Tandoor India & Pizza

FOOD

Tandoori chicken gives the buffet a substantial oven-roasted main dish. The restaurant marinates bone-in chicken legs in yogurt and spices before cooking them in its tandoor, a clay oven. The chicken has a reddish coating with dark charred patches across the surface. Curries, vegetarian preparations, rice and breads join it in a selection that changes rather than promising every dish each day.

Chicken tikka masala begins with boneless white-meat tandoori chicken, which the kitchen cooks in a bright, tangy cream sauce. Tikka refers to pieces of meat, making this a different cut and preparation from the bone-in tandoori chicken. Roasting the chicken before it goes into the sauce is part of the dish’s character, with the seasoned meat carried into the creamy curry.

Chicken curry uses boneless chicken in an onion-and-tomato preparation with ginger, garlic and spices. Onions and tomatoes provide the gravy’s foundation, with ginger and garlic bringing their familiar aromatic character.

Chicken vindaloo combines boneless chicken and potatoes in a hot, tangy sauce. Vindaloo’s story runs through Goa and Portuguese-influenced cooking, with roots in a wine-and-garlic meat preparation later adapted with vinegar and Indian spices. Tartness is central to that history, as well as heat. The restaurant’s chicken-and-potato version belongs to the familiar curry-house expression of the dish.

Saag paneer brings spiced spinach together with pieces of fresh cheese. Paneer is an unaged Indian cheese with a mild, milky character, and it holds its shape during cooking. Traditionally, paneer is made by curdling milk and pressing the curds together into a firm fresh cheese. Its mildness sits comfortably with the earthy character of spinach.

Chana masala uses whole chickpeas cooked with onions, tomatoes and spices. The chickpeas’ characteristic nutty flavor belongs to a different preparation from the spinach and cheese. A drier mixed-vegetable dish also accompanies the curries, adding another style of cooked vegetables to the meal.

Vegetable biryani combines basmati rice with a variety of vegetables. The kitchen’s recipe includes a topping of nuts and raisins. The nuts give a firmer bite, while raisins contribute the concentrated sweetness of dried fruit. Basmati is a long-grained, aromatic rice widely associated with North Indian rice cooking. The biryani is a prepared rice dish, alongside the plain long-grain rice also offered on the buffet.

Naan supplies the leavened flatbread baked in the tandoor. Traditionally, the dough is attached to the oven’s inner wall, where the heat makes it rise and blister. This is the bread side of the kitchen’s clay-oven cooking. Cucumber, tomato and red-onion salad brings uncooked vegetables into the selection, and cut fruit includes cantaloupe.