all this talk...

in other people's blogs about indian food at Taj Mahal is making me crazy. sure, it has only been two weeks since we were at Little India; reading about the meals has made me crazy ;)

i think i have mentioned it before, but we usually order saag paneer (creamed spinach with cubes of cheese), chicken vindaloo (or madras, since they're equally hot), and kabli (or kabuli) naan (naan made with cherries, nuts, and raisins)...which can double as a dessert.

we like jalfrazie, masalas, tandoori, and bhunas too. as for biryani...let's just say i'm picky about fried rice, whether it's Indian style, Thai, or Japanese. and once in a while, we'll stray and order onion bhaji or some samosas....mmmm.

for the last three nights, we've gone out to eat. tuesday, we went to Taki's (Colfax and Logan). food is always good and VERY affordable. they have combos that have meat, veggies (both fresh and pickled...edamame too), a bowl of rice, and a bowl of ginger miso soup (great for fighting the flu)...all for $5.58! you can substitute brown rice for 50 cents more or yakisoba for 75 cents. definitely one of the best deals in town!

last night, we headed out to Aurora...to a Thai restaurant that we had only tried once before (with mixed results). well, this time we were armed with a BOGO coupon! btw, the restaurant is Thai Flavor, near Peoria and Mississippi. we ordered jungle curry w/ beef (usually a spicy curry w/ green beans, thai eggplant, lotsa ginger, onions, carrots, peppers) and pad kra prow w/ chicken. and in typical lois fashion, she ordered it hot!

kinda funny because the waitress said, 'you sure? it's gonna be really hot! on a scale of one to five, you want a five?' yep...she was right. even a bit too hot for lois, someone who can eat pure fire ;) funnier was the fact that the cook nonchalantly came out from the kitchen to see who was crazy enough to eat a five! i don't think it was 'Thai' hot though. i once was mistakenly given Thai hot in Florida once. gawd, i could NOT finish that dish. the sweat was hanging off my...glasses ;)

i ordered my jungle curry medium heat, just so we wouldn't be crying the whole time. i was lucky because she ate very little rice (probably compounding her suffering), which allowed me to chow down and kill some of the heat from her dish.

it was a better experience than the last time, when i think we ordered chicken panang (thick red curry w/ ground peanuts but no veggies), pad thai (which needed improvement) and beef salad (not much better). but hey, they hadn't been open for long and were probably working out the kinks.

ooh, our splurge was an order of fried bananas! they flash fried those babies in a good batter (slightly pink in color) and drizzled honey and powdered sugah on top! mmmmm...the six pieces were hot, gloriously crunchy and slightly sweet. in fact, it was only the last piece that was a bit mushy inside.

afterwards, we wandered on over to the neighboring business, a Mexican butchershop with a few aisles of groceries. really nice people. the butcher was a young kid from the state of Sinaloa (where Mazatlan is located). he was super enthusiastic about his products. he was going on and on, raving and gesticulating wildly with every display of meat. the quality looked real high though...he even gave us a free sample of their chorizo - good and spicy.

so we just got some limes, Goya adobo seasoning, some Gansitos (my weakness when it comes to Mexican junk food...it's basically a Chocodile with cream and strawberry jam filling...with a touch of coconut flavor), and a bottle of Sidral (apple soda sold by Mundet - the BEST apple pop you'll ever taste!).

tonight, we were bad and went to Gyros Place (Colfax and Detroit). they have awesome Greek Veggie omelets and Gyros w/ eggs...think we were in the mood for breakfast? if there's one thing that Greek diners (not the eaters but the buildings) are notorious, is cheap breakfast...with massive portions ;)

stuffed, we passed by the Queen Soopers on 9th & Corona (which i'm sure brings back some vivid memories with Lowa, Denny, and Dy). recently, we found this Soopers to have some killer deals on natural ground beef and had been exploiting their supply for the last couple months.

i don't know what it is, but they don't sell that much of it and are forced to reduce the price by half after 6PM...a great deal considering this meat is $6.19/lb. i guess the demographics of the area aren't very conducive to selling a lot of natural ground beef (save the mad cow comments...). i think the higher percentage of vegetarians and the more marginal incomes add up to savings for us ;)

some bad news though. they must have caught on to our meat-buying escapades; the packages were just $2 off tonight :( not all was for naught though. we scored on some just reduced beef tenderloin, ribeyes, and even oxtails (which are NEVER on sale).

soooo, our carnivorous catch and fridge o' veggies mean we'll be cooking for the next week and dreaming of Indian cuisine...sigh. when is Apu gonna make Homer some naan? 'Mmmm...vindaloo.'