Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Veerasway-Fresh Indian 844 West Randolph, Chicago IL

This little spot on Randolph is a fresh innovative bright spot in the dining scene. Let us get something straight, I am NOT a huge Indian food fan. Now, I must say that I loved the food here! My dining mates (who do love Indian food) love this place too. Win, win right? Yes! The staff was helpful, fun and very knowledgeable. The decor was clean, crisp and very welcoming. Our server was very good and totally steered us to the right things. I had the Veera green cups salad. It is butter lettuce topped with endive, yellow tear drop tomatoes, red onion, paneer cheese, cashews and spring mix sprouts. The dressing is a coriander leaf vinaigrette.
We had the Monsoon Mirchi as an app. Banana peppers stuffed with lentils and Indian cheese that is fried in chickpea batter. This dish was hot!! We were warned and we were not disappointed. I had the tamarind date chicken kabobs. Delicious! This is dark chicken meat kabob and onions are basted with a sweet and spicy tamarind-date glaze then char grilled. Others in our group had the Spring mutter paneer which is curried fresh green peas with Indian cheese in a cream tomato sauce topped with fresh pea sprouts. The Masoor lentils accented with red chiles, toasted cumin seed , garlic and curry leaves was fabulous. FYI this was the stuffing in the Monsoon Mirchi. They have a pretty good wine/beer list. Their mixed drink list is interesting. One member of our party ordered the drink "Bengali Tiger". This spicy,green cardamom, black cardamom and vanilla bean infused vodka, tamarind-date puree, pineapple with spicy ghost pepper drink was WOW. It was wow if it was an app. This drink and its consistency was like a soup. It was good but not as a drink. They do have other options that are good like Mumtaz Maharita. This Indian version of a Margarita is really WOW.
Diner23 gives Veerasway 4 triangles for food, service and ambiance.