I have been drinking a lot lately, I would have to say in terms of days of the week, it is definitely akin to what took place in high school. Yes, I started young, but it was a good thing, because I didn’t do the whole drunken college student thing. Well, maybe the first year…. Anyways, the boys and I went out on Friday night. We started out at Brick Lane Curry House,one of the many Indian restaurants along E. 6th. We ordered a bottle of Shiraz and the restaurant recently came up with their own stout, so we all got a sample of that too. This was 7pm. Caled and Dan thought the stout was on the darker side, and for some reason, Stan says it tastes like soda. I don’t know where he got this from. The wine had more of a bite to it than I thought; I knew it had spices but I didn’t know it would be that strong. The really cool thing is that the Shiraz is Australian!
Brick Lane is one of the Indian places on 6th with nicer decor due to its recent renovation. It doesn’t look like a shack, like some of the other places, and they don’t have “promotors” standing in front trying to grab customers off the streets. It’s a very chic little place with a big area in the back.
We started the night off with the “bread” platter- you know, that bread that looks like bread but has the taste and texture of cracker? It comes with two different chutney dips and spiced and pickled onions to go on top. I like the onions but I don’t like to eat a lot of it because I fear my breath may kill.
The boys [Caled & Daniel] didn’t know what to order, so I just ordered a bunch of stuff that I wanted and shared it. They had milkshakes from Johnny Rockets right before this so I knew that they weren’t really hungry. I ordered the aloo samosa [crispy pastry stuffed with spiced potatoes and veggies] as an appetizer. It was a good samosa- the outside and good and crispy- it had a good bite. The insides were blander than I expected, but the sauces on the side definitely spiced things up [there was a red one and a yellow one- one was spicy, but I can't remember which at this point and I don't know what was in them]. Everytime I see these, I crave the Burmese ones.. mm.. those are curry potato filled.
dish displayed with the alcohol // insides with sauce smeared all over
I ordered two entrees: the chicken tikki masala and the lamb vindaloo [of course, all entrees come with basmati rice]. You can choose from an array of curries and they will cook chicken, beef, lamb, goat or a whole bunch of other stuff in it for you. The tikki masala sauce is a traditional gravy flavored with a tomato cream sauce andfenugreek leaves. The vindaloo sauce is a fiery combination of freshly roasted and ground spices and condiments from Goa cooked with potatoes. I had no idea the vindaloo was sooo spicy! My mouth was definitely on fire; if the heat was down a good notch and a half, I’d be a bigger fan. I was only able to eat two pieces of the lamb- the rest, I left up to Daniel. The lamb was a good meat to combine with the vindaloo though- I don’t think I’d enjoy it as much if I put chicken in there. After tasting the vindaloo first, the tikki masala tasted as if it was spicy too. It was hard to discipher the flavors between the two! When my mouth calmed down a bit, I realized that I really enjoyed the tikki masala and the chicken- it looked as if they used the tandoori chicken, but I can’t be positive. I mean the sauce is red already, how would you be able to tell if the chicken had a red tint too? Aside from the meats, I also got some garlic naan, which I kept dipping in both sauces… but mostly the masala. I usually like the regular naan because I love the added flavor the curry gives the bread, but I decided to try something new today. I actually wanted the potato naan, but I thought it’d be too heavy and they didn’t have it anyways.
meats swimming in sauces
basmati rice [it's harder and longer than regular rice] // some lifeless looking naan
Stanley showed up in the middle of our meal and ordered myself some chicken kebobs. It was basically a grilled chicken fajita sizzling platter. It’s always fun when someone order’s a sizzling platter; it’s like a party on a plate! There was nothing special about this dish- one could’ve ordered it from Chili’s or something. The chicken was tender, which was surprising b/c I’m always afraid of ordering grilled chicken for fear that it will be dry.
The boys decided they wanted dessert after dinner so we walked over to Max Brenner’s! These boys are all sweet crazy and none of them have been to Max Brenner’s yet- how sad! We had to wait a good 45 mins for a table so we decided to go check out this new wine shop that opened up around the corner, behind the Union Square theatre. We had a brilliant idea at this time- it was a big eureka! moment. We decided to go buy a bottle of Trader Joe’s wines and bring it into Max Brenner’s to spice up our meal. We already had red wine, we went for some white this time around [the boys really enjoyed the wine, btw- but it was a bit on the mintier side for me since I'm not a fan of mint]. So, we go back to Max Brenner’s and get our table.
I was soo not hungry at this point, but I felt like I still had to get something. Caled and I ended up sharing some waffles and ice cream aka munchies waffles. We got a scoop of vanilla and a scoop of white chocolate topped with whipped cream. The white chocolate ice cream was sooooo good. OMG. I have never been more in love with white chocolate than at that very moment. It came with some chocolate waffle balls- which I swear are just chocolate rice krispies and extra chocolate sauce. I will have you know that my good friend Daniel later drank this in shot form. [pictures of that will be edited in at a later time].
here is our plate from both sides!
Stanley got himself some s’mores! I like Max Brenner’s s’mores because they give you PEANUT BUTTER. You can’t really go wrong with s’mores but they give you a serving of two and none of us could help him b/c we were too full.
Daniel and Jon decided to get the mom’s morning bagel with hazelnut spread and melted chocolate. I was definitely not impressed by this or by its $5 price tag. The bagel was hard as hell; Max Brenner should invest in some Ess-a-Bagel bagels! I added some of Stan’s bananas to this and it still was not very good. I couldn’t taste the chocolate and a $5 nutella bagel is just sad. I have to boo this menu item, along with Max’s crepes.
What happens when boys finish eating and get restless? Play with their food, of course! Here are the results from their…. experiment. Who wants to be a taste tester?
After all this, we went to get our drink on for real. What else are Friday nights for?
