Indian restaurant Lakshmi

On 21st March, hubby and I went for lunch at an Indian restaurant. We tried a new place named Lakshmi located in Akita city. The restaurant was about 50 km away from our home and it took us one hour to reach there by our car.

Indian restaurant Lakshmi

The restaurant was very clean and had eight table seats. The restaurant serves authentic Indian food cooked by an Indian chef and his assistants. There was a semi-open cooking area and we could watch the chef make hot naan breads. There were several choices for lunch and it was challenging for us to decide what to order off the menu as everything sounded good. Finally, hubby ordered a set menu named ‘Lakshmi tandoori lunch set’. I ordered a set menu named ‘A-lunch set’ having chicken curry and saffron rice. We also ordered masala chai. Hubby and I shared our food so that we could taste both the lunch sets.

Lunch menu

Both the lunch sets had salad of shredded cabbage. Chicken curry of ‘A-lunch set’ was delicious and it was fun to eat spicy hot curry. The combination of saffron rice and chicken curry was perfect. I relished eating the food very much. Hubby also tasted it and liked the spiciness of the curry.

Shredded cabbage salad

Chicken curry

Chicken curry and saffron rice set

Hubby tasting chicken curry

The dishes of ‘Lakshmi tandoori lunch set’ were served in small bowls on a round steel main tray. On the main tray there was naan bread, rice, and a piece of tandoori chicken. Palak-paneer (spinach-cheese) and daal (a pulse preparation) curries along with yoghurt were served in smaller bowls. The taste of the curries was balanced with the right consistency and went fairly well with both rice and naan. Naan was soft, chewy, and flavorful. Tandoori chicken and palak-paneer were delicious. Although I am not sure the type of pulse used for making daal curry, a special feature of this daal recipe was that it had asafetida as one of the spice ingredients. Asafetida has a distinctive pungent aroma, which may be unpleasant to some people. It was the first time that hubby had daal curry with asafetida in it and he was rather shocked by the aroma as he is not used to very strong spicy aromatic flavors. So it was very amusing to see his shocked facial expression when he tasted daal curry. Later I ate his entire bowl of daal curry, and found it to be very flavorful and delicious. We finished the meal with a bowl of plain yoghurt topped with mango sauce. Yoghurt is considered to aid in digestion of hot and spicy Indian food.

Lakshmi tandoori lunch set

Hubby about to eat a piece of naan bread

Hubby busy eating

After the meal, hubby and I had a cup of masala chai. It was sweet milky tea with lot of spices, and a great after-lunch treat.

Masala chai

Hubby enjoying masala chai

Hubby and I enjoyed eating hot and spicy lunch at Indian restaurant Lakshmi. The quality of food at this restaurant was very high. Aroma of various spices and warm rich flavorful Indian food usually lifts my spirit up.