Chandi...well at least it was cheap

I really wanted to like Chandni. An inexpensive, all vegetarian, Indian restaurant only a few minutes from home, what more could I want? Unfortunately the food just wasn't that great and it left me feeling so awful the next day that it’s hard to remember even the few good points of the meal for writing this post. Oh well, they can't all be winners and I guess that is part of the fun trying new things. My friend I went with took some pictures with her oh-so-cool camera so I will post those as soon as she sends them to me.

We arrived at the restaurant starving and put in an immediate order for the appetizer sampler. This came out with a variety of Indian appetizers including Samasoa ( super yummy!), Panerer Pakors, and some papdums with spicy mint and milk tamarind chutneys. The papdums were tasty but I didn’t care too much for the chutneys. Both were too runny and the spicy mint was too spicy and mild tamarind was too mild. All of the fried fitters were really good with a good amount of spice and heat. I think if I had known that those were going to be the highlight of the meal I would have savored them more.

For the main course we each ordered one dish to share and then a single order of rice and nan. The three dishes we got were Alu Ghobhi(potatoes and cauliflower cooked with fresh ginger and herbs) , Bhara Began (eggplant stuffed with our special combination of vegetables & herbs with chef's secret recipe sauce), and Khumb Curry(fresh mushrooms and green peas cooked with fresh tomatoes. onions and herbs). Looking back maybe we didn’t make the best choices of dishes for variety but all three dishes were covered in the same colored orange sauce. I couldn’t really tell if the sauce was creamy or not and I guess each one did have its own subtle differences but they all looked so similar that it all the flavors kind of ran together. It didn’t taste too bad while I was eating it although it was a little mild for Indian food. I really enjoyed the eggplant dish and how the eggplant would just dissolve the instant it touched your tongue. The flavors got old real fast (maybe since it all tasted almost the same). The rice was nothing special and the nan was kind of blah. I think it might have helped if we had order some dal or one of the green dishes. I left the restaurant rather disappointed and even though it was cheap, the $1.99 Indian meals from Trader Joe’s are even cheaper and a lot better!

The Good: its all vegetarian so I can eat anything on the menu

The Bad: uhhh...the food...hehe

The Yummy: hmmm....well I guess the appertizers weren't too shabby, but they were all fried

Recipe: double chocolate chip cookie dough yogurt that is frozen....

That's it, Im throwing in the cheesecloth...this was my final attempt at making frozen yogurt. I have come to realization that you cannot make homemade frozen yogurt that doesn't taste, well, like yogurt. In typing that statement, I realize how silly that is but that stuff they call frozen yogurt that one buys at the store doesn't taste like yogurt. It doesn't taste like ice cream either so I'm not quite sure what it is. Since this recipe turned out horrible Im not even going to bother posting it. The only good part of it was the chunks of double chocolate chip cookie dough that I added. I would have rather just ate the cookie dough plan and save the calories from the frozen yogurt. This recipe froze super solid over night and the tanginess intensified making it completely inedible the following night. Oh well, it was an experience. I still have some cookie dough so I think I will make an ice cream version with that, maybe my new goal will be to perfect a super tastey low-fat homemade ice cream recipe.