January 9th 2014: Dinner at The Maharaja, Cambridge

Today, my original plan was to have dinner close to home, but a space for a meetup dinner at the Maharaja, an Indian restaurant in the city of Cambridge opened up at the last minute, so I decided to go for that instead. I arrived a little early so I decided to check out the froyo place nearby called Yogurtland. A typical froyo place to say the least,

nothing too amazing.

The restaurant itself was on the second floor on the same complex, and it was a pretty nice restaurant to say the least.

The food itself had the best presentation for an Indian restaurant to date. I got the Tomato Shorba (rich blend of tomatoes and coconut seasoned with spices) for soup,

and the Murgh Wajid Ali (Chicken breast stuffed with paneer and nuts simmered in a creamy saffron sauce) for my main dish.

Among other things, my friends got a lot of Naan (plain unleavened bread cooked in a tandoor),

the Tandoori Chicken (cornish chicken marinated in yogurt and spices cooked in tandoor),

the Aloo Papri Chaat (spiced potatoes with wheat wafers topped with yogurt and chutney),

and the Saag Paneer (spinach cooked with homemade cheese and fresh spices).

The chaat was pretty good, albeit cold, even though that's how it's supposed to be anyway. The soup was excellent, not being too sour, with a tinge of spice. My main dish was the best, even though the chicken was just a little dry, but the creamy sauce more than made up for it.

Definitely my best Indian dining experience to date, not to mention the company.

With that, I decided to make one last stop to get some lunch for tomorrow, getting the Baked Fries (Spicy fries topped with mozzarella cheese and oven baked)

and the Beacon Hill Pizza (mix of sun dried tomato and breaded eggplant, red sauce)

from Crispy Dough Pizzeria, a takeout place in the Roxbury area of Boston.

It was a pity that the guy would not accept my coupon though, as the food was just alright, although the eggplant on the pizza was an interesting concept. To make things worse, I had to wait for it to be made as the guy had not put in my order earlier because of a slight mis-communication on the phone. Not a good end to the night, but I'm glad I decided to come check out the Maharaja.