some random lunches

I really felt like doing another food/travel post, but the furthest from home I've been these past few weeks has been down to Minetta Lane in the Village for the Minetta Tavern's French Dip sandwich. They serve it with French fries. The roast beef is rare and tender, there's a touch of grated horseradish on it, the rolls are warm and crisp outside without tasting like toast - I love toast but not on a roast beef sandwich - and they'll bring you extra "jus" if you run out. It can be a very sloppy sandwich to eat if it's in the jus too long, but that's how it's best. This goes with one or two lovely Bloody Marys. I don't think it needs dessert, but to help me navigate getting back home I sometimes finish with a cup of hot tea.

Minetta is one of those old Native American words that turns up in this area. It was originally the name of a brook that's now under Minetta Lane. The same word, also referring to a little lost brook, turns up on Long Island, in street names, like Manetto Hill Road. Not clear if the difference is due to a difference in dialect among the tribes, or a difference in transcription among the newcomers. In either case, I'm sure that the English settlers used their semi-literate grasp of the Roman alphabet to spell something that they were mispronouncing anyway, as they do, and that the way the word as pronounced by its originators probably sounded like Schultz. Look what happened to Irish Gaelic when it was written down by careless invaders: a whole language is famed for its evocative poetry and gallant calls to battle - some Brit writes it down, randomly assigning characters to phonemes, and on the page  it looks like gargling.

the butter chicken
So anyway, I've been fighting a cold, and didn't feel like soup. Himself's idea of curing a cold is with food, of course, and so this week, in addition to today's roast beef sandwich, we met for an early dim sum lunch at Shun Lee Cafe (dipping the little things in red hot chili sauce), and the other day we had lunch at Moti Mahal Delux. MMD is new to the area, it's a small place that holds an amazing number of people as long as they sit still and eat. Which they do. There's a lengthy dinner menu, and the lunch is a set lunch. Really a set lunch. You set, they bring. The choices are Vegetarian or Not. Lots of different flavors, lots of lovely veggies even on the Not lunch, and pleasant people. The restaurant is part of a large chain centered in New Delhi (India, not Ohio). In India it's famous for doing Butter Chicken right. In New York, they import the butter for this recipe from India themselves, and I will tell you, this Butter Chicken is worth eating.

At lunch it's the kind of service where when a customer says "I really don't like lentils," the server smiles and replies "I will leave it here and maybe you will taste anyway. And if you don't, you get plenty of other things."
all you can eat
At dinner there's a written menu and you discuss your choices with the manager, who wants you to be well fed and happy. There are branches of Moti Mahal Delux all over the place, I am told, I wonder if they're as nice and careful with their food as our local place is. I'm very happy they're in the neighborhood, even if the food was not blisteringly, cold-vanquishingly seasoned.

16 comments:

  1. Now I have the late night tummy grumbles.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I understand, I was getting hungry again as I was writing.

      Delete
  2. Good thing I am getting up for breakfast.! Love hot dips and butter chicken!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When I was in India people kept telling me they knew I would love Butter Chicken, and I kept trying it - politely and rightHandedly- but I really didn't see what the fuss was about. This version has a silky sauce with layers of subtle favors. Sigh.

      Delete
  3. I'd kill to have this kind of choice where I live, you lucky gal.Although lunch at the MMD sounds like the beginning of a sub-dom relationship.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Not the beginning, Sulky. That place is waaayyy older than I am, and I used to cut school to sneak in and hang with Village Characters. During the week. you still get a lot of locals, on weekends you'll also see students and visiting creditors, oops, parents. The parents generally look happy that they're getting something good to eat and a stiff drink.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Mmmm, that butter chicken has me salivating. We have Moti Mahal here in Calgary but apparently a local institution that has been around 20+ years.

    I'll be eating in restaurants the next 10 days as I'm off on a business trip. By the time I come home I will only want to eat what comes out of my own kitchen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I always need an antidote after being away from home, xoxo!

      Delete
  6. Oh yes... butter chicken... have to say it's hands down one of the best things I have ever eaten! Now I learned how to make it myself. I could live on it, really.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. why am I the last to know? and do you have any plans to share the recipe? if there is a recipe, that is.

      Delete
  7. Oh Fred, why do you have to be so many thousands of miles away! Do you know what I'd give to eat my way around with you? I used to have such food adventures until I got married. Now it's limited to business trips if I get a chance away from the hotel and occasionally with friends. I've never heard of butter chicken but I love Indian food and I love butter. Sounds like a winner to me.

    Feel better. Soon. Oh and I recently made a special purchase and it reminded me of you. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi, tiffany rose, yes, some of the best food adventures are when there are enough kindred spirits around the table that everyone can order something different with maybe one or two extra things to share. I know that opinions differ as to whether sharing is appropriate or whether it disrupts the integrity of the experience - so I try to avoid going out with stuffed shirts. My money, my rules,my opinions. Subject always, of course, to a rule of reason, some things do clash atrociously and some things mysteriously disappear before the passing around of spoons starts.

    I'm very curious about your special purchase, I hope it's not orthopedic shoes!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I had the urge for a curry this weekend so we had a takeaway from our local Indian Restaurant and I wondered why I had left it so long to be reaquainted. Is it a New Year thing, to want something spicy?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi, Trish, it must be! I just looked back over the post and realized I forgot to uncles the lunch at Empellón Taquería, also in Greenwich Village - seven fresh house-made (and very spicy) salsas and a lovely margarita

    ReplyDelete
  11. So I missed a post on Saturday..so guess my resolution to read your post every day has already fallen off the wagon. Oh well, so did my other of not sweating the small stuff :) I have actually been to Minetta, last year when we went back East for Xmas..yum. Miss the good food of the East Coast.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hi, JRS Conifer, it's a favorite of mine!

    ReplyDelete

As Alice Roosevelt Longworth said, if you've got anything bad to say, sit next to me! No, really, please remember to be kind, and don't say anything fred's mother would not approve of (Diner's mom didn't approve of anything. Including fred.)
Wellfedfred and the Whining Diner reserve the right to edit or delete any comments submitted to this blog without notice if we find:
1. Comments deemed to be spam or questionable spam
2. Comments including profanity or objectionable language
3. Comments containing concepts that could be deemed offensive
4. Comments that attack a person individually
and since there's been a flood of spam lately, we're trying the Robot thing to see if we can block some spam...