When I told my friend Daniella that I had never had Indian food before, she couldn’t believe it. “But you have a food blog!” she said. “You HAVE to try Indian!” So off we went to Calcuta in Madrid’s Lavapies neighborhood, which houses most Indian and ethnic restaurants. Now I have nothing against Indian cuisine, I just had never sought it out before (probably due to my aversion to curry). I figured I’d try it when someone took me to an Indian restaurant.
While perusing the menu, we were presented with crunchy flat bread and two dipping sauces. One was a medley of onions, cucumbers and scallions in a sort of creamy-mayonaissey sauce. The other was a minty cream sauce with a variety of herbs mixed in. The minty sauce wasn’t for me, so I munched on the onion salsa as I pretended to understand the menu.
Munchies
I had no idea what to order or what most things meant, so I let my friends take the reins. They ordered various chicken dishes, like tikka and tikka masala, and chose a spinach dish for me. The server asked me if I’d like naan or rice with that, and considering I had no idea what naan was, I chose the rice. I didn’t know what to expect from my order, whether I’d love it or hate it, but I was excited to try something new. When it came out, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was a sort of creamed spinach with melted cheese blocks mixed in. Combined with the blandness of the rice, it was a delicious meal. Creamy and sweet from the, well, cream, yet tangy from the cheese and bitter from the spinach. And the rice had various herbs on it which only contributed to the flavor explosion.
My first foray into Indian
I also stole some of my friends’ garlic naan and dipped that into the creamed spinach, which was also delicious. In fact so delicious, that I proceeded to finish their naan. The garlic combined well with the flavors, and the sweet bread was a nicer texture with the creamy dish than the rice. I’ll know to order naan in the future.
After the meal, our server offered us complimentary shots–a nice finishing touch. But my goodwill buzz toward him only lasted so long. When we got the check, we realized that the rice and naan was not included in the price of our meal, yet our server had asked us which one we wanted with each of our dishes. To me, when a server asks that, it means it comes with the dish. But, it was still relatively cheap, so no big deal.
So how was my first Indian experience? Pretty damn good! I’m ready to try again.
Our deceptively friendly server
Calcuta, Madrid, Spain
