Taste of India, Washington, D.C.

Most of the time, I find exploring the "authentic" side of the menu at the area's ethnic restaurants to be the most interesting and rewarding part of my culinary adventures. We've had a lot of great discoveries that way. Unfortunately, it doesn't work all the time, and yesterday was one of those times.

Since I was in the Woodley Park area with time to kill, I decided to have lunch about one o'clock (I suppose I was hungry, since I hadn't had breakfast). There was this strip of four different Indian restaurants all together, so I wandered around and read all their menus before deciding upon Taste of India for my repast.

I was immediately greeted and escorted to a nice table. There were only two other tables in the restaurant. They quickly brought water and menus, and I ordered a chai to drink. They had a list of more authentic specials, so I chose the goat curry. I actually like goat—tastes like chicken ;-) —and have had it many times at various restaurants of varying ethnicity. The meat is rather similar to mutton without the strong taste.

It took rather a little while for them to bring the food. That wasn't really a problem, since I always prefer "freshly made" food instead of things that have been sitting on a steam table all day long. What concerned me more, though, was that I never got my chai until the food arrived. The chai was okay, but it was pretty sweet; I prefer just the spiced tea with milk and no added sugar.

They brought me a plate of plain basmati rice and a bowl with the curry. The curry was tasty, but not hot or spicy at all. The goat meat was also very good, full of flavor and fork-tender.

But this is where the problem with the "authenticity" kicked in. Instead of cooking the goat, deboning it, and serving it in totally edible chunks, they cut the goat up into pieces before cooking, leaving the bone inside the chunks. And further, they left the thick goat hide on before they cut up the meat. As a result, over half of my goat curry was inedible bone and skin.

The other little issue I had was that the rice had been sitting out, probably throughout the lunch hour, and there were several crusty bits of dried out rice on the plate. Service was okay. When I got a refill on my chai, though, the assistant brought me a plain masala tea instead of a chai.

So, that was my experience at Taste of India. If ever I'm back in Woodley Park, there are three more Indian restaurants to try in that vicinity.