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Bombay Grill

From a Quiet Revolution, Bombay Grill is Born

Anyone familiar with Indian food in Seattle knows the India House on Roosevelt. Most of us don’t even want to admit how long we’ve known the place—it dates us enough to make us uncomfortable. Now we can put it all behind us because there’s been a quiet revolution and India House is now the Bombay Grill. It happened in November 2002, and most of us weren’t even aware of it. 

Revolutions can often be messy and unpredictable, but this one has success written all over it. Owner/chef Rajan Arora (right) knows the restaurant business inside and out. He is the current owner of Chutney’s Bistro in Wallingford and opened the first Mexican restaurant in India (talk about a risk-taker). He also created a gourmet dessert and natural ice cream parlor in New Delhi (more of a sure thing, it would seem).

Physically, you won’t notice a huge change in the main dining room, although Rajan has done some extensive refurbishing. Tables still line the long room on both sides. Small white lights outline the windows, and tables are lit with small candles or tea lamps. The buffet area is two steps down from the dining room.

Just to clear up any confusion, you can enter either of the doors—the one on Roosevelt or the one at the end of the parking lot (yes, they have their own parking lot—always a bonus in the U District). The “real” front door is the one accessible through the parking lot. There’s a nice entryway where you can wait (always briefly) before being seated. To the right, Rajan has turned a small room into a very comfortable lounge with full bar. The upstairs area is the banquet/private party area. There’s also an outdoor patio off that room. Occasionally Rajan heads back to India to gather items to furnish his restaurants.

The real revolution took place in the kitchen. Rajan and head chef Harish Khurana are highlighting seafood. Yes, you can still get vegetable pakoras (maybe the best I’ve had in some time), tandoori chicken, and kebabs. But there is so much more to this menu that you really have to take your time pouring over it to make just the right decisions. (The first decision is to come back again, since you can’t possibly try everything you’ll want to the first time around.)

Seafood specialties include Burmese salmon, grilled with crushed cilantro seeds and tamarind and served on tamarind coconut curry sauce with saffron rice pilaf; Sri Lankan seafood curry, a mix of seafood cooked in coconut, mustard, and dry red chili-based Srilankan curry; and curried lobster tail, lobster meat cooked in a creamy wine curry sauce. There are tandoori prawns in a pepper yogurt masala, and tandoor grilled trout—a whole trout marinated in tandoori spices and lemon juice. The fish is always moist and flaky without being under-done, and shellfish is perfectly cooked.

Another interesting twist is the pasta option: tandoori Alfredo, fettuccini in a creamy ginger garlic sauce with a choice of tandoori chicken tikka, tandoori shrimp, or tandoori vegetables; or a spicy pasta with red cilantro sauce and the same topping options.

Although it seems every Indian restaurant offers a lunch buffet, they can vary wildly. Bombay’s buffet (Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.) is excellent and even includes fresh vegetables grilled on a dosa grill, for $5.95. A brunch buffet (Saturday and Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.) is $7.95. Dinner is offered daily from 5 to 10:30 p.m.

A few other details, just so you know: the whole restaurant is non-smoking. They take most major credit cards, along with personal checks (and, oh yes, cash). There is full wheelchair access to the main dining room and bathrooms. And they even cater.

Connie Adams/Spring 03

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