I Went To An Indian Michelin Star Restaurant.
This was my experience. Food porn.
Last week on a blistering mid-summer’s day, I opened the doors to Rania, an upscale Indian restaurant nestled in the heart of Washington DC. A cool blast of air greeted me and I was treated to a refreshing glass of lemonade as I waited for my reservation.
Well, I wish that was my experience.
I was 30 minutes early and they sent me back out into the scorching sun-drenched pavement as they were doing some repair work inside. Strike one. You really couldn’t find one table for me to sit for a bit Rania?
I am not given to fancy food in general since I am vegetarian (the only sensible nutritional advice I follow), but I was arm-wrung and frog-marched to this particular restaurant by my sister-in-law who told me I was stupid to not taste the hottest (no pun intended) upmarket Indian fusion food to hit the DC area.
Now, here’s a pickle I have with the dubious term “fusion” Indian food.
As someone of Indian ethnicity, I usually read this to mean, “Dear Indians, we are not serving real Indian food. If we did, we’d be sued for causing mass explosive diarrhea. For the real deal, go to your Mom”.
Now, let’s talk about the food.
Rania serves a 4-course meal for $90 (not including taxes or tip). Here’s the menu. You pick one of each category, and the first 2 options are vegetarian. For the 1st course, I picked the lachha aloo chaat, white pea ragda and sorrel chutney.
First Course
Aloo chaat means potato snack. And what a snack it was. One clean cut of the potato cube revealed a beautiful, moist golden brown well, fried inside. To make this extra unhealthy, you may want to lightly graze the insides with some melted sizzling butter.
I didn’t take a picture of the inside since I inhaled all 3 cubes like the dog that I am.
Butter notwithstanding, the sorrel minty green chutney was an interesting and beautiful pairing with the fried potato. It worked. It was a rich, spicy and tangy taste that went fantastically well with the more bland and delicious flavor of the potato.
The cool, springy spinach leaves on top added to the minty taste of the chutney and was a refreshing addition to the whole dish. My plate looked beautiful.
Along with the first course came the ragda pattice. Ragda pattice is a dish of mashed potato and pea sauce and is a typical street food in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
It is a family favorite and for me since it stirs up some personal memories of rainy Saturday afternoons growing up in Singapore. My mom would be cooking this dish in the kitchen and the smell of warm butter, potato, and sizzling oil would waft through the air as my family huddled around the table with a mug of hot chocolate.
So much goodness, such short lifetimes!
The dish starts off with a base layer of mashed potato and beautiful round green peas, topped with a layer of tangy tangy sour cream. Strands of crispy noodles covered in some well-cooked parsley, black beans, and assorted vegetables finish off the entire dish.
Yum.
If you think this is too much potato, I will forgive you. Because while it sounds like it is, it’s not. This potato is different from the previous one, in that the first is crispy fried potato. This is a mashed potato concoction that blends creamily into the sour cream and crisp vegetables. One bite releases a burst of delicious flavors in your mouth.
Honestly, I just stared blankly at a wall, chewing and processing the entire experience.
Second course.
This was my second favorite meal. The best is yet to come.
I chose the channa masala pattise, ramp chutney, tomato tulku and spring onions.
Look at the dish. A picture really does say a thousand words but I’ll add a few more.
Channa masala pattise is paneer which is really just fried cottage cheese. (Yes, you should fast 48 hours prior to and after this meal). I am traditionally not a fan of paneer. It makes me feel….not great. I’ll spare the details.
But this paneer was done the way every paneer’s destiny should be. It was tender, easy to the eye, beautiful to cut and oh so crispy. The dish worked like a true ensemble cast. The paneer is the hero but the performance sparkles only when it comes together with its delicious side characters.
The tomato was a flavorful blend of sweet and spicy and it paired beautifully alongside the tukku or pickle. All this yumminess combined with the buttery cheesy paneer stuffed with assorted mixed vegetables including cut juicy tomatoes, minty cilantro and baby onions hit my tongue in the sweet spot.
I melted.
Third course. The main course.
This is the part where the waistband on my pants started getting slightly tight. But, the main course was worth it as everything else (food wise) so far was. I chose the tandoor paneer, roasted peppers and cashew curry option.
I haven’t come across a cashew curry before.
It was a beautiful, nutty, spicy thick gravy that was served alongside two well buttered garlic naans and a bowl of fragrant basmati rice. You could mix this with the buttery naan or the well cooked white rice and the hotness of the gravy would contrast well against the neutrality of the naan and rice.
I have a gripe. Hear me out for a second.
Britain has ruined the meaning of curry and what it represents. It doesn’t always have to include meat and it does not always have to be spicy. From the sweet coconut curry of Kerala in the South of India, to the traditional spicy masala curries of the mean rugged winters of Punjab in the North, there is a curry for every Bryers Miggs personality type.
This dish blended both tastes in a seamless way and its rich beautiful brown with shades of white cream and light oil captured my heart. If my future partner manifested as a curry, he’d be the cashew curry.
Fourth course- Dessert
I saved the best for the last. Literally.
If you know anything about me, you know I like my chocolate. I am very serious about it. I critique it with the air of a snobby connoisseur but eat it with the fervor of a rabid hamster on cocaine….. running on wheels.
Long story short, I don’t mess with my dessert. I want to present to you, the chocolate tart with masala chai ice cream. Yes, words that sound weird together, go together.
If this dessert were a melody, it would be a symphony. If this dessert were a play, it would be Shakespearean.
I’ll stop. You understand.
The chocolate was smooth, velvety and it was enhanced by the cool sweet ice cream with a touch of spice. Masala is a traditional Indian spice and typically not something you’d put in an ice cream. But as with all unusual pairings, one brings out the beauty in the other.
I often come across the sweet spicy combo with confections, but not in this way. The spice here was blended with the sweet and not separated. The two items were also of different temperatures adding to the pleasure of dipping the hotter cake with the colder ice cream.
Fun fact: Masala is also the spice every bloodhound at any US airport is trained to sniff out, since unsuspecting Indian mothers bottle this magic and carry it across the Atlantic when visiting their kids. (If your Mother has not sat in front of an immigration officer mournfully emptying out her suitcase of spice powders, she does not love you.)
Here are some more food porn pictures.
My thoughts.
All in all, Rania is a culinary delight. The total damage was $116 including tip and tax for one course.
Is this too much? Yes. You’re paying for the Michelin star at that price point.
The more important question is whether I will come back. The easy answer to that is no.
Here’s why.
There were a couple of incidents that unpleasantly stood out to me. When I walked into Rania 30 minutes later in time for my reservation and sat down, I was met with shock by the manager when stating I didn’t want alcohol. I don’t like alcohol.
He pressed a couple of times, and I persistently declined. He then offered a mocktail which I also declined. (I knew I wanted to eat sugar without any guilt and between chocolate and alcohol my poison is chocolate, every ducking time).
When I declined the mocktail, he said “it’s on me”. It took a couple more insistent no’s to get him off my tracks. Maybe he felt bad for me waiting in the sun, or he thinks persistence is charming. Either way, it left a sour taste.
The ambience of the restaurant was lovely but the vibe was off. I couldn’t tell what it was but I felt very looked down on. Right from the too informal stare of the manager to the flippant explanation of dishes by the server, I felt that I wasn’t taken seriously.
It didn’t amount to disrespect, but it also didn’t feel super respectful. There was a very “you should be lucky to eat here” air in my interactions with the staff that I couldn’t quite place. Regardless, the food was fantastic.
Consider going here if you are ever in the DC area, if only to loiter about in the sun for 30 minutes and score a free cocktail!
