Aslam's Rasoi

Jesse:

Tonight is the first of many Valencia St. restaurants that offer Pakastani and Indian food. Yum.

     We walk into a large main dining area with a full bar on the right. Warm colors everywhere. On the tables, walls and even the individual drop lights over each table. Straight back is a large window, which looks into a well lit kitchen. The individual drop lights give each table a lot of light without overwhelming the rest of the restaurant. The overall effect is a warm, moody, low lit atmosphere.

     We arrive at 5:30 pm and are seated by the window, looking out onto Valencia St. Nice.  There is one other table occupied in the somewhat large restaurant. Judging from all the to go bags lined up at the front counter, many people use this place for take out.

     The waiter is nice and I ask about which dishes would be ok for me with my plethora of food allergies. I always wince a little asking this question but this guy is great. He checks with the kitchen and tells me the chef would be happy to create a dish just for me called Seekh Kebob, with ground chicken and prawns for $20. I was delighted!

     The ground chicken was made into cylinders and put onto a skewer to grill with the prawns. They covered the whole dish with a medium hot, brown, curry sauce. We were all asked how spicy hot we wanted our food and it came back pretty accurate.

     My special dish was a disappointment. The brown sauce over everything didn’t make the prettiest dish I’ve seen but that was ok. What I didn’t like was that the ground chicken tasted like baloney. My friends all agreed, chicken that tastes like baloney is weird. The sauce was pretty bland too. I could taste the curry and the heat but that’s about it and I’ve had much better curry. Too bad, I was so happy they were making me a special dish I could eat. It turned out lousy and they charged me a few more dollars for it too. Rats. Really, that’s the best you can create for me?

     My baloney chicken came with white rice, which included tiny slivers of carrots. It was fine. Your basic white rice, nothing to write home about, it got the job done.

     The bathroom was ok. Clean and boring. I give the bathroom  2.5 stars.

      Aslam’s Rasoi gets 2 out of 5 stars from me. I will not return. They gave me no reason to.

Shirley:

I have worked in this neighborhood for about 15 years and am very familiar with the food choices. I have my favorites and I have my "this will work" and I have my "never again" categories. Aslam's is Indian/Pakistani food that is consistently better than okay, including the service and decor. It is not my first choice, but have no problem accompanying someone who wants to eat there. 

We were pretty much the first to be seated again. The place is huge but we picked a spot by the window, which gave us a more intimate ambience. The menu is fairly typical northern Indian fare, plenty of choices, moderately priced and the choice of heat is always queried by the waitperson.
I ordered an appetizing gobi pakora - seasoned cauliflower dipped in chickpea batter and deep fried. Hard to go wrong with deep fried. It was good but a little bland.
My my main course was Saag Gosht - boneless lamb with creamed spinach, garlic, and ginger, with a side of rice. I love good creamed spinach, from any culture. Don't know why, it never showed up at my childhood table, so it is not a comfort food. I was first introduced at a French restaurant in New York during the Columbia riots (the university, not the country). It had been sauted with minced leeks, in a ton of butter. So good. And the Russian Renaissance Restaurant has a great version, with just a hint of nutmeg. Yum!
So, the saag is a natural choice for me, either with the fried cheese or a meat. In this case, the lamb was tender and the spinach revealed a lovely coriander undertone. I asked for the heat to be "American", or mild. I like spicy food, but I do not want it to blast out the other flavors. Because I had found Aslam to be a little under-salted and spiced, I went for less heat. 

One of my favorite dishes was the papdam that I snitched from Mary's plate. The lentil wafers were perfectly deep-fried and tasty. Could have made a meal of them, with their tamarind and yogurt dips.
The entire experience was pleasant. Would go again with a little time lapsed.

Mary:

This is the first time I’ve been here; and was surprised at the size of the place. We were early, and got a window table (always my first choice). The service was attentive, informative, and not overbearing but friendly. Also my first choice. I barely noticed the interior because the street scene was active and drew my curiosity. When I looked at the design more attentively, it seemed that they had handled “cavernous” fairly well by creating lots of seating and lighting that was low enough to dispel the enormity of the place and high enough to read the menu well.

I ordered two appetizers. Gobi pakoras (cauliflower) for $6. These were good. And Papadum for $2, which I always relish and these were up to being very appreciated. For a main dish I had rasoi’s rogan josh, a classic lamb curry with ginger, garlic, onions and saffron for $14. This was classic curry, amped up a bit from average American palate as I requested. Nice bite. But the lamb was a little overcooked.

I would give the service the highest rating, the food a medium plus. Aslam’s Rasoi is a place I would return to to try out other things on the menu. Having spent a lot of time in India, I can compare the curry to many that I had in Bombay restaurants and it comes out authentic and good.

It would be a go-to, medium range restaurant to share with friends who like spicy food.