Bistro, you think corny, Americanized, marketed. Due to its proximity, one evening some time ago, we gave it a shot. It was wonderful. The interior was absolutely beautiful, the smells from the kitchen were captivating, and the food was just downright tasty. Plus they have papadums to nibble on while you wait for your food. We call them Indian nachos, and they are heavenly good. While all that was great (and I really should write more about it next time we eat there), the true genius came when my ever-forward-thinking spouse grabbed their takeout menu.
Yesterday evening, after the fiasco with the paint, I decided I didn’t feel like cooking dinner and instead, after careful thought, pleaded for the vegetarian sampler from Bombay Bistro. The sampler provides an amazing array of vegetarian Indian delights. There’s a samosa, some pakoras, some extremely delicious saag paneer, malai kofta (vegetable dumplings in a creamy sauce), aloo gobhi (cauliflower and potatoes spiced to perfection), roti, some rice pilaf, cucumber salad, raita, and a dessert of either gulab jamun (sort of a fritter of milk-solids soaked in sugar syrup) or kheer (a richly flavored rice pudding, my husband’s favorite). What’s fascinating to me is that the vegetarian sampler is listed as dinner for one. I’m here to tell you that it easily satisfies both me and my over-eating spouse and we’re usually too full when we’re done (I’m sure the order of naan we always purchase to go with it doesn’t help). It never fails to satisfy, and this evening was no exception. We even had some leftover naan that reheated beautifully in the oven the next day to accompany our lunch.
Here is the mildly funny new experience this meal brought us. For the first time, we wound up getting the gulab jamun for dessert instead of the kheer. I don’t usually have any room left by the time we get to dessert, and my husband happily consumes his kheer and we’re both happy. This time though, he poked at the fritters floating in sugar syrup and eyed them with uncertainty. I love nothing better than to try out new things, so I picked one up and had a taste. It was … different. The dessert was definitely too sweet for me, but the texture was actually really pleasant, and if they had been soaking in some of the savory sauces from earlier, I probably would’ve wolfed them down. After realizing I had tried the odd looking dessert and didn’t retch in disgust, my husband ate the rest of it, proclaiming instantly that he preferred the kheer.
