Indique, Washington, D.C.

Peter was hungry last night and wasn't looking excitedly at the Chipotle burrito he'd just bought for dinner. So, we agreed to meet in Cleveland Park for dinner, where we decided upon Indique for our non-burrito repast. Indique, and its sister restaurant in Friendship Heights, Indique Heights, provides "unique Indian flavors" in an elegant, upscale atmosphere. At the Cleveland Park location, we had our choice of sitting out on the sidewalk patio (too hot, sorry!) or inside either on the main level or upstairs. We picked the downstairs in the bar area by the street windows. Ordinarily that would have been a great choice had it not been for a couple of middle-aged women carrying on their conversations in their outdoor voices instead of their indoor voices.

The food was lovely, though. Each table had a wood boat of three Indian sauces, green, purple, and red-orange, which I'll guess were cilantro, tamarind, and tomato. The stylish menus are a little more limited in scope than I usually see at Indian restaurants, but here they have concentrations in items from the tandoor and they offer appams (spongey rice breads) served with a variety of meat and vegetable stews, plus the usual assortment of curries. We both opted for "Indique platters" because they sounded particularly interesting and unique.

The lamb shank "Bhuna" called to me. They took a large, meaty, lamb leg shank and braised the meat until falling-off-the-bone tender with tomatoes and spices until the sauce took on a dark richness. It was exquisite. The spice was somewhat hotter than I had expected (or, maybe, wanted), but the Indians say that hot, spicy foods are perfect for when the weather outside is hot and sultry. The lamb was garnished with flash-fried bean noodle threads.


Along with my lamb came a very large platter of accompanying side dishes, with (clockwise from bottom center) basmati rice, lettuce and tomato salad, dal (lentil soup), lemon saffron rice, a potato and vegetable timbale, and mixed curried vegetables including peas, carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower.


Peter was braver. He found a dish that had a menu line that said, "not for the faint-hearted," and decided he was up to the pepper and spice. So, he ordered the chicken Chettinad, flavored with what they called "telecherry peppercorns." I'm not sure if he'll ever order it again. He did eat it all, but I could tell from the surprising relative silence from him during the meal that it was rather hotter than he expected. I gave him a little bit of my lamb, and he ate it, not noticing any of the spice in the lamb, so when he offered me a bite of the chicken, I deferred. He had similar side dishes to mine, except his were all on the same plate.


WIth our meal, we had some garlic naan bread.



After dinner, I thought my meal was pretty filling, so I opted not to do dessert. Peter didn't like any of the available Indian options, so we left and went next door to the Cold Stone Creamery, where he had a "Cookie Doughn't You Want Some" concoction with vanilla ice cream, cookie dough, chocolate chips, fudge sauce, and caramel sauce.

Certainly ended up being better than an old burrito, eh?