Namaste Indian Cuisine Review: What to Order First

Key Takeaways

• The order: meat samosas, gobi (fried cauliflower in chickpea batter), cheese naan, garlic naan, chicken tikka and lamb korma
• Two entrees plus appetizers ran about $60 before tip, which makes Namaste an occasion place for the McDowells and one of the few quality Sunday night dinners in E-town
• First-timer plan: chicken tikka masala or butter chicken with rice and a naan, ask the server what sells most, and save the goat for later
• Namaste Indian Cuisine and Bar, 1609 N Dixie Hwy #102, Elizabethtown

Summary

Britten and Michele McDowell took the Experienced Eater back to Namaste Indian Cuisine and Bar, the first time the segment has returned to a restaurant. The reason was simple: it is one of their favorites, and Britten, who admits he orders the same thing everywhere, tried a dish he had never had and came away with a new favorite.

It matters because Indian food intimidates people who have never tried it, and Britten spent most of the segment on a practical answer to Rachel's question: if someone has driven past Namaste for years and thinks they do not like Indian food, what do they order first?

Full Article

Britten came in with a confession. "We're at a point where we call them revisits, because this isn't the first time we've done Namaste," he said. "But as an adventurous foodie, I did something I've never done. I ordered something I'd never had before, and I found a new favorite." The video this week was a voiceover rather than the usual on-site audio, because the restaurant was loud, so Britten talked the panel through the table live.

The order started the way it always does for the McDowells. "We always start out the same way because we're creatures of habit," Britten said. Meat samosas, which he called flavorful in a way that is hard to pin down, with saffron and turmeric running through them. Then the gobi, fried cauliflower in a chickpea batter, close to a tempura, finished with a sauce he could only describe as a buffalo ketchup. "I don't even know how to describe it, but it's fantastic," he said. Namaste makes it with chicken as well. Britten prefers the cauliflower. Cheese naan and garlic naan came out for the table, and then the mains, chicken tikka and lamb korma.

His case for the cuisine was about flavor rather than heat. "That's what's so awesome about Indian cuisine. It doesn't have to be hot. You can get it mild, but it's just a flavor bomb." Two entrees and a couple of appetizers came to about $60 plus tip. "That's expensive," Britten said, which is why Namaste is an occasion place for them, a birthday or a celebration. It also solves a problem anyone on the E-town foodie scene knows: Sunday and Monday nights are tough, because so many kitchens are closed or close early. Namaste is open for a quality dinner on a Sunday night, and Rachel said the revisit just got penciled into her weekend.

Rachel asked the question she gets from people who consider Namaste one of her top two restaurants but have never been: what do you even order? Britten's first suggestion was to go with a friend who knows the menu and let them guide. Before the pandemic, he said, Namaste had a lunch buffet, and that is how he learned it himself. Without a guide, start with chicken tikka masala or butter chicken. They are similar, they come with white rice, and you want a naan to scoop the sauce. Then ask a question he thinks nobody asks enough. "Don't ask them what their favorite thing is," he said. "Ask what sells the most. What do you sell the most of that people are always the happiest with?" Grafton agreed on the tikka masala. "That's my safe go-to," he said, comparing it to the chicken, cheese and rice dish at a Mexican restaurant, the one you cannot go wrong with. "If you don't like it, you're probably not going to like a whole lot of Indian food at the end of the day."

Britten's last rule for beginners: stick with chicken, work up to lamb, which he called delicate and flavorful, and do not order the goat the first time. "That's stage three or four."

The segment doubled as a foodie roundtable. Grafton's current kick is Tobe Thai. "I could eat Tobe Thai every single night right now," he said, adding that his girlfriend, who is from Lexington, was surprised E-town had both a Thai restaurant and an Indian one. Britten's answer for company was Otter Creek Tavern, a place whose looks do not match its kitchen. "I could eat my weight in those cheese cubes," he said, a pepper jack cube he ranks as the best thing on the menu. Best chef salad, for the record, is Rafferty's. Best chicken tenders, Colton's.

Britten closed with two asks. If you see him and Michele out, say hello; election season has them at a lot of local events, and people have started recognizing "the guy on TikTok." And send him recommendations on Facebook, especially places the segment has never been. He has a backlog of visits filmed and more on the way.

Namaste Indian Cuisine and Bar is at 1609 N Dixie Hwy #102 in Elizabethtown.

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