:) = Tasty and authentic North Indian cuisine in a great location. Cozy atmosphere for adults. Validated parking if you park in the deck next to the restaurant. Attentive servers.
:( = This isn't a good place to take kids, despite what Yelp says.
We chose this Midtown (Crescent St. area) restaurant because:
A) We love Indian food.
B) Mommy was excited to see a new Indian restaurant pop up in Midtown.
C) Yelp said that the restaurant is "Good For Kids." (Mommy always checks the "Good For Kids" category on Yelp before taking us to a restaurant.)
We arrived around 6:30 PM to find that Tabla is a sophisticated, dimly lit establishment with beautiful dark wood fixtures and a gorgeous glass wine display right in the middle of the dining room. The smattering of diners were dressed in business casual attire and spoke in low tones. Not exactly a toddler venue! Mommy looked afraid as soon as we stepped inside - and the host at the front door did, too. Nonetheless, he greeted us with a warm - gulp! - smile and showed us to a table.
Our server won Mommy over by immediately bringing two to-go cups of water with lids to the table, without her having to ask. He totally stole her heart when he brought out a basket of papadam (which is like a big, crispy cracker) and 3 different chutneys. We loved dipping the crunchy papadam into the chutneys - and the chutneys came with little tiny spoons that were just our size.
To start the meal, we ate vegetable samosas and lamb kebabs. The samosas were perfect - crisp on the outside, gooey on the inside, and not too spicy. The lamb kebabs surprised us because they were not on sticks. We were disappointed that we wouldn't get some sticks to play with during our meal, but Mommy was relieved. The lamb kebabs were a little too spicy for our tiny tongues, though. I think Mommy would have liked them better if they had been served with raita to cool them down.
For our entrees, we got saag paneer (a green spinach and cheese dish that we called "Ninja Turtle soup") and vegetable korma (we called it "pumpkin soup" because it was orange), along with a bowl of basmati rice. We also ordered a basket of garlic naan. Mommy showed us how to tear the bread and dip it into the colorful sauces. That was fun until Mommy told us to stop painting the table. We ate some of the saag paneer, but the vegetable korma was a little too spicy. The garlic naan was our favorite, though - it had just enough garlic to keep us interested, but not so much that it made our tummies hurt. We ended up ordering another basket.
For dessert we had pistachio kulfi (it was kind of like frozen greek yogurt). We ate the entire plate of pistachio kulfi, even though it was hard for us to spoon into because it was so frozen.
Even though Yelp says this restaurant is kid-friendly, and the staff was really nice to us, we aren't going to go back until we have our own jobs, car payments, and mortgages. It's a better spot for a Mommy-Daddy night out.
 |
| "Can I paint my plate with this naan?" |
 |
| "This pistachio kulfi is amazing!" |
No comments:
Post a Comment