Tiffinwalah - An amazing meal

It is hardly a novelty to find good food in NYC, one can get almost anything that ones heart desires. This was a rainy sleepyI afternoon, my favorite kind of eweather, cool but not too cold, wet but more a rainy mist rather than pouring rain. I would have loved to walk miles and miles, but since I could not I settled for the next best thing - to walk a few blocks to find a place that caught my eye. Tiffin, in Indian parlance, referrs to snack and in South Indian cuisine this refers to items such as Dosa (lentil and rice flour crepes.

The restaurant was vegetarian, and had a simple fairly South Indian menu. What was amazing about the place was how well, it hadher created a wonderful, homey atmosphese with very little fuss.
The ambience was simple but had lots of simple character - ther decor consisted of steel Indian tiffin carriers, there are layers containers joined with a carry on handle. Each compartment is for a separate dish to make a complete meal. The simple small tables all had little ivy plants. The buffet self service had large plates and for a nice and very homey touch lots of steel bowls. A very simple accent but again very authentic and very Indian. The small tables had little ivy plants as centerpieces and a corner of the restaurant had a bookshelf and a tiny alter to Krishna.

Nothing still had prepared me for the wonder and delight of their food. My taste buds woke up with the pure crisp sharpness of black pepper in the vadas (lentil dumplings), sang with the taste of fresh ajowan in the spinach whole wheat flat breads and was cooled and satiated by the fragrant mint and cilantro chutney and cool tangy raita. I wanted to eat five times more, but time and my stomach were full. I will be back and highly recommend checking it out if your are in that neck of the woods.

Tiffinwalah
127 East 28th Street
New York City
http://www.tiffinwallah.us/

Ps. The food is very affordably priced as well.

Chinese Mirch

There are several fusion variations of food, that are naturally inherent in Indian cooking – a combination of cross border influences and of course cross cultural migration. The Indo-Chinese cuisine in my assessment is probably the most popular (certainly in India) of these hybrids.

While we do not have any Indo-Chinese food in Westchester ( we only barely got a Ethiopian place, and now I want it all!), just across the border in Stamford, CT we have a couple of interesting finds. We stopped by Chinese Mirch (translates to Chinese Chili, mirch is Chili in Hindi) just on the spur of things to try out a thing or two, the place certainly does not disappoint. The décor of red and black is festive yet modern and the red is a nice change from the brick red or earthier tones that are more Indian.
We had gone earlier in the evening, and the place was really just warming up, however the staff were warm and spurred into action to accommodate us. We tried a few of their dishes and liked most of them. Their rock shrimp is quite addictive I could probably eat platters of these crisp little sweet shrimp nuggets every day. The rock shrimp was served with two dipping sauces – a sweet sauce and a more savory chili garlic sauce, both the sauces were nice and varied on the palate but not overly spicy. We also had an order of the crispy orka, which essentially had cut the vegetable into thin long shoestring pieces and coated with batter and fried them. This was good but could have been a little lighter on the batter.
Now, the restaurant takes its chili ratings seriously. We had the chili basil fish that was labeled with three chilies and I have to tell you that this fish was spicy! Very flavorful though! Lastly, we also had an order of their chicken Manchurian, this dish while flavor and well done was a little disappointing, in that it lacked the crispy punch usually associated with the dish. All in all, we liked the place a lot and if you have not tried Indo-Chinese food, take a drive to Stamford and I do not think you will be disappointed.
BTW, out of sheer co-incidence I stopped by their NYC branch for a takeout! While the food here was just as good the space was more constricted but not cramped.


As Liz ( I know she only does) would say, the 411 on Chinese Mirch is,

Chinese Mirch
35 Altantic Street
Stamford, CT 06906
http://www.chinesemirch.com/ct_stamford.h

So, please do take the initiative to cross the statelines and do take me along to visit this rather delectable spicy find.