On Friday the 13th, we tested our luck and dined at Karma, an Indian restaurant in old City. It’s a fairly classy joint. Fancy decorations, cloth napkins, extensive wine menu. They have a lunch buffet that I hear is fabulous, for dinner, no such buffet.

I love indian food. As shocking as it may be, for someone who just loves food and eats an awful lot, I never had it until about 8 years ago. At the time, I worked with an adorable little old indian man. I swear to you the guy was 72. Seriously. And on my last day there, he took me to eat indian food for the first time. I loved it, and I was hooked forever.

I live near one of the “best” indian restaurants in the Philadelphia area. I won’t name it because I had the absolute worst customer service experience I’ve ever had in my entire life there. And I won’t ever go back there. Not ever. I pass it twice a day, on my way to and back from work. I crave their food. But man, they ticked me off so much, and my friends so much, that I can’t ever go back there again. SIGH.

In any case, I was definitely excited about eating indian food. I usually always get chicken tikka masala. Not very adventurous, I know, but hey, I love it. I even “make” it at home with the stuff I buy in a jar. C was getting it, so I decided to mix it up by getting butter chicken. Haha. It’s pretty much the same, except here, the butter chicken had pieces of chicken, and the chicken tikka masala had big cubes of chicken. They were both great. We also got naan, of course. I have eaten it as a meal before I love this stuff so much. We had garlic naan and also kandhari naan, which was filled with pistachios, raisins, and almonds. Everybody loved that one, I didn’t try it.

Some of the veggie dishes that were ordered included chana peshwari (chickpeas), saag paneer (cheese cubes), mattar paneer (cheese cubes), veggie biryani (rice). I’m certainly not a vegetarian, and would rarely order a veggie dish. However, all these were incredible. I especially loved the mattar paneer. It was just friggin good.

There were some other dishes ordered, but I have no idea what they were. The best one to show is this green chicken dish. I haven’t a clue as to what it is. It’s chicken, that I know. It’s freakishly bright green, that I also know. How they got it this color, I have no idea. It certainly is fun to look at. I tasted it and liked it, but I can’t describe it. Is green a flavor? In all, this was some of the best indian food I’ve ever had. I highly recommend it! Service is pretty good and prices are reasonable.

After dinner, we walked on over to Franklin Fountain. This place is as cute as can be. It’s run by two brothers from Media and they serve old fashioned ice cream and fountain drinks. It’s a beautifully decorated places with lots of old-timey everything.

The ice cream boys wear cute little aprons and little hats. They write down the orders on little slips of paper. And they hand make everything, including the delicious ice cream. I had a ladies choice ice cream soda. It was raspberry soda with peach ice cream and whipped cream. It was bright pink and it was lovely. It’s the perfect ending on a warm summer evening. Good friends, good food, good ice cream.

At work, there are very few places to eat, at least within walking distance. Downtown Conshy has a few decent choices, but down where we are, there are only a few options. One is the Mona Lisa Cafe, which is next to one of the bigger office buildings. It’s not that exciting of a place. I had the chicken quesadillas there the other day, and it wasn’t half bad! I was quite pleased.

For Wednesday’s lunch, we had another new and interesting one, made-to-order stir fry from a catering company. I was quite leery of an american catering company making stir fry. It wasn’t anything special, as I couldn’t really put my finger on what flavoring it was. Let’s just say it was “asian” or “oriental”. It wasn’t bad though, as I got to pick my meat of choice, and I picked shrimp. They were big and pretty good. The fried rice was pretty blah and and egg roll was pretty bad. It was all weird and soggy and had big chunks of mushy vegetables. However, the fortune cookies they served were some of the best I’ve ever had. So fresh and crunchy. Yum.

The other night, I tried out some Trader Joe’s eats – chicken masala and garlic naan, both from the freezer aisle. The chicken wasn’t bad, it was a bit watered down though. It comes with brown rice which didn’t do it for me. When I eat indian food, I just expect basmati rice. It would have been much better with just normal basmati rice. The brown rice, especially since it was frozen and then nuked, was quite soggy. Now the naan! It was so good! Yes, it’s frozen, but after you heat it up in the overn for just a few minutes, it really does taste fresh! Like it just came out of whatever oven naan is normally made in. I will definitely be buying the naan again! I could eat it just by itself.

It’s been a heavy cook at home week. Now I don’t go out to eat all that much, but this week has been especially full of actual activity in the kitchen, beyond popping something in the oven. Not sure why. I made one of my most favorite dishes to make last night – Chicken Tikka Masala. Indian, you say? Yes, Indian. Not from scratch mind you, but it doesn’t get much easier than this. I use the Chicken Tikka Masala sauce from Tiger Tiger. Now you can also find similar sauces at Trader Joe’s or even your grocery store, but typically they are not Tiger Tiger. When I say Tiger Tiger is the best, please listen to me. Their sauces are by far the best when it comes to Indian cooking. I’ve tried Patak’s, and it ain’t no good. And neither is Trader Joe’s. Tiger Tiger is your only choice.

I used to have to drive all the way to Delaware and go to World Market to get this stuff. Whenever I’d go, I would buy 5 of them at a time so they would last awhile before I had to go back. Lucky for me, now I have a much closer source. I live near the Ardmore Farmers Market, which is also conveniently located 10 feet from the Trader Joe’s. There’s a new spot at the Market called Adriana’s Caravan. It’s not a store, because well, it’s not a store. It’s right at the entrance across from Trader Joe’s when you walk in. You see Genji Sushi right in front, and to your left, is the nook that Adriana’s Caravan occupies. This place is GREAT. It basically has every ingredient you will ever need to make any international dish. EVER. All and any ethnic cuisine you can think of, they’ve got what you need. And they carry all of the Tiger Tiger products. Apparently they have an exclusive agreement. All I know is that now I’m only 5 minutes away from Tiger Tiger goodness. Plus, the lady who runs it is super nice. And she named the place after her daughter, Adriana.

So when I say this is easy, I mean it. Cut up the chicken and onions and cook it for awhile in some oil. Then dump the sauce in and simmer for a bit longer. Put over rice and start shovelling. Seriously kids, it’s delicious. If you buy some naan from Trader Joe’s, then it’s even better. So tonight’s dinner was the leftovers. Plus, today at work, it was Pretzel Thursday. All hail Pretzel Thursday!