ottawa foodies

All this talk about Indian buffets greatly influenced a decision to drive back to Brampton this past weekend. I want to share with you beautiful people some pictures of one of my favourite restaurants, an Indian Buffet in Brampton called, Tandoori Flame.

The buffet is 17.99 and it is leagues ahead of any Ottawa Indian buffet. I also find that since the majority of the patrons are Indian (remember, Brampton has one of the largest South Asian/Indian diasporas in the world), and thus the food is not ‘whitified’ and bland.

Sections: Pizza (believe it or not, I see Indian folks eating a lot of pizza from this place – I guess they eat more then enough curry at home? No thanks.

Tandoor Section: They have 4 or 5 varieties of freshly made tandoori chicken products. They have a very intersting green one, which is marinated in a cilantro puree. So Good! I’m not even going to try and list them all with their respective descriptions. Also in this section, they have a brilliant channa masala and a huge, albeit shallow, metal wok cooking up bitter melon, some amazing dhal, and other goodies.

They have a Chinese-eque section with more asian style dishes, I guess this appeals to those who don’t love curry. They had noodles and chilli chicken, however I will say, that they have Indian notes in them too. I suppose the Indian chef is never far away from a few shakes of cumin.

They have 3 distinct sections of curry. One vegetarian (where you will find the saag paneer, vegetable biryani etc), one for Goat (yeah I know, how awesome is that! They have at least 6 goat curries), and then finally the standard curry alley (where you will find vindaloo, butter chicken, and all the standards).

And then there is my favourite part of the restaurant, the Gol Goppa/Panni Puri station. Panni puri is an Indian street food (first introduced to me by the fellow at Shaan Curry house in Ottawa), that consists of a flying saucer-like, crispy bread that you fill with a chilled potato and chickpea masala, topped with fried bits of Indian goodies, then you pour tamarind sauce into it, and then you finish it off by filling up the rest of the saucer with tamarind/cumin water (which I admit has a bit of a rancid smell).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panipuri

But OH MY! If you are looking for a flavour experience, this is it. After eating about a million of the standard gol goppa’s, I started getting creative and mixed different curries and yogurts into the masala only to be blown away even more.

They also offer vodka infused cumin water, so you can get drunk while enjoying this awesome snack!!

I will be trekking out to Shaan’s tonight, specifically for this awesome treat. I have not seen it on any other Ottawa menus. Karrara, Shaan’s major competitor doesn’t carry them.

And to finish of this restaurant “snap shot”, Tandoori flame has an impressive selection of seemingly western salads, that are beautifully presented on a bed of parsley and kale. Oh and lets not forget the condiment cart which has like a million chutneys and such.

They also have ice cream and weird Indian deserts (which I’m not fond of, waaay to sweet).

One of my favourite restaurants ever, but also the best Indian buffet – I’d safely say in Canada. Worth the 5 hour drive to Brampton!

www.tandooriflame.com/

How a la cart places compete with this behemoth, is beyond me.

Ate there this weekend on my Toronto trip, wow you are so right! No place in Ottawa can come close.
Look forward to my next trip as I have already told my son we have to go back for another feast.

AArrrrrrrrhh.