Trying Everything on the Menu at One of NYC’s Best Indian Restaurants

Hello everybody, it's me Meherwan Irani here

in Jackson Heights, Queens

at the legendary Angel Indian Restaurant known

for their Punjabi cuisine.

And we're gonna order one of everything.

You know him, you love him.

The co-host of Street Eats,

the one and only Chef Lucas Sin is gonna join me.

Just two guys that love to eat, and today we will feast.

[upbeat music]

So we're in a Punjabi restaurant in Jackson Heights, Queens.

I mean, this is sort of probably the mecca

for every Indian that wants to come and find,

you know, sort of traditional Indian cuisine.

And most of Indian cuisine in America has been Punjabi.

Butter chicken, saag paneer, dal makhani.

These have become ubiquitous in the Indian

sort of like lexicon of menus,

but they actually are all Punjabi.

So, couple rules.

First rule is you need to eat one of everything.

It's the name of the show.

We're gonna order everything on the menu.

We're making an exception today for dishes

that have different proteins.

So it's lamb biryani and there's chicken biryani.

We're only gonna go for one of them.

Second rule, one bite of everything.

[Meherwan] We may have to break this rule.

The third rule is that all of the sides are up to us

and the order through which we tackle the menu

also totally up to us.

At the end of the shoot, after we've eaten everything,

we're gonna give out some awards,

we're gonna name some favorites.

You hungry?

I'm always hungry.

I mean seriously, there's a disconnect

between my stomach and my brain.

All right, let's see, we got one, two,

oh, one, two, three, four, five, six pages.

Let's start with the veg apps,

and then we'll go from there. You got it.

[upbeat music]

My favorite feeling in the world

is when food appears and you have no idea

what you're looking at. What it is.

You know it's gonna be good deep down inside,

but you don't know how it's gonna be good.

Right. You're sitting on top

of the roller coaster, you're looking down.

We're gonna start with what we consider

the choc part of the meal,

which is the sort of puffy, crispy thing.

That thing's breaking my heart.

Like, that is so wrong that it's on a plate.

Why? Because it's supposed

to be handed to you by another human being

that just made it, dunked it, did all the work,

and you just gotta stick it in your mouth.

So what you're having right now is called pani puri.

Puri is the little puffed up UFO looking thing.

And the pani is the two waters

you're gonna put on the inside.

It looks like there's some mung bean,

probably some chickpeas and potatoes.

And you're gonna put some of the meetha pani,

the sweet chutney in there first.

And then you're gonna drizzle in

about twice as much of the thinner water,

the tikha pani, the mint water.

Okay. And now you're gonna pop

that whole thing in your mouth and eat it in one bite.

Cheers. Cheers.

One bite.

Yum.

Okay.

All right, I take back everything I said.

That's delicious.

There are no eating experiences in the world

that are snack appetizer type of things

that have this much liquid in it.

Just water.

Like this is a crazy thing to me.

It's a crazy thing.

Most street food is crazy.

Wait till you try that.

So this is a variation on that.

The difference is instead of the thin liquid,

it's piped with yogurt.

Okay. Also the chutneys,

the green chutney and the sweet chutney,

but a thicker version of the green chutney.

So you're gonna have sort of this like,

almost like a yogurt puff.

Think of it as a savory eclair.

What's a crispy yellow bits on the top?

Ah, sev.

So there's an extruded chickpea batter, hair thin, fried.

Noodles, chickpea noodles. Oh cool.

Chickpea noodle.

Mmm.

That's so good.

It's heavier, physically.

Right.

And it coats your palate.

In our restaurants we call this SPDP.

Sev, batata, potato, dahi, yogurt, puri, the crisp.

Sev, batata, dahi, puri, SPDP.

It is what it is. It is what it is.

The papadum, it's usually complimentary,

and it's like the bread on the table.

Great.

Standard issue.

What's the dry spice rub on top?

Yeah, so it's their version of a chaat masala

with a little bit of red chili powder.

Chaat means to lick your fingers.

And you'll see chaat masala, basically,

so it's like finger licking good.

The last of the chaat is actually the coolest

in my mind if they do it right.

It's bhel puri.

Bhel literally means like,

it's the closest Indian word we have to salad.

Bhel means to like just [beep] it up together.

Okay. It's puffed rice,

like onion, cilantro, peanuts, wheat crackers,

that little sev, the stuff over here.

And then it's dressed again with the green chutney

and the tamarind chutney.

Okay.

I wish it was crispy.

That's a problem with the dish, right?

But it is not the problem with the restaurant.

It's not the problem with this.

Oh. [chuckles]

It's put on the table in a bowl,

as versus the guy on the street, taking all the ingredients.

Mixing it. Mixing it up,

putting the chutneys, paper towel.

Here you go. You're right.

Chef, what are we drinking here?

Ah, the fresh lime soda.

Now here's the crazy part.

In India, you gotta specify fresh lime soda sweet,

or fresh lime soda salty.

It's a little salty though. It's a little salty.

They did sweet and salty.

It's like the ranch water, the Pocari Sweat,

like the Gatorade, the electrolyte thing.

Exactly. This is the energy

that we needed.

You see the stuff floating around there?

Yeah. Little bit of cumin powder.

Oh, cool.

Moving on to fried crunchy crispy thing.

Let's hit the pakoda.

Looks like they're onion pakodas.

Give me some, hit me. A little bit

of a barbecue sauce. Yeah, that's what

more rumble. That's like a little red-

Little reddish going on in there.

Okay. But it's probably tamarind.

Mm.

This with chai in the afternoon on a rainy day

is one of the God's perfect snacks.

All right, and now, the grand dame of Indian street food.

The most recognizable appetizer, so to speak, right?

Exactly, it is- Samosa.

Here, I'll split it up for you.

Thank you.

If you were to eat everything at Angel,

you probably don't want to start

with a samosa stuffed with potatoes.

Potatoes, it's a starch bomb

that's gonna go off your stomach.

[both laughing]

Yummy. You like it?

Chopped mashed potato inside of a fried dumpling.

Of course it's delicious.

Relative to the textural variance

in one bite- That's an experience

that blows your mind. Right?

That's why I have no samosa in my menu.

Oh yeah? Well, blow your mind, man.

Right, I'm sure people were asking for it at Chai Pani.

They're like, Why is a samosa?

We actually get accused of not being Indian enough.

Yeah, yeah, right, exactly.

[both laughing]

All right, now this should be interesting.

They call it Gobi Lassuni,

and it basically says cauliflower with garlic.

India shares this massive border with China.

So just like you have Tex-Mex, we have Desi Chinese.

It's the general souls of Indian food.

Gobi is cauliflower, and Lassuni means garlic.

So it's gonna be garlicky.

Mm, sweet sour.

If it's called garlic cauliflower,

this is less garlicky than I expected.

Yeah, it is- Yeah,

it's not that aggressive.

This looks delicious. Okay, I'm excited

about this. This is not tofu, people,

this is paneer.

It's essentially a very simple farmer's cheese.

It's very similar to ricotta.

So he claims this is made in-house, so let's go for it.

I mean, the outside seasoning is really-

It's delicious, actually.

So this should be tandoori seasoning,

which is weird, that's like,

calling something a tandoori masala, tandoori seasoning,

it's like oven seasoning. It's like a wok seasoning.

Yeah, wok seasoning, exactly.

[both laughing]

Which is anything. It could be anything.

But most people get that it's gonna be red,

it's gonna have a little tang to it,

it's gonna be yogurt based.

I wanna go back and try one more just to see,

like, did I miss something?

But I think the beauty of this whole one bite thing,

I love this, is that you're kinda deciding with-

Yeah, you're making a regular restaurant

into a tasting menu. It's that first impression.

Yeah, that's right.

It's kinda fun. It's kinda fun.

Lucas, what do you think?

Winner? Pani puri.

No question. Number one.

Number one. Number one.

All right, chef, this is just the veg portion.

Got the meat apps coming.

Meat apps are coming next,

let's do this. Let's go.

[upbeat music]

Oh my gosh. Jesus.

That smells so good.

Initial reaction? I'm seeing bread.

[both laughing]

That's new.

Different types of relishes.

I mean, for a country that is predominantly vegetarian,

we do our meats pretty well.

I mean, that's why we're in a Punjabi restaurant.

'Cause the further north you go, the meats.

Many Indians are vegetarian,

so much so that even having the non-veg mixed in with it

is offensive.

So in many restaurants in India,

you'll actually have a non-veg dining room

and a veg dining room.

And I've been in kitchens where the kitchens divvied up.

This is Keema Pav.

Pav. Yes.

It's a Portuguese word for bread.

And it's Portuguese provenance.

Exactly. So is it sort of

like a brioche milk-bready? Yeah, yeah,

it's like a Hawaiian roll basically, like a sweet roll.

So this is ground lamb.

And in America, we're so used to everything coming

already pre-made as a sandwich.

If you grew up in a culture of flatbreads,

even your risen breads,

you just treat it as if it's a flatbread.

So you just tear a hunk off, dip it in there,

pop it in your mouth.

You're ambitious

with this one bite. Is it? Really?

Well, I mean,

that's a bite- I'm starving, chef.

Here you go. Oh, thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Mmm.

So yummy.

That's delicious.

For an American, they would say,

chili, sloppy joe, right? Basically.

Fine ground, but really deep flavors.

Sits with you.

The butter is incredible.

The fats are talking to each other.

That's fabulous, it's got some heat on it.

All right, so this is basically an egg version of that.

So, Anda Bhurji, there's a spiced egg scramble.

We do not know how to scramble eggs in India.

Like we just cook- Wait, you just cook them-

We just cook the [beep] out of them.

The concept of curds just doesn't occur to India.

Overcooked eggs have their-

The spot. Have their spot.

They oftentimes can soak up a little bit more flavor.

Agreed. I mean, I see onions,

maybe there's some green chilies in here.

Yeah, there should be onion, cilantro, green chili.

The yellow nuts come from turmeric powder.

There's probably a little bit of chili powder.

It should taste a little fresh and herbaceous too,

but we'll find out.

Cheers. Yeah.

Mm. Mm.

So good. That's delicious.

I actually think it's better than the meat one.

It's better than the meat one.

It's the herbaceousness plus the turmeric seasoning.

You taste the egg, you taste the fat.

Oh, that's so good. Oh, man,

I should have taken a bigger bite.

[both laughing]

Really good.

That's delicious. Wow, that's my favorite

thing I've had so far.

Okay. Good.

All right, so we got those out of the way.

Let's go fish. Let's go fish.

So it's essentially very close to the masala

that you put in Tandoori chicken,

but you're gonna fry this.

So the ingredients are slightly different.

You put spices in there that are not gonna burn in oil.

Oh, I see. And then mix in

a little bit of cornstarch for this, but let's find out.

It's yummy. That's yummy.

It's not, you know, roll your head,

eyes back on your head. This is

what you see is what you get.

Yeah, exactly.

You kinda know what it's gonna taste like

and it did exactly that.

What's calling you? What is this?

Is this an invented dish? Yeah.

Dude, it's called Chicken P.B. 35.

[both laughing]

Pretty sure this does not go back to the Mughal Empire.

All license plates in the Punjab start with PB.

I think I heard somewhere that the 35 references the region.

Right, oh- Within Punjab,

you know, that this came from, Pathankot

or something like that. I see.

This looks like a delicious boneless chicken.

I'm sure it's gonna be tasty, I hope it's tasty.

[Staff] That's where the chef is from, also.

Oh, it's where the chef is from.

My mistake. Thank you.

Mm, mm. Quite yummy.

Reminds me of that Indo-Chinese thing we were talking about.

But better. The Indians

and the bell peppers.

Yeah, it's not that sweet, nice and savory.

This is slow cooked to where the gravy

thickened and thickened and thickened

until now you got like a dry chicken coated in it.

This is very cool, this is not typical yet.

I don't think you'd be able to-

Well, if it's from his hometown,

it's probably more of a like, I don't know,

traditional dish for him.

Yeah, to keep on the theme of chicken,

and it looks like we have some gorgeous grilled chicken.

[Meherwan] It looks really beautiful.

Talk to me about it.

It's such a terrible way to cook chicken.

You're sticking in chicken into a 900 degree oven

and hoping it comes out juicy and moist.

I love the flavor, don't get me wrong.

And when it's done well, it's beautiful,

but I'm like, surely 2,000 years later, we can do better.

Mine is yummy. Mm, flavor's great.

The spice clings right to the edge.

A little bit of that char,

yum. Char, that's yum.

Okay, I'm breaking the rules one more time.

I'm gonna try a piece of the dark meat.

Maybe one of the solutions for a tandoori chicken

is only ever to make it with dark meat.

Leg quarters.

Last but not least, if somebody were to ask me,

what's the last thing you want flashing through your mind

before you pass away,

I'd be like, hopefully a seekh kebab.

I love seekh kebabs.

And I feel like in America also, when you say kebab,

somebody's thinking of a chunk of meat.

Right, but in India, when you say kebab,

nine times out of 10, it's gonna be ground up meat.

Right.

Pretty much, it's the sausage without the casing.

Mmm, it's aggressive.

I don't even know what the type of spices

I'm tasting in here are.

I taste achari spices in there, which are pickling spices.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Okay, I'm not imagining that, yeah,

I like it, I love it.

So, what are your favorites, chef?

Ah... You don't mind.

I know, I think we're both gonna say number one.

The egg bhurji. So good,

scrambled eggs, nice and tender, onions, chili,

just really well-balanced.

A perfect example of like overcooking eggs is okay.

Yes, yes. Yes.

This is just the appetizers,

but we're warming up for our main courses,

which are going to begin now.

God have mercy on our souls.

[upbeat music]

Here are the vegetarian mains.

Between the entrees and the appetizers,

the crew demolished all of the food that was left over.

It was kinda scary watching them go at it, actually.

But none of it was left.

None wasted. Especially how delicious

it all was.

I mean, this looks good, too.

This is just- Part one of a wave.

Of the vegetarian entrees.

I thought it was all the vegetarian entrees.

Should we start with a bed of rice as-

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just to cushion the fall

when it hits the stomach.

Okay, so Limca or Thumbs Up.

[Meherwan] Indian Coke, Indian Mountain Dew.

Good. Ah, God.

Well, so Thumbs Up is different from Coke.

I mean, it's got this sort of spiciness to it

and it's got smaller bubbles.

You know how everybody loves Topo Chico

'cause the bubbles are smaller?

So I find the thumbs up bubbles are smaller

and there's like this weird spiciness to it.

We all joke it's like the taste of India.

I'm gonna serve you some saag paneer.

[Lucas] Thank you, so the paneer is

the cottage cheese. It's the cottage cheese

we had in the appetizer round.

Pressed milk. Yeah,

but you can tell it's cubed differently to hold up to-

Is this spinach? And it's spinach.

It is not cloying the way that blended baby food spinach.

And they put a lot of cream in it.

And this is actually quite delicious, very mild.

Nice and light.

Matar paneer? Matar paneer,

this is a classic. Yeah.

The sauce here looks creamier.

Yummy. Yummy.

Really yummy. Very yummy.

Yes, yummy.

I misuse and overuse the word yummy,

but usually what I mean when I say yummy is,

there's a sort of guttural comfort food,

childish deliciousness.

You want an involuntary response.

Yeah. Yummy's a good one.

Mm. That is delicious.

Yummy. That sauce is fantastic.

Yeah. Mm, balanced,

nice amount of heat.

Aloo gobi? Aloo gobi.

Potatoes and cauliflower. Potatoes and cauliflower.

Another very traditional homestyle meal.

I like that they kept the florets large.

And this should really taste very rustic.

There's no cream, there shouldn't be any butter.

Okay.

What is that?

Meh. Fruity acidity thing?

Man, this is not my wheelhouse.

No, and I'm not- I was gonna say

underdeveloped compared to- Yes.

What can I say? I'm picky.

Okay. All right,

let's go to the next one.

The aloo gobi is just potatoes and cauliflower.

This is potatoes, cauliflower, and other vegetables.

Ha, deluxe. Including paneer.

So it's basically deluxe aloo matar.

Amazing. Premium aloo matar.

Oh, 100% more developed.

Just ties it together.

It seems to have a little bit more substance-

More substance, more robustness.

I like that.

How do we use the bread?

Like, what is the approach?

Good call. This is?

[Meherwan] Tandoori roti, which is basically roti,

the most basic of our flatbreads.

You know, the tortilla, if you will, of Indian cuisine.

Just cooked in the tandoori oven instead of on a griddle.

[Lucas] Look at the bubbles.

More like goo in development.

And this I'm the most excited about,

the peshwari naan, which is from a particular region

that's renowned for breads.

Well, it's basically, like,

probably looks like dried fruits.

You know, like,

tutti frutti type. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think I wouldn't be surprised

if there's a little bit of coconut also in there.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Clearly it's a sweet bread,

so you're gonna be eating it with everything else?

No, I mean, you can, but I'm going,

like, I wanna treat this as its own bite.

I think we're gonna, we may have a dark horse here.

Cheers. Cheers.

Yummy.

So good. That is so good.

Just a little bit of that- A hint of fennel.

Green grassy sort of- Mm, the coconut,

God, that's a great- Licorice.

Yeah, exactly.

[Staff] How many bites are you guys on?

Oh. [beeps] My bad.

My bad.

Four?

We broke the bite rule, dude. [laughs]

Five? I mean, I see eggplants, right?

Yeah, yeah. How do you pronounce

the eggplant? Baingan.

Baingan? Baingan.

So we're at the part of the meal now

where usually if you were at a bar,

we'd be eight drinks in

and starting to get a little slap happy.

I'm feeling a little food drunk, just a little slap happy.

I love the eggplant dish.

It's a little bushy.

You're right, it's a little bit bitter,

but I think the taste is quite nice, yeah.

But let's get round two.

Okay. Okay.

Veg- Veg entrees part two.

[upbeat music]

Is this like a trilogy we're gonna be working on?

Three types of dals,

all very emblematic of the region of Punjab.

So dal tadka is the simplest homestyle dal.

Tadka is basically spices bloomed in oil

and then poured over the top to add seasoning

to basically a liquid.

Mmm.

So comforting.

I had a green chili, did you get one?

Yes. Damn, I know-

Slippery. I'm cheating.

So good.

The yellow lentils, nice and chunky, so yummy.

Good, though. What is this one?

Okay, this is dal makhni.

Makhni literally meaning? Butter.

Yeah. So let's take that

and put a ton of butter on it.

And some cream and some fenugreek,

but it's different lentils.

Oh, these little black ones.

The little black lentils, so they're heartier.

And the smokiness of that wood charcoal fire

as it's dying down is supposed to enter this.

So delicious.

It is like- Sweetness

from the butter and the cream.

And then the pop and the texture that remains,

almost like little seeds, right?

Just a little bit of bite. Bite to it, exactly.

This is one of my wife and my favorite dishes

to order at Indian restaurants.

And it's excellent here. That is superb.

Really good.

And this last one? This is rajma, kidney beans.

Yeah, and just a heartier version of these two.

Mm. Mmm.

See the difference in the flavor?

Yeah.

First and foremost, it means the butteriness

of the kidney bean.

You bite into it

and it's just sort of like mashed potato like,

consistency throughout.

I mean, honestly, this is the first one

where I'm really- All three of them are.

Are fantastic. Awesome, fantastic.

Awesome. What is the green?

Is this cilantro? Cilantro, onions,

there's ginger bits in there.

That is absolutely fantastic.

More bites on him, by the way, if you're tracking.

They're not bites, bhindi masala.

Classic okra, if done right, makes okra delicious.

What's this red sauce on the top?

Like, is there- Tomatoes.

So bhindi is okra,

so I wouldn't be surprised if they flash fried it.

Made a masala separately and then assembled it

with a quick toss in the pan.

I think we do roti,

I haven't had it yet.

Yeah, let's do a little roti, awesome.

I mean, it's yummy.

I really like this, I mean, I'm actually gonna work.

Not in the, there's no way this is the best vegetarian.

No, no, no, it's not.

Next to the- No, no, no,

I was saying I'm gonna take some notes

in terms of like a preparation.

I would go makhani one for me, Dal makhani.

For me is my favorite.

This is a must order for me.

Every time I go to an Indian restaurant,

this is the best I've ever had it.

These three things are revelatory.

I mean, it's the- All three of them.

Slow cook, the technique, the bite even on lentils.

Yes. Yeah.

And we're in the Punjab restaurant,

so it makes sense to give props to-

I like the way this guy thinks.

That's the vegetarians.

The non-vegetarians are next.

[upbeat music]

Is it talking to you? You can hear it.

You can hear it? You can hear it.

So, non-vegetarian mains,

but first and foremost, this is a chole bhatura.

Right, the chef's special,

we decided to rotate that in.

Yeah, this is the puff daddy of-

I mean, it looks that way. of the golden edition.

So this glorious UFO of wheat is a bhatura.

It's a classic Indian puff bread.

That it's not just wheat flour with oil

that's been fried to puff up.

They add a little bit of milk,

and they added a little yogurt.

So it makes the bread stretchier like a naan,

but also puffed up and fried.

And it's that stretchy quality that makes it a great vehicle

for scooping up some of this chole.

Amazing. And the chole

is just essentially orchana masala,

it's chickpeas. The tomatoes,

a little bit of crumbled paneer.

Crumbled paneer, one bite. One bite.

One bite.

Mmm.

Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm.

I can't believe we have any umms left in us,

but that's enough.

The stew itself, the chickpeas, the garbanzas.

Fantastic. Fantastic.

So light, but tangy.

It's an excellent bite.

It's not like any of the other breads that we've had.

It's so light, and despite deep frying,

it's not greasy at all. Exactly.

It's amazing. Barely any grease

in your fingers, yeah.

It's really hard to make.

Like, you really actually have to know what you're doing.

Practice, practice, practice, yeah.

There's condiments with this bite.

Oh!

So I think we get a mulligan, and we got a do-over.

[both laughing]

Hit me with a little piece of, yeah, there we go.

a little bit of- A smaller piece-

A small piece of pickle, and hand me a green chili.

All right, and what I'm gonna do

is essentially chase the bite with the green chili.

Usually the chaser is the less unpleasant part of this.

Why is the chaser the spicy?

My mom will always have green chilies

on a plate next to her,

and she'll occasionally take a bite in between,

and it's almost like a palate cleanser,

in an unpleasant way.

Oh, I actually understand now.

It's a three-act structure.

[Meherwan] Let's go with butter chicken next.

[Lucas] The color is from turmeric?

No, no, it should be from the tomatoes.

Oh, I see.

One bite. One bite.

There's a reason why

this is everybody's favorite Indian dish.

Number one export from India.

Absolutely. In gravy form.

It has to be butter chicken.

Yeah.

It's so, it's rich, but it's approachable.

So I'd say let's do the vindaloo first.

Okay. What we should be tasting

is a peppery, vinegary sauce.

This is one of those dishes when people boldly proclaim

that they love spicy food,

they'll say I love a good vindaloo.

Uh-huh.

I taste a little bit of the peppery

that you were talking about.

I taste a little bit of the spice.

It does not overwhelm me.

We're ordering everything in the menu.

We made a promise. Right.

Even things that don't make sense in the menu.

Tell me why lamb vindaloo doesn't make sense.

It's from Goa.

One of our southern provinces,

and this is a Punjabi restaurant.

But I totally get why it's on the menu.

Bhuna goats.

I've never had this before. So bhuna means roast,

is the Hindi word for roast.

So it's a roast meat dish.

Mm-mm.

Okay, now- This is really good.

Yum. That's yum.

Whenever you see the splitting of oil,

I love because it means that you've built this

sort of gorgeous curry.

And you can see the color in the oil.

And then the other thing about this dish then

is it predates the colonial exchange.

No tomatoes. Oh, I see.

That explains it.

Yeah, and that onion base with the fried onions

and that. [chef's kiss]

The Lamb Rogan Josh. Lamb Rogan Josh.

All right, so Rogan Josh traditionally is made

with sort of like cuts of meat

that have a lot of bone and marrow in them,

and also with a lot of fat around it.

And when you cook it low and slow,

that layer of fat that rises to the top,

that just coats it, that's the Rogan.

Mm. Oh, mama.

I think that is very yummy.

That is delicious.

Despite the appearance of that sheen of oil,

it is not greasy.

Yummy. Richness to it,

and that sort of like marmalade-like quality of the onions

that have been just cooked down to nothing,

and then it's just, again, the oil.

Yeah, that's fantastic.

We're breaking down the non-vegetarian entrees

into two sections.

This is the first one down, second one coming.

[upbeat music]

How you doing, chef? I'm doing pretty good.

I'm increasingly less excited

about new food hitting the table.

Right, yeah, I'm starting to feel it a little bit.

I got a little sweat going here, some food sweats happening.

Absolutely. But here's the thing,

I know how this is all gonna taste,

and some part of my brain is still like a child excited.

Good. It's like ice cream,

it doesn't matter. Yes.

So chicken madras, what's chicken madras?

So curry leaves, that tells me

that it's definitely from the south.

I can smell coconut, I can smell mus...

Do I smell mustard oil, do you smell mustard oil?

I see mustard seeds. Mustard seeds, yeah.

So we got a little bit of mustard oil,

and we got some useless garnish.

Amazing. Let's try.

This actually reminds me a lot more

of a Malabar style curry

than a Madras style curry.

Malabar, Madras, you know.

No, I don't know.

[both laughing]

So this is meen moilee, well, it's a moilee.

And a moilee is a very simple, aromatic,

coconut-based curry.

And meen means fish, and it's very traditional,

and the fish will add flavor to the curry.

Whoa, sweet and creamy.

That's a delicious moilee.

The fish is so tender.

Flaky and beautiful and tender.

I didn't expect a fish curry

to be one of my favorite things.

So what's going on with the prawn?

Okay, so that is prawn chettinad.

Chettinad is also a region from India

and their style of cooking is very aromatic and peppery.

The shrimp is nice and snappy.

It's a good cook in the shrimp, but the curry is very mild.

This is a hard one.

And it just does not hold up to the prior.

Yeah, I wonder if it's an order issue too.

Now we move to the great state of Rajasthan,

Laal maas is there, which literally translates to red meat.

It is traditionally goat,

cooked really slowly with a lot of red chilies.

And somewhere the rogan of the goat,

the fat of the goat and the red chilies make the sauce.

Oh, excellent.

And they did leave some bone in.

Yes. Yes.

I got a little bit of rib. Huge fan of bone-in.

Oh, Indian butchery is, I can't even describe it.

It's a travesty.

[both laughing]

It's cut the meat off. We'll just take a clear

and cut the [beeps] off of it.

Shards of bone flying left and right stuck in the meat.

That is very, very tasty to me.

Can you taste the almost chalky nature of dried chilies?

It's the dried red chilies.

Oh, I see. That are essentially

broken down to the cooking process.

We are at the end of our curries.

Lassi. Lassi.

Salty. Salty.

The drink of Punjab.

Cheers.

Milk, yogurt. Yogurt?

Sometimes cut with a little bit of buttermilk

and sometimes sweet, sometimes salty.

Salty's traditional.

Think of it as like a drinkable raita.

Cleanses the palate.

Sure. Settles the stomach.

Not something I grew up with.

[Meherwan laughing]

Lots of cultures have a salted buttermilk drink.

To me, it feels like something

I also won't drink growing old.

[Meherwan laughing]

Okay, I normally order sweet lassi.

I just felt like we should get the classic,

authentic, Punjabi lassi.

We'll count it as a- It's sort of like power,

a yogurt power aid situation.

The look on your face, man.

You're like, you really wanted to be polite about this.

And some part of your brain's like,

this should be delicious.

All right, but hey, it cleansed the palate.

How about that? Yes.

And it sets us up for the biryani.

I think it is star of the show.

Signature dish, right? The start of,

the dum means breath,

'cause when you crack it open and release the steam,

it's the life for it, the breath,

the air of the biryani releasing itself.

So, which implies that it's cooked under pressure

with a lot of steam. Oh, I see.

So sealing it in with this bread.

Chef, do the honors, please.

I will do the honors.

So we're gonna cut around the edge.

But you don't cut it all the way around.

so you can peel it back.

And... Wow, look at that.

What a beautiful. It's a layer dish,

then you got layers of rice, fried onions, mint,

saffron water. Whoa.

The meat, goat meat.

It is a dish for royalty.

And I love it.

It's one of my favorite things in the world to eat.

When I land in India,

the first thing I'll order at the hotel.

Biryani? Biryani.

2:00 AM, biryani.

[Lucas] And it's okay at this point to mix everything.

Yes, absolutely.

Cheers. Cheers.

Mmm, sweet.

Rose water. That's what it is.

The flavor profile is excellent.

Having said that, it's hard to nail.

I mean, you're sealing the bloody thing,

putting it in the oven and praying to the gods of biryani

that it comes out fine.

I mean, it's like, you know,

it's like trying to do souffle.

I like this dish.

I think from a presentation perspective,

I do really love this dish.

And the biggest surprise to me is when you open it up

and we start stirring it and you get that little bit

of that aroma of that rose water

or the saffron or whatever, that floral quality.

I thought that was quite special.

One more round, the three desserts.

Okay, we can do this.

We can do this.

We can do this. I have full confidence.

I feel like I've got Stockholm syndrome.

Like I just keep coming back for more.

[upbeat music]

Okay, this is the fanciest I've ever seen Indian desserts.

Oil? It's the Indian

bonito flake, you know? [laughs]

I'm starting to hit my limit.

I think I'm, ooh, yeah-

I mean, thank God this is the end of the line here.

I know, and we have a little bit of-

Chai, it's unsweetened, but-

A little bit of sugar is usually needed, right?

Is any of this familiar to you?

It's all quite familiar to me,

except for the cheese dumpling.

Then let's start there. Okay.

It's called ras malai,

and it's a cheese dumpling soaked in,

our equivalent of almost a creme anglaise,

except it's a thinner creme anglaise.

It's yellow from the saffron, pistachios,

and it's cooked down,

so it's sort of like a condensed milk quality,

but really thin. Understood.

It's saffron-y. Very saffron-y.

It's not too sweet and it's kind of milky.

The dumpling by itself is quite savory.

And the only thing giving it any kind of sweetness

is the malay, the cream.

Yeah.

Rice pudding? Rice pudding.

Yummy.

Standard.

I think this is a appropriate rice pudding.

A pretty good, yeah.

It's not too, wait, is this bite two?

Solid. Okay.

B plus.

And then probably the most iconic Indian dessert

of all time, Gulab jamun.

Yeah, I mean, how ironic that basically fried donuts

dumped in sugar syrup is the most iconic.

Cardamom usually, sometimes saffron, sometimes rose water.

This is the last bite. This is the last bite.

This is the last bite.

Is it over? Free at last!

It's the best dessert by far.

It's gulab jamun.

It's like, how do you go wrong?

How do you?

And I love that it's warm.

It just makes it less greasy, right?

'Cause it goes down easier.

It's just, it's the Krispy Kreme donut

of India, you know? Like it's got the glaze,

it's soft, it's warm, you know?

It's a little bit too sweet and maybe a good one.

Always a little too sweet and just a little too greasy,

but people love it, I love it.

It's no question for me,

this is the best dessert of the round, yeah.

[upbeat music]

Okay, so we've thought about it for a little while.

We have some favorites.

Our number one favorite, our grail is?

We cried, we wept, we talked about it.

Dal makhani?

Dal makhani. Dal makhani.

Exquisite, absolutely the best ever.

So the Dal makhani is the slow cooked black little lentils

with lots of cream, lots of fenugreek,

lots of butter, slow cooked.

Those little pops of lentils, really, really nice.

And you can get it at so many Indian restaurants,

but I don't think you can get it at anywhere else

as good as- As good as we had it today.

Yeah, our second category is the next time.

So what are we gonna order the next time we're here?

We're gonna order the egg bhurji the next time

we're here. Oh, so good.

The bhurji pav, anda pav, egg pav,

whatever you call it, God bless ya.

Yeah, thoroughly spiced eggs, thoroughly cooked eggs,

but not overcooked in a way so that they're just dry,

but they're deeply flavorful,

comes on that beautiful butter roll, oof, so good.

I would also give it the prize of most unexpected-

Yes, absolutely. dish.

The last one is the hidden gem.

The hidden gem is the dish that you only know about

because you ate through the entire menu.

Hallelujah.

There's no way we would have picked this thing

if we didn't order everything in the menu.

It was at Peshwari Naan.

It was just absolute mind blasting,

as they say in the business.

I did not expect anything about that dish

to taste the way it did.

And it always is going to sit underneath the butter naan-

Of course- the garlic naan-

Of course- the paratha.

So you're not gonna think about it,

but that little bit of coconut,

you expect it to be cloyingly sweet,

but that little bit of fruitiness and sweetness

and the nuts and the fennel

just really compliment everything else.

It was the only thing I ate in between takes

as a snack, was it not?

That's a good one. Yeah, I think I got

nine bites into that one too.

How you feeling? I'm at my limit,

I'm full, I'm perfectly full.

I am full, but I'm not in pain.

So it's about five in the afternoon,

this place is about to get packed for dinner,

so we should head out soon.

This was so much fun.

Thank you for coming to New York City.

Absolutely, thank you for having me,

getting to show you a little bit of our cuisine,

it was so incredible.

An absolute treat. I had so much fun.

I know, we're just fanboying over here

because you know, this is what we do.

Chef, what are you doing for dinner?

[both laughing]

What are you gonna do for dinner, Lucas?

I'm thinking of ramen, maybe.

Oh my god, this man's an animal.

[both laughing]

[bright music fading]