2 reviews

1. Bruna Herr  

   on June 5, 2015
   

   I am really impressed by their prawn curry, it is full of concentrated shrimp flavor and tastes so good with naan. Their fish curry is also fabulous. Vegetarian dishes and biryani are less good but still OK.

   The restaurant is very clean, but the service is terrible. They need to be more organized.

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2. Annabel Deno  

   on September 27, 2016
   

   During one of my final business meetings of the year, as we discussed the upcoming initiatives and media releases, the chief executive paused to wax poetic about the virtues of Indian-Chinese food.

   "It is the best food in the world," he said.

   Valid point. Fusing the flavors and cuisines of two subcontinents works well in theory. In the back streets of Calcutta, wallas will whip up a fresh wok of noodles, chicken strips and sliced vegetables for about 50 cents. Each bite will contain a dry, curry and chili rub, one that combines the spiciest elements of Indian and Chinese food into one fiery bite.

   So a neon sign on the ground floor of a converted turn-of-the-century home on a Queens street convinced me to pause my Christmas pashmina shopping: "We have Bengal and Indian Style Chinese Food."

   We went inside (my roommate Zack, who also accompanied me to Calcutta, was in tow as well) to a dining room that held a dozen or so tables, with a covered buffet at the end of one table.

   "I'll take chili chicken please," I said, referring to the most common Indian-Chinese dish. The person behind the buffet, a man in his mid-20s with a Victorian-style mustache, began to fashion his lips into a "no," but he was interrupted by his manager. Of course we have chili chicken, he said, and gestured to a tray of chicken chunks floating in a brown sauce.

   "That's not chili chicken," I said.

   "Yes, yes! Chili chicken, right here."

   "Look, I know what chili chicken is, and that's not chili chicken."

   "Yes, here it is," he said. "Chili with chicken. Chili chicken. How many portions?"

   He mute apprentice finally spoke up as this game was heading into a third round. "You want the Indian Chinese food?"

   And suddenly the manager remembered that he served the real product downstairs. He escorted us to the basement, where a sign indicated that we'd just missed Anil's Birthday Party. Some of the guests remained, large Bengali families with several children under the age of 10. An American Bengali channel played a very old movie obviously sourced from a poor videotape — large black sections filled nearly half the frame. Every ten minutes the viewing stopped for some of the most provincial advertisements I'd ever seen. Blueprints for a mosque, pleas to vote in a local cultural board election, a takeout place in Houston. The station is a petri dish for what will make it on the air if the price drops low enough.

   I ordered three Indian-Chinese mainstays: chicken lollipop, chili chicken and a beef fried noodle. The lollipops came first — chicken wings de-boned with the meat reconstructed, breaded and fried with the bone exposed at one end to the give the dish its titular shape. Then came the chili chicken, which was a normal Chinese stir fry with a few blobs of red sauce. Finally the chow mein showed up, with resembled the chow mein at any of America's 100,000 or so other Chinese restaurants.

   All of the dishes were mediocre — overcooked and therefore dry while simultaneously containing too much grease. The chicken lollipops were drowning in breading. The distinctive curry notes and dry rubs in the chili chicken and chow mein were absent.

   I left disappointed, realizing that I should have listened to the mute apprentice — they did not serve chili chicken here.

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