Taj of India, Georgetown, D.C.

After our big, late lunch in Bethesda yesterday afternoon, Kevin drove me back down to Foggy Bottom to return me home. Shortly after I got in, Leo came home from the gym and was all hungry, and started badgering me to go with him to eat. Eventually around eight, I acquiesced and re-dressed, so we walked over to Georgetown to Taj of India. Taj is a place on the far eastern end of Georgetown that we've often passed by on our trips to La Chaumière, Zed's, Don Lobos, and the former Au Pied Bistro, but we'd never actually gone to Taj. So, last night was its big night.

The decor at Taj is typical for Indian restaurants in the District. Tables are covered with white linens. Indian-themed art covers the walls. The dining room is more heavily staffed than other non-Indian establishments. Menu choices were fairly standard. Leo did, however, discover a couple of "full dinners" in the house specialities section that got us variety platters plus raita plus dessert, so that's what we did.

We started with the taj appetizer platter. This had a couple of fried chickpea fritters, vegetable samosas, beef seekh kebabs, and some particularly juicy and tasty morsels of chicken kebabs. For main courses, Leo ordered the Taj Tali platter, and I had the Indian Tali platter, both of which we shared. His platter included chicken makhani, with big chunks of chicken in a smooth, tomato-based sauce; lamb roganjosh in a spicy brown sauce; and beef saag, combining the beef with a nice, cooked spinach. My platter had saag paneer (spinach and chunks of Indian farmer cheese; I thought their cheese was just a touch chewy), vegetable curry, and bengan bhartha (roasted vegetables). Both platters came with some particularly delicious creamed daal (lentils), raita (yogurt sauce with cucumbers), naan bread, and basmati rice.

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Since dessert came with the dinner, even though we were already full, we went ahead and ordered. Leo got mango kulfi, or traditional ice cream, and I got the rice pudding called kheer.



My assessment of Taj? The food was okay, and even had a few surprising, delicious moments. Their great shortcoming, though, was the service. While that's always annoying at any restaurant, it's unusual and surprising at an Indian restaurant, where there normally is too much staff and they are at times almost overly attentive. We had several long moments of no service. Our table for four was fully set when we sat down, and an assistant removed the extra settings with noise and great clanking of glasses—it was the same at other tables, and I'm amazed none of the stemware broke. When I finished my little tiny pot of masala tea, I left the lid off so they could see it was empty and they never asked me if I wanted a refill (the refills are free here). No one ever asked Leo if he wanted another wine once his glass was empty. After we finished our main courses, we waited a long time to have our dessert orders taken. Then, once our dessert arrived, it wasn't sixty seconds before our waiter brought our check.....but then we had to wait a long time for it to be picked up and the cards run! I don't know what their problem was, since the restaurant was fairly full but never packed or bustling. Perhaps it was an off night. I don't know.