Celebrate Diwali with "beautiful & delicious" Indian food at AARZU

You may be wondering what does "beautiful" have to do with Indian food. Well, you are in for a delicious surprise at AARZU, a wonderful Indian restaurant in Freehold, NJ. The food is not just delicious, but beautifully decorated and presented. And comes with wonderful service too. Checkout the pics here yourself. And then go and try it for yourself this weekend!

Renowned restauranteur Kamal Arora and Arora Hospitality Group’s latest culinary venture, AarzuRestaurant, opens its doors to the community to celebrate its first-ever Diwali season this week (Diwali is on Sunday, October 30th). Specializing in modern Indian cuisine with a focus on taste, texture and presentation, the Freehold, New Jersey-based restaurant and banquet facility is hosting a week-long Diwali Festival with a specialized Indian New Year tasting menu, in-house henna artist and live tabla player, all in an attempt to engage and excite the community and educate them about the significance of this important Hindu holiday.  

"The Indian New Year is an auspicious time when we celebrate with our families, and food is at the heart of that celebration," said Arora, who has several other successful New Jersey restaurants under his belt. "We would like to invite the community-at-large to become a part of the Aarzu family and indulge in our Diwali festival to mark an important milestone for our newest restaurant."

Post-Diwali, Aarzu will celebrate the spirit of Thanksgiving and the holiday season by helping those less fortunate in their community. "For every meal we serve at Aarzu, we will DONATE a meal of equal value to our local food bank for the entire month of November," said managing partner and philanthropist Archana Sharma. "As a socially-responsible small business, we want to ensure that no one in our community goes hungry this time of year." 

Junoon New York (2/4) #EatwithArt

Junoon New York is a Michelin starred Indian restaurant in NYC. And the food is pretty good. But not good enough for it to be a Michelin starred restaurant, consisting is supposed to be a big deal. That includes they service as well. It's good, but not great!

We were able to get in for lunch for 6 ppl, without advanced reservation, called 5 mins in advance. Usually you should call. But after seating, 2 of us didn't even get any silverware even after food arrived, seriously. Quite something for Michelin starred restaurant. He didn't even come to ask about food or make good recommendations etc. so points taken for service.

For food, it want bad. The lunch special for $25 for 3 course meal or thali/platter is not bad. Portions are good too. Although it did take quite lung to ring it, slow service. I tried the eggplant chat, which was basically battered and fried eggplant, but not bad. The lamb kohlapuri, wasn't bad, but not spicy enough to be original. The kheer (rice pudding) was nice.

So, you should try the place if you want to try Indian food first time, at an expensive upscale setting. And your spicy expectations are low for Indian food. But if you are a true Indian food fan, or an Indian, you maybe disappointed, specially for the money you need to spend. If you get to try it for free, for some good reason, go ahead!

junoonnyc.com

Note: These ratings and review are personal opinion of the author.

Want Barcelona style tapas? | BOQUERIA SOHO (3/4) #EatWithART

I like Spanish food. And no, I’m not talking about Mexican food, it’s different. I like that too. And yes, Mexican food is not same as Tex-Mex… Anyways, before I go off the tangent… Let’s go back to Spanish food. Our New York City happens to have some very good Spanish tapas bars, and I’ll definitely say Boqueria is one of those.

On a warm-ish NYC day, my stroll to get there for lunch was quite nice, it’s in the cool SOHO neighborhood. And the place is nice, modern with a very warm and welcoming environment. The server was also very warm, informative and nice. So far, so good!

The menu offers a wide variety of tapas style dishes which can be ordered alone or shared for the table. On average you may need 3-4 tapas dishes for one person. Oh, just in case you didn’t know tapas means, it is small snack style dishes, not full meal. But it’s cool, as you can order many and enjoy many dishes. The prices are not ridiculous either; it’s on the moderate side. The menu also has American style full entrees. The servers are nice, friendly and will explain whatever you may need.

I ordered Cojonudo (Fried quail eggs and chorizo on toast), Albóndigas (Lamb meatballs, tomato sauce, sheep’s milk cheese), Moruno y Salsa Verde (Grilled lamb, salsa verde, pickled shallots, rustic baguette). All 3 were delicious, and served pretty quick (10-15 mins). Lamb was tender and very well marinated. The meatballs had great seasoning too. Although by serving all 3 together, some of the things got cold. But it was still pretty good… And yes, they can make omelet from quail eggs. I have tried, it is kinda hard!

So, if you like Spanish food, or you like tapas, you like flavourful fun food, or you just want to try, this is that place. Enjoy!

For more details, check out their site below
http://www.boquerianyc.com/soho.html

Rooftop Beer garden: Tavern29 (3/4)

It’s almost May and it’s still cold in NYC. And it sucks. Otherwise this will be perfect time to be going to rooftop bars and even better, beer gardens! However, it’ still not too bad of a time, to grab your beer under the sky. Although surrounded by buildings, and no real view, except the sky. After all it’s NYC, and this place will not really burn a hole in your pocket, so you have to expect that. I'm talking about Tavern29 at 47 East 29th street b/t Madison Ave & S Park Ave.

It’s quite rustic looking with exposed bricks, wooden touches, dark-ish lighting, but it’s cool. There are 3 floors including rooftop/terrace, so there’s enough space. I was there over weekday evening, and it was pretty full. Not over crowded, but cool. They have a decent collection of many different well priced beers. They had some good NITRO stout. The place has a full menu for lunch, dinner and snacks. Pizza was nice and really good dips. So you can enjoy eating with drinking, under the sky!

They also do Bottomless Boozy Brunch, which you may want to try.

For more info, checkout their site:

http://tavern29.com/beer-menu/