Indian food at restaurants

[Anonymous]

I'm struggling to understand menus at Indian restaurants. I am a vegetarian and just started eating at them. We went to Commonwealth and I LOVED the malai kofta. It's a little fancy to take my kids, but another restaurant has PANEER KAJU MALAI. Is it similar? Like Saag Paneer (my other favorite) and Palak Paneer are similar? I hate how much research I have to do before I go to an Indian restaurant, there are so many in Bethesda and they all use similar, but different terms. How do I know what I'll like??? Any suggestions?

[Anonymous]

Once you've eaten a few times, you'll pick up on the terminology and be able to figure it out better. The paneer thing has a similar gravy. The big difference is that one has kofta and the other has chunks of paneer. Personally, 90% of the reason I eat malai kofta is for the kofta (I don't like big chunks of paneer), so I wouldn't get it, but YMMV.

[Anonymous]

Just google the individual dishes and compare, OP. That's what I do, and I've been eating Indian for a long time. Just so many regional variants...

[Anonymous]

Google the words if you want. I am Indian but My family does not speak Hindi, so was not familiar with a lot of these terms either.

It’s my understanding that palak means spinach and saag includes other greens also. Caju means cashew. So the dishes will be similar but different in certain ways. You’ll figure it out once you eat more. Of course, there are lots of non-north Indian restaurants that have their own dishes.

[Anonymous]

Maybe someone has talked here:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1300239.page

[Anonymous]

Learning what some of the words mean helps.

Saag paneer and palak paneer virtually the same thing - I think both Saag and Palak means spinach

Ghosh mean lamb, etc
Try different dishes, a different restaurants and you’ll get a sense of what is common and what is unique. The good thing is there’s no real long-term consequences for choosing something you don’t like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Learning what some of the words mean helps.

Saag paneer and palak paneer virtually the same thing - I think both Saag and Palak means spinach

Ghosh mean lamb, etc
Try different dishes, a different restaurants and you’ll get a sense of what is common and what is unique. The good thing is there’s no real long-term consequences for choosing something you don’t like.

Saag is the general term for any leafy green, which includes palak (spinach). They are not exactly the same.

[Anonymous]

For what it's worth, we always call it saag paneer in my family because palak (spinach) found in the US tastes different than in India. I think it's even a different plant. Anyway, that's the original difference that's probably been lost over the years here.

Kaju means cashew, often ground into a curry to make it 'creamy'. Definitely worth a try if you haven't had it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Learning what some of the words mean helps.

Saag paneer and palak paneer virtually the same thing - I think both Saag and Palak means spinach

Ghosh mean lamb, etc
Try different dishes, a different restaurants and you’ll get a sense of what is common and what is unique. The good thing is there’s no real long-term consequences for choosing something you don’t like.

Saag is a way of preparing a spiced dish of greens that resembles a mash. Saag paneer means "Cooked Greens - with cheese". Palak means spinach. Saag means a dish of cooked greens mash.

Saag can be made of spinach or a combo of greens including spinach, mustard greens, collard greens, fenugreek greens, onion greens, radish greens, dill greens etc. In this country, my saag preps also contains broccoli, cauliflower greens, cabbage greens, onion and garlic greens. So, palak paneer or saag paneer both can point to a mashed greens dish with cheese (paneer) - generally for Indian cuisine as served in restaurants - both palak paneer and saag peneer will contain spinach as the main green ingredient.

Kofta is a cooked ball of vegetarian or non-vegetarian ingredients. Think of it as a meatball but could be made of meat, veggies, cheese, lentils etc.

GOSHT just means meat. It can mean lamb, goat, pork or beef. It does not include any fish/seafood or poultry/birds.

(GHOSH is a famous Bengali Surname. Like BOSE is a famous Bengali Surname - you know that Indian guy who made the speakers, sound systems and noise cancelling head phones and started this company called BOSE?
GOSHT =/= GHOSH =/= GHOST)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm struggling to understand menus at Indian restaurants. I am a vegetarian and just started eating at them. We went to Commonwealth and I LOVED the malai kofta. It's a little fancy to take my kids, but another restaurant has PANEER KAJU MALAI. Is it similar? Like Saag Paneer (my other favorite) and Palak Paneer are similar? I hate how much research I have to do before I go to an Indian restaurant, there are so many in Bethesda and they all use similar, but different terms. How do I know what I'll like??? Any suggestions?

Yes, many restaurants use different names for the same kind of stuff. They are coming up with many new names for dishes now.

Kaju - cashew

Paneer - Indian homemade cheese

Malai - cream

Makkhan/ Makhani - Butter/Buttery. (You will see butter chicken also called malai murg, murg makani etc.)

Palak - spinach

Kofta - fried balls of some ingredient

Murg - chicken

Sabji/subji - vegetable

Pakoda (or pakode) - Fried salty fritters.

Aloo - Potatoes

Hari-bhari - something that has a green component. It could be a green chutney, a green curry or some veggies

Maharani/Maharaja - Queen/King - denotes that some dish is either the "queen" of dishes or came from a royal k
itchen

Shahi - Royal

Tukda - Piece (a dessert called Shahi Tukda was a deep fried toast dipped in sweetened and thickened milk with nuts was called Shahi Tukda)

[Anonymous]

Ask the staff to explain if you have questions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ask the staff to explain if you have questions.

Do they know how to explain it? Not being snarky. Do they?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask the staff to explain if you have questions.

Do they know how to explain it? Not being snarky. Do they?

Of course. If not the servers the managers will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Learning what some of the words mean helps.

Saag paneer and palak paneer virtually the same thing - I think both Saag and Palak means spinach

Ghosh mean lamb, etc
Try different dishes, a different restaurants and you’ll get a sense of what is common and what is unique. The good thing is there’s no real long-term consequences for choosing something you don’t like.

DP
In that case Indian restaurants should put the description in English.
With so many people with dietary restrictions it would be smart thing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask the staff to explain if you have questions.

Do they know how to explain it? Not being snarky. Do they?

In every Indian restaurant I've been to around here, the servers' English has been excellent.