Going Indian -- New Bombay

New Bombay is an authentic Indian restaurant that's been popping everywhere. I have a lot of India officemates and I've been curious on what they eat since most of them are vegans. It was really amusing when we ate at Hap Chan and my Indian officemate only ate garlic rice. We ordered veggie dishes for him but he wasn't familiar with it so he just ate the rice. I hope he didn't have any bad feelings towards us.

The restaurant had an authentic feel with its black ornate polished wooden tables and chairs and serving the dishes in stainless bowls. As the food was served, don't be fooled by the measly serving portions since their dishes are packed with a lot of spices.

The Chicken Korma was of course spicy but not too hot for my taste. Since all the dishes were spicy, I got confused with the tastes of each dish. There's little distinction with the taste but I'm not saying that it tastes all the same. Maybe I'm just not familiar with the spices used. Although the dishes are full of spice, it doesn't seem to overpower the taste of the main ingredient of the dish. For instance, I am able to taste the chicken in the Chicken Korma which was very soft and cooked just right.

Chicken Korma

One of my favorites is the Malai Prawns. It's not really prawns, I think they're just shrimps but the shrimps were really fresh. The sauce tasted like curry and the color looks like curry, too.

Malai Prawns

Aloo Gabi is a vegetable dish. The main ingredients are potatoes and cauliflower. I loved the combination of the two and the chopped onion spring.

Aloo Gabi

Next is my favorite, the Paneer dish. This is cottage cheese in a sauce which I'm positively sure that it has tomato sauce in it. Then there's melted cheese on top. Such cheesy goodness!

Paneer

And of course, don't forget about the Naan bread and the Kulcha. This is a flatbread that is perfect with all sauces of the other dishes. I once saw in NGC the Naan bread being baked in a clay pot-like oven which looked cool since the baker was flipping the bread and pressing it to the sides to bake it. Anyway, New Bombay had different flavors for their bread. We ordered the plain one and the Garlic Naan. I liked the taste of the garlic naan, it's similar to the garlic bread minus the butter. We also ordered the cheese naan which was really yummy since it was still hot and freshly-baked and the cheese was melted inside the naan. It was delicious by itself.

Buttered Kulcha and Garlic Naan

The Kulcha is another type of flatbread in India. It's thicker than Naan which makes it a better vessel for the sauces of the dishes since it can absorb more. We ordered the Buttered Kulcha which was only a bit buttery but more chewy (than the Naan).

Plain Naan

To wash off our palates, we ordered their lassi which is a yogurt drink. I had the rose-flavored lassi which was sweet and fragrant because of the rose but not too aromatic which was fine with me. I also tasted the plain salty lassi which tasted too exotic and is an acquired taste. Just imagine the tartness of the yogurt with a bit of sweetness and sprinkled with salt. It wasn't too bad but I can only take a few sips. Our drinks would be more enjoyable if they were chilled properly. But look how pretty all of our lassis all lined up with different colors. Sweet!

Rose, Mango, Plain (salty) and buko pandan Lassi

All in all, my experience with Indian food was good and I was glad there were no need of fire extinguishers for the spicy food.