British Columbia: A Taste of India Vancouver

On the way in from the airport, I asked our cab driver, who was from the Punjab region of India, where there was a good Indian Restaurant. "You are lucky," he said, "it is right down the block from your hotel." A Taste of India" was his suggestion and I must concur, this was very good Indian food.

I like to think of myself as a bit of an Indian food snob. Having tasted some fabulous food in England, both from India and Bangladesh, I find the food in the states lacking. I’m not quite sure what is wrong with it, but it never tastes as good as what I get overseas. I have even had fabulous Indian food in Munich. So I was hoping to replicate my experience in Vancouver, and I did.

#atasteofIndiaVancouver

We dropped in at about 2:30 in the afternoon, too late for lunchtime and too early for dinner. The lunch menu was still in effect so I ordered the curry special, hot. Al is not a big fan of ethnic food of any type except Italian so it took a little convincing on my part to get him here. I also convinced him to let me order for him since even he admits I know what he will like better than he does. One thing I know for sure is he doesn’t like heat so I needed to get a mild sauce. They offered beef korma shahi ( I know, this surprised me too) in a mild yogurt and thick cream sauce with almonds and exotic spices; sounded safe to me.

They had an excellent selection of beers both domestic and imported. It was a hard decision because it’s not every day that we get to drink Indian beer, but we went with the Granville Island Cypress Honey Lager. Our meal began with some papadum, which is a spiced lentil cracker, and a sampling of raita and mango chutney. The dips were both cooling and burning, an amazing blending of tastes. We were very glad for our pint of lager to put out the fire.

My curry was so hot, my nose dripped - it was wonderful and it was served with chaati, rice pilau, and chutney. As good as mine was, Al’s was outstanding. The beef was fork tender and the sauce, oh that sauce, it was so good I ended up putting some of it on my rice. Really exceptional.

The atmosphere was typical with hanging lamps and pictures of what I would describe as the Kama Sutra with clothing. The tables are close and I would imagine it would be noisy when filled, but I highly recommend that you give this restaurant a try, you won’t be disappointed.