Everest

Shawn and I decided to spend the afternoon on Queen Street West today, and I am ashamed to admit that I hadn't been down there in over a year. Possibly more. I suppose living so far into the suburbs now, I rarely have a reason to go downtown, unless it's school (which I'm not in anymore). A lot has changed, but there are still a few places that have stayed, including the restaurant we had lunch at, Everest. I've been there once before, many years ago, and we went there today because we were super hungry and also because it's the first place we saw.

Vegetable samosas

Vegetable samosa innards

Butter chicken with naan

I wasn't sure what to order there because I don't really know what they're known for. I assumed it was Tibetan food, because of the name of the restaurant, but they serve just the same amount of Indian and Asian foods, as well as pizzas and pastas. I asked our waitress what she recommended, and she said the butter chicken was really good, so that's what I ordered, along with an order of samosas to share. The samosas were actually really good, better than some that I've had at actual Indian or Pakistani restaurants. They were a good size, stuffed with lots of tender well-seasoned vegetables, and the outer shell was perfectly crisp and substantial. It was rather overpriced at three pieces for $7.99, but such is the nature of eating downtown.

My butter chicken was also surprisingly good, though whether or not it was authentic is another question (the butter chicken I've had is usually red or orange in colour, and this one was more yellow). The way I see it is that the chicken was tender and moist, and the curry was creamy and flavourful. And it was pretty damn delicious. The naan wasn't the best, not being quite as fluffy or flavourful as I'd like, but it was tasty and substantial enough to hold all the curry I was piling on it, which is good enough for me. And butter chicken is always deceptively filling. It doesn't look like that much on the plate, but once it's finished, you're pretty damn full. Regardless of whether it's really butter chicken, I would order it again just because it was so good. (I wonder if Indian people look at us eating this butter chicken the way I look at non-Chinese people eat deep-fried chicken balls. Whatever. Good food is good food.)