Day 9 Raj Mahal & Kabab Cafe!

Me and Kirstin both had lists of all the things we wanted to do on this trip. Most of mine involved eating. We did two of those things this day.

For lunch we headed to 6th St.. between 1st and second to eat at one of the many Indian restaurants that line that block. This area is famous for there meal specials for just $6 at lunch and $7 for dinner you can get an entree an appetizer some muligawany soup, nan, Papadam, rice and a desert. I ate here often when I lived in the city.

All the different restaurants ran together in my mind so we just picked one at random. The place that had the most enthusiastic guy outside, a little place called Raj Mahal.

We sat outside, I got the Tandoori chicken and Kirstin got the Sag Paneer. The food was all pretty average. Not the most exiting Indian food in the world but with the aid of the small price, the large amount of nostalgia and the large amount of food I wasn't about to complain.

Dinner was at a place that held another very special place in my heart. The Kabab Cafe!

Located just one block from where I used to live in Queens, this legendary restaurant has only five tables. It also only has two employees or really one employee (a prep chef) and an owner.

The owner Ali, a large gregarious Egyptian man comes to your table and tells you what he has that day. Once you order he goes over to the tiny kitchen in the corner and cooks it for you then brings it back and often scrapes it directly from his pan onto your plate.

We ordered a beet salad (something I'd eaten here before and tried unsuccessfully to recreate ever since) and some sardines to start. The beets I've already expressed my excitement over but the sardines where just as good, in truth better. Oily and just fishy enough. We ate them and left little skeletons on the plate reminiscent of the cartoon Heathcliff.

For entrees me and James got meat. I got grilled baby lamb chops and james got half a duck. I tried James' but really I couldn't tear myself away from mine. Such a simple dish. I hinted in my first post that grilled lamb can only get so good. That comment was truly put to shame this day. These where the best lamb chops I've ever had and I eat at least one lamb chop a week.