Day 9: A spicy, ‘yummy-yum’ Date night
Today was Day 9 of #mybuffetyear. Now Buffet Year is starting to bleed over into my marriage. Do you and your spouse/partner do date nights? When you do date night do you usually do the same handful of things? My wife and I have date nights a couple of times per month. If we go to North Loop in Minneapolis we usually go to Smack Shack or 112 Eatery. If we go stay around Elk River we usually go to Rockwoods or Pour Wine Bar and Bistro. If we go to Maple Grove we either go to Riviera Maya Cantina, Crave, 3 Squares, or Redstone American Grill. However, today’s Buffet Year experience was trying Indian food for the first time.
So we did head to Maple Grove but we went to Tandoor which offers Authentic Indian Cuisine. It has 665 reviews on Google and a 4.7 rating and the food is made from scratch with no MSG. I will say if it wasn’t for Buffet Year even such a strong and positive rating would not get me out of my comfort zone to try Indian food. Even on the way there, the left side of my brain was trying to convince me to keep it comfortable and not try somethin new. Essentially my brain was saying go there and be a food blogger for a day. Also, thoughts would come up like “It’s date night go to the Mexican spot you love.” My brain was trying to keep me safe and in my comfort zone.
I did not give in to my temptations even though Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone. We made it to Tandoor to try Indian Cuisine for the first time. The staff was super fun and friendly. The gentleman who sat us down started us with an appetizer called Papadum which is essentially a crispy cracker that we dipped into two different chutneys. My absolute favorite chutney was the Mint Chutney. It was like a salsa verde and it was super yummy. The red chutney was super good too, but I don’t know the official name for it. While we enjoyed that we ordered two diet cokes and Potatoe Chops which were absolutely delicious.
After that, the server came over and walked us through the menu since it was our first time. She was super helpful and she seemed full of joy that we were willing to experience Indian Cuisine for the first time. After talking with her for a bit and walking through the different spiciness levels we landed on the Chicken Tikka Masala and the Chicken Tandoori. Both items we ordered on the medium level because my wife is very Norwegian. Just kidding honey! I just like to see if she reads the blog. The Chicken Tikka Masala came with cubed chicken in this red sauce “gravy” that was very much like the consistency of a pasta sauce. It was super yummy to drip the garlic Naan (pronounced Non). The Chicken Tandoori was like ordering chicken wings, but I believe it came with 3 legs and 3 thighs. The chicken was super tender and had great spice and zest to it. The server was very kind and brought me a side dish of the spicy sauce that they make in-house. It wasn’t too spicy for me, but it did have a good heat level and smokiness to it and it made my scalp sweat a little bit, but it wasn’t overpowering.
It was an awesome date night and it was lovely to try something new with my love. She was saying how she gets to enjoy the ripple effect of Buffet Year. She is more adventurous than me so she is probably really enjoying #mybuffetyear. We even learned that in India the word Josh means yum or yummy. It probably really means asshole, but that's why I'm going to name the title of this blog "Yeah, I got that yummy-yum" after the Justin Bieber hit Yummy.
