Jyoti Indian Cuisine, Washington, D.C.

It's been a long time since we've had Indian food. There really aren't that many places in the District, and not that many of them that I've tried have impressed me. We were in Adams-Morgan Friday night, and just happened upon Jyoti Indian Cuisine while en route to another place (it was French, wasn't it?), and decided to give it a try. It was a good decision.

Jyoti is a typical Adams-Morgan restaurant with a sidewalk patio and a narrow, two level dining room. The decor is clean and contemporary, with surprisingly little (as in, hardly any) Indian art around to create a "theme." They've apparently remodeled fairly recently, since I noticed that not only was the dining room crisp and new looking, the men's room was done in contemporary tile with a bowl on the counter for the lavatory, and, everything was very clean, including the floor grout.

While the liquor and creative cocktail menu was very extensive, I found the food menu to be rather small and filled with well-known Indian restaurant "standards." We managed to put together a very adequate menu, though, while sipping those big Taj Mahal Indian beers (I'm ordinarily not a beer person, but I find it's very useful to quench the "fire" from the food spices).

We started with the fish cutlets as an appetizer. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but they turned out to be good. Rather than being filets or fish steaks, the "cutlets" were more like a fish patty that included plenty of spice. The menu said the cutlets came with "a sauce," and that sauce was a thick, sweet, tomatoey curry that was a lovely balance to the fish. With the fish, the waiter also brought a tray with three additional condiments, the standard green-hot and red-sweet sauces in most Indian places, plus a very good mango chutney that we both liked a lot.




Next, the main courses came out, which we planned to share. Both arrived in deep, silver and bronze chafing dishes with tea lights underneath to keep them warm. First was a lamb saag, a traditional Indian creamed spinach dish with chunks of tender lamb stewed in it. I really, really liked this dish; the spicing was elegant.


The second dish was chicken vindaloo, and it also was very well prepared, with the chicken juicy, the potatoes cooked just "done," and the sauce fiery, fiery hot. Fortunately, we had also ordered a little bowl of raita, a yogurt sauce with cucumbers, to help cool things down in the mouth.



Along with the main dishes, we each got warm dinner plates with a large "timbale" of white and yellow basmati rice in the center, presented in an artful way. We also chose the puri bread, a whole wheat deep fried bread that arrived puffed up like a big, round Mexican sopapilla. The bread was excellent; in fact, we ended up ordering a second puri.



After all this food, we just didn't have room to order dessert.

Jyoti turned out to be an unexpected jewel. They have excellently prepared food and they actually pay attention to detail and to presentation. The staff was all well trained, attentive, and polite. This place ranks up with the best Indian places I've experienced in the District, and it is certainly one of the better and more elegant places in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood. My only suggestion would be that they should offer a few more menu choices—perhaps daily specials—that go beyond old war horse dishes, yet what they served us was all surprisingly good, so there's something to be said for staying with what they know they can do well. Nevertheless, Jyoti is definitely a place to which we plan to return.