Bigger, spicier Indian buffet makes diners forget about the Mandarin
Tandoori Flame: The Indian Kitchen (out of 4)
Address: 5975 Mavis Rd. (at Britannia Rd. W.), 905-5028555, tandooriflame.com Chef: Anil Lekhwar
Hours: Lunch, Monday to Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dinner, Monday to Friday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 5 to 10:30 p.m. Reservations: Yes Wheelchair access: Yes Price: Dinner for two with drinks, tax and tip: $50 Is bigger necessarily better? Shraey Gulati would like you to think so. Gulati runs the second-largest Indian buffet in North America, Tandoori Flame: The Indian Kitchen in Mississauga. He also runs Brampton’s Tandoori Flame, older and larger still. (The world’s largest is Aakash in the United Kingdom.)
Tandoori Flame serves about 1,250 customers on a Saturday night, with 350 seats in10,000 sq. ft. of space.
“We were so busy from day one that we didn’t have time for a grand opening,” says Gulati, 33, of the October 2013 debut.
The humblebrag tweaks my curiosity and I make my way to the black building, a former Tucker’s Marketplace at the fringes of the Heartland Town Centre complex. For around $20, diners can sample 150 foods. To the eye The Gulati family, originally from Delhi, installed statues of Saraswati and Rajasthani mirrored pillows. Despite the Indian flourishes, the whitewashed brick walls, generic furniture and paper placemats could belong in any chain steakhouse.
Except no GTA steakhouse has a chaat station. The cooling tartness of crisp wafers layered with yogurt, boiled potatoes, chickpeas, mint and tamarind chutneys is just the thing to revive a palate numbed by 14 rich curries. Same with panipuri splashed with tamarind water. A cook walks around the sneeze guard to show me how to puncture the brittle puffs with the back of a spoon.
It’s the rare pleasant interaction at Tandoori Flame. Greeters seem bored. Servers can be aggressive in pushing drinks — the street-style lemonade ($3.99) is cooling — and slow to bring the bill. Otherwise, staff promptly clear plates, replenish the buffet and wipe spills.
Tandoori Flame was built to appeal to South Asians. Diners sport turbans, saris and hijabs.
There is no beef. Unlike the Brampton flagship, the Mississauga location is fully halal and the chili levels dialed down. Buffet strategy It takes two visits to taste everything without exploding. Kharoda soup is redolent of cinnamon and lamb. Mint brightens dahi bhalla. Of the fried goodies, aloo tiki are lively, cauliflower pakora pack a punch and the fish pakora is oily.
Most of what emerges from the glowing tandoor is fine. Chicken is moist (at least the dark meat is). For a treat, ask the cook to make roti. He stretches a ball of whole wheat dough, slaps it onto the oven wall and pulls it off with hooks like a culinary marionettist.
I avoid the Canadian-style salads: too familiar. Then I see an elderly woman in dupatta and shalwar kameez carrying a plate of macaroni salad to her table. I guess it’s all relative.
The salad bar is the only place to get plates. The main buffet holds seven meat and seven vegetable curries, plus two rices (three if you count a bland chicken biryani). The food is moderately salted with largely appreciable differences in colour and taste, but isn’t always hot enough. Comparing curries On the veg side, I recommend cheese triangles in creamy sauce (shahi paneer) over boring kadai paneer and forgettable spinach (palak paneer). Dal makhni could use more butter and the yogurt-based Punjabi kadhi sauce — flavourful and yellow — goes well on rice.
For the meat, garlicky malai chicken is stronger than rich chicken tikka. Both are better than indistinguishable lamb and chicken curry, overcooked shrimp and butter chicken that tastes like cream of tomato soup. Lamb vindaloo trades heat for flavour. Dessert Staff clear only dirty plates, leaving tandoori-coated cutlery for eating dessert.
This station disappoints. Instead of a mithai shop, diners get generic Canadian ice cream and Jell-O. (I later learn burfi and kulfi are sold separately at the bar.)
Of the Indian sweets, there is a strangely chemical mango custard, dry-as-dust rasgulla, chalky kheer and jalebis that taste of old frying oil. Only translucent rectangles of petha please with their sugar cane texture. Better opt for the ripe melon. The future This fall will see a $1-million, six-week revamp of the Brampton flagship Tandoori Flame. Gulati is also scouting locations in Surrey, B.C., for a third restaurant.
He calls the growing chain “an Indian Mandarin,” one where mainstream customers should feel comfortable.
“The variety is good for those who haven’t tried Indian food. If you don’t like it, you’re not stuck with it,” says Gulati. apataki@thestar.ca, Twitter @amypataki