-Here it is after the long wait, my next write up about a food joint in Anchorage. This time it’s a place that I haven’t eaten at before, which makes me a newbie to the flavors and atmosphere. I was lucky enough to have a friend and an awesome sibling to accompany me to Namaste Shangrila.
-When you first arrive you are warmly greeted by the staff and quickly seated, it was Tuesday night so it wasn’t busy, but that doesn’t change the fact that we were seated quickly. After being seated the waiter gave us a menu and a drink menu. He was really helpful when it came to explaining the food and the drinks. This was incredibly helpful seeing as I was a newcomer to Namaste Shangri-La. With the waiters recommendation I chose a Plum Tea as my drink of choice.
-The first thing you notice when the Plum Tea arrives is the enchanting aroma that it brings with it. By the time you are done admiring the aroma you are left with the tea. Which to me was just perfect. You see when I try tea they are usually too bitter for my taste or too sweet. That leaves me fiddling with the sugar or honey or creamer, but with this tea it seemed like it didn’t need to adjust the sweetness or bitterness. Aside from this a good tea should be able to cleanse the palette, which this Plum Tea does.
-We ordered the Paneer Shashlik next; this appetizer was an odd ball to me because I’m not really a cheese connoisseur. Aside from this lack of experience in the world of milk curds, I can tell whether or not the casual restaurateurs will flock to a dish and this dish has mass appeal written all over it. The Paneer blew my perception that cheese needed to have a soft texture to it this was the opposite. It was firm like a feta but didn’t crumble and the taste was savory and a little salty which was a mind blower. This was not the only flavor it came in gravy with red bell peppers, which made the sauce with the Paneer a godsend. Not only that what surprised me was how light the Paneer Shashlik was, this was new since cheese dished are usually heavy on the appetite. It was a perfect mix of sweet, savory, salty, and sour. Truly wonderful
-The final course of the meal was the Garlic Naan and the Lamb Handhi, and like all other Indian/ Himalayan cuisine it was accompanied by rice, to be exact it was basmati rice. Which goes well with any Asian cuisine. For those that don’t know most Asian food requires rice to be experienced, because some maybe to strong when it comes to the flavor, so the rice is there to off set the powerful spice. With a strong recommendation from my friend @madeinalaska I picked the Garlic Naan, and that was truly note worthy. I’ve had Naan multiple times at Bombay Deluxe and this just blew that out of the water. It was light and yet crispy, and the garlic was generously put on top of the Naan. It was so good we ordered another set of Garlic Naan. The main dish was a Lamb Handi, chunk of lamb cooked in onions and spices and in a thick gravy. After the first bite I knew it was lamb, you can taste the oil texture as well as gamey* I don’t know the spelling, well that’s beside the point. This was not a bad thing; to me lamb is suppose to taste like this. This is can only be accomplished by aging the lamb. I find that too many restaurants are opting to buy young lamb meat so that they don’t have this characteristic and to me that’s some bull. Lamb is suppose to be flavor full, if you don’t like the taste I kindly suggest you pick a chicken dish. Sorry that was a tangent rant. Back to the dish, it was savory and the onions and other aromatic really help bring the taste of the lamb out. Not only that but the gravy was angelic, I couldn’t get enough of it on my rice and Garlic Naan.
-This was by far my favor place to right about, (I don’t know if you readers or reader could tell) it had the best condition for a perfect food storm; It was new to me so I didn’t have prior bias towards it, the staff was amazing, and finally they supported the local artist community. If you guys get anything from reading this write up, I hope that’s having the courage to eat outside your comfort zone and check out Namaste Shangrila.
