The Dhaba

 This week's Fun Frank Friday is at the Dhaba restaurant on Apache at McClintock in Tempe.  Here they serve cuisine from India with a few surprises.  We arrived around 5pm just as they opened their doors and entered into a small dining room.  After being seated they were able to serve us our Coke drinks quickly.  For starters where more Western restaurants would serve traditional bread, here they serve roti which is  unleavened flat bread cooked to a crisp like a cracker.  It was served with three different sauces, a sweet tamarind sauce, a spicy cilantro sauce and a red hot chili sauce. 
We also ordered two appetizers but didn't realize how large they were.  Had we known, we probably would have only gotten one.  My appetizer was the Tokri Chaat which was a chef's assorted selection of street treats served in a bread bowl.  It consisted of quite the mixture of the different appetizers available.  There was a cornbread like ball of bread spiced with curry, a baked potato, beans, yogurt, green cilantro sauce and many other items that made this completely yummy.  If you are eating here for the first time I would recommend this appetizer to get a taste of true Indian cuisine.
 Patti was drawn in by the Halwa Puri with it's fried indian puff bread with a sweet dessert made with farina, butter and nuts.  The farina mixture is like a vegetable beaten to a pulp and mixed with a dab of syrup to make it stick together.  This was the consistency of a paste that you then put on the bread.  The spices were sweet and a tad bit like cinnamon sugar.  It was on the addicting side and you just had to keep eating it even though you might be feeling full.

Now that I was feeling completely filled, not even needing more to eat, I hear a sizzling plate come up from behind.  As the server set it down, you could see the smoky steam rise above my wonderful dish of mixed tandoori meats.  The Tandoori Khazana is an assortment of tandoori chicken, chicken tikka kebab, seekh kebab, and tandoori tiger prawns.  All three of these meats are cooked in a clay oven called a tandoor.  This gives a slightly tough outside and a juicy smoky flavor inside.  Each of the meats was seasoned and the seekh made from lamb and goat had the wonderful curry kick you would expect from Dhaba.

Don't ask Patti how to pronounce her entree as it escapes her comprehension, just plan on pointing to the menu if you order it.  She chose the Faislabadi Aam Murgh, a thick gravy sauce of spices with boneless chicken cubes and mango in it, served with brown basmati rice.  Our served asked us for our preferred spice ratings from 1 to 10 with 10 being the hottest.  I of course went for 5 while Patti choose a negative 1.  The best way to judge their spice level is to compare it to the sauces they give you with the roti in the beginning, for example we thought  the sweet one was like being a 1, the cilantro a 5, and the red hot chili being an 8.  We also ordered a side of garlic Naan bread.  That was yummy and it had a good strong garlic flavor on the flat bread.  Patti really enjoyed her meal but by the time she got to the entree she was too full to enjoy very many bites of it.
Those of you who are a little squeamish, this is your warning to stop reading here!  Once we decided that we were finished eating our entrees, I began contemplating the idea of searching the dessert menu to determine what exotic treat I would indulge in.  I caught some movement out of the corner of my idea and turned to see a two and half inch cockroach climbing up the wall next to our table.  I was surprised to see an uninvited guest at our table and discreetly notified a young man who helped clear and serve the tables.  He promptly took a napkin and firmly escorted the uninvited friend out of the dining area.  After this, most people would be mortified with these conditions.   But it would be only those who have never experienced eating in third world countries, who would not have compassion on the proprietor.  The food was excellent and so was the service up to that point.  As a customer I was hoping for a possible compensation on my meal or at least some sort of apology from the management and not just the mortified busboy.  If an apology would have been presented by management, I would probably return there again for the food.  So if you haven't had a chance to try indian street treats and you don't mind unexpected company, try it now.