Restaurant review Cholanad

I went to a new little Indian restaurant for lunch the other day. It's called Cholanad and it is fantastic! The sign said they opened at 11:30, but I got there a few minutes after that and the door was still locked. I stood around waiting for a couple of minutes until the bartender saw me and opened the door. The place is brightly lit and has a modern feel. The bar is nice and long with plenty of seating. As soon as I walked in the place, I felt it would make a nice lounge. Some of the seating was semi-private with high walled curved seating, as if you had been in a small capsule.

I ordered the vegetable kurma and butter naan. It arrived pretty quickly. The plating was nice with modern style dinnerware in pure white. The naan was deeelicious! It wasn't the usual soft naan. It was flaky and full of ghee on the outside and tender on the inside. The kurma was also superb. I'm a fan of the more spicy dishes, but this was flavored so wonderfully with a ton of ginger and garlic and I didn't miss the extra spicy flavors I usually crave. I also loved that they didn't cook the vegetables into a mush. They sliced them into matchsticks and left them slightly crunchy. It was a beautiful pairing. But after dropping close to $11 for this lunch, it will have to be a once in awhile outing. A-

Linda's black bean burger & sweet potato tots

I just went to Linda's on Franklin St. for a pickup order. It was my first time there, so I wasn't sure how my burger would end up. I heard really great things about their amazing cheese fries though. So I brought it back to my desk and was so excited to see the pretzel roll bun! It is delicious y'all!!! This is by far, the best black bean burger I've ever had. It's not hard or glumpy like a lot of other places where the black beans are not fully cooked through. Oh, and those sweet potato tots! OMG. So so good!! They hit the spot with the jalapeno ranch sauce. I also heard they have live jazz on Thursday nights, so I might have to go check that out.

london sizzler

i'm sure those of you who have ever visited houston know about hillcroft. it's a busy street in houston that houses everything indian and pakistani. there's this one small strip center that has a restaurant called "london sizzler". we'd never been there before in the 3 years that it's been open, so the other nite we went there for dinner. to be completely honest, i didn't expect much. when we walked in, i was pleasantly surprised to find it hip, dimly lit and lounge-y. oh, and they have a pool table on one side of the restaurant. it would seem that this would be out of place but awkwardly enough, it wasn't.

their menu is obviously, british indian and the specialty of the house are sizzlers. sizzlers are dishes that are finished off on cast iron plates which are heated until smoking. these plates are the same as the ones used for fajitas.

they have cocktails starting at $9. these are placed on a menu card at the table, some of them have an indian flair, like the mango martini. and i must say, the bar is decked out in granite and looks plush.

besides the usual suspects, they have appetizers such as tikka rolls, vegetable kofta rolls and chili mogo. we skipped the appetizers because we were so hungry, we just wanted to get straight to dinner. there were interesting options for the entrees such as masala mogo & paneer, mogo & paneer pili pili and the masala sizzler.

we ordered the chilli manchurian sizzler and the paneer tikka masala. they have 4 options for the heat level: spicy, x spicy, killer and nuclear. we got the killer. the chilli manchurian was decent! the manchurian was made of cabbage and vegetables in a spicy green onion gravy. the paneer tikka masala was especially tasty. they topped off the dish with sauteed sliced almonds; a nice touch. the only thing i think should have been done differently was the manchurian itself, it had the slightest aftertaste of oil. if this had been corrected, it would have been the star of the night. i mean the texture was on, the gravy was on, but something about that residual taste of frying oil just sort of ruined it for me.

the waitstaff was a little on the dry side if you know what i mean, but i guess they did the needed job. i asked the waiter for some recommendations, but he didn't have any.

all in all, a wonderful meal in a nice ambiance. if you're in the area, drop by or visit them online here.