Tonight Craig and I went for dinner at Spice Aroma, the in-hotel restaurant at the Clarion in Poughkeepsie. We were looking for something different for our New Year's dinner, and I stumbled across this Indian/Chinese/American restaurant via Google.
We arrived a bit late in the evening - 9:15, which is late for a restaurant that closes at 10. There were three other parties there, every one of which was Indian. In my book, it's a good sign when you go to an ethnic restaurant and a lot of the patrons are of that ethnicity.
The place smelled fantastic even from the parking lot. We were seated promptly and the waiter asked us about drinks right away. We both had hot tea with lemon, which was excellent. Really excellent, so much so that we asked the waiter what kind of tea it was. It was Lipton's. Color me surprised, because it really was one of the best cups of tea I've ever had. Maybe it was the water.
The menu has a nice selection of foods of varied spiciness. We ordered the bread basket sampler, which included three of the seven different options. We chose a paneer-stuffed bread, a whole wheat bread stuffed with spiced potatoes, and an onion-stuffed bread. I'm not entirely sure which was which, but they were all very tasty.
With all that bread, we didn't order appetizers. For our entrees, I ordered the Tandoori chicken because I'm a total wimp when it comes to spicy foods. Craig ordered the chicken Vindaloo because he watches Red Dwarf and they mention it all the time. We also got an order of the vegetable biryani (a rice dish with assorted vegetables and fruits) to help with the spiciness factor. Along with our food was included white rice and a yogurt sauce.
The Tandoori chicken was wonderful. It came on a VERY sizzling platter with mixed vegetables, four good-sized chunks of chicken (hacked pieces - beware of bone chunks). It was seasoned in a very complex and tasty way without being too spicy for me.
The biryani did have a certain spiciness to it that was nicely offset by the yogurt sauce, which had chopped onions, cilantro, mango chunks, and something I couldn't identify. Creamy, savory, sweet, cooling, and the perfect finishing touch for the spicier elements.
Craig's chicken Vindaloo was very good. I actually tried it, though I made sure to have plenty of white rice and the yogurt sauce to tame the heat. It was very, very good.
Because we had ordered so much food (the menu was just that appealing) we brought lots of leftovers home and didn't have room for dessert. But they have a buffet on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so we're looking forward to checking that out and trying even more of their food.
Oh, and did I mention that with all of that food our bill only came to $43? Yeah, totally recommend this place.
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