a marriage of flavors...Amar India

Betty and I were in Dayton from Wednesday night until Sunday for my sister's wedding. An exciting action packed and emotional weekend of memories with loved ones and of course as is typical with Indian weddings...a sampling of every delicious combination of veggies and meats under the Indian sun courtesy of our favorite Indian Restaurant and caterer in Dayton, OH Amar India. The legend goes that Amar India was one of the first Indian restaurants in Dayton, Ohio and also catered the first Indian wedding in the city so how fitting decades later that Amar India would cater not only our wedding but my sister's too.

Enough of that onto the food.

Up first food from the Lady's Sangeet


aloo tikki with channa, cilantro, onions and chili powder, namkeen on the side

This was the first time I've seen a specialty tikki stand at a catered event which made it double-so-sweet that it was on my parent's patio. The aloo tiki is essentially a spicy potato pancake. The tikki is then topped with seasoned garbanzo beans, onion, cilantro and then spiced up with chili powder and masala. I scooped up the namkeen -- aka deep fried seasoned nuts and flour mixture with other crunchy treats -- and ate them with each bite. The flavors tasted like a match made in heaven. The tikki's were delicious as a matter of fact I had 3 of them and was still salivating for more.

Up next dinner:


starting with the left going right counterclockwise: I'm thinking it was basant chicken (seasoned chicken), plain nan, rice pilaf with cholay (seasoned garbanzo beans), saag paneer (spinach and cheese), green chilis, mint chutney and spicy onion chutney

This meal was rich but delicious. Crucial to Indian food for me are side garnishes -- onions, green chili's and Amar India's special spicy onion chutney are must haves in excessive amounts in this case. Think of those as my Indian version of El Yucateco. Everything tasted delicious and even better being around all of our friends and family at the party. Truth be told, I was never a spinach eater growing up until I had Amar India's saag paneer. Ever since then I've been a champion of Indian spinach. Many times I've noticed that restaurants do not put enough paneer with the spinach but that night there was plenty of paneer to go around.

I had more food photos from the weekend festivities but the lighting was off on them so I was not able to post them. When we left Dayton we left with an arsenal of leftovers from Amar India to eat throughout the week. To give you an image of how well we ate:


starting with the rice at high noon, nan, saag paneer, saag with corn, cholay, lamb do piazza (lamb curry), chicken tikka makhani (tandoori chicken in a butter sauce)

Oh man I ate like a cholesterolking this week. This food was so delicious even 2 days later. My only complaint would be the richness of the food which has an excessive amount of cream and butter. This in contrast to the lighter but still tastier version of Indian food my mom or I usually make though my mom usually will fatten up her food with cream and butter when guests are coming into town. Eating this food day in and day out was a bit indulgent but it's not often I have an opportunity to devour such food. This weekend was a great homecoming to catch up with family and friends that I have not seen in a long time and to celebrate my sister's marriage through singing, dancing, gup-shupping (talking), and of course indulging in very tasty colorful foods and sweets.