One visit to Oak Tree Road

[Laksa]

If you were to make only one trip ever to Oak Tree Road, Iselin, NJ, where would you go for dinner? I'm passing through there later today, and would like to eat well. I have probably only an hour or so for the meal.

What would you recommend?

Edited to add: I'm of course talking about Indian food. I don't have regional preferences...

Edited July 2, 2004 by wongste (log)

[Rosie]

Ming and Moghul are on the bottom level of the Shop Rite shopping center on Oak Tree Rd. Both very good and BYO.

Ming is Pan Asian. Moghul is Indian

[BrianYarvin]

Wongste:

Your post brings up one of the biggest problems on Oak Tree Road; everything moves in slow motion. From parking to finding your restaurant to dining, you'll need to spend time.

Both of Rosie's suggestions are great (I chose Ming for my birthday last year) but neither will feed you comfortably in an hour. However, the same owner has a "fast food" restaurant across the street called Moghul Express at 1670 Oak Tree Rd A in Edison. This place isn't fast in the sense that Waffle House is fast, but you can reasonably expect to get in and out in an hour.

Another possibility is Chowpatty at 1349 Oak Tree Rd in Iselin, but if your hour includes parking, walking from the parking space to the restaurant and walking back to your car afterwards, I doubt you'll be able to do it.

Now...what to order...at Moghul Express the lamb dosa is my favorite. This to me is what Indian Edison is all about in meat form. Chowpatty is vegetarian and offers a "Super Thaili" platter that is really great to.

There are at least a five or six really great places in the area that are ruled out just because they're too slow. Many are just as good or better - the Sunday brunch at Moghul is an amazing experience in about ten different ways but you'll need far more than an hour and most of your fellow diners will look like they've settled in for the day.

[Curlz]

Agreed re: Chowpatty! My ex-b.f. is Indian, and we went there a few times--good food for sure.

[Cornus]

Delhi Darbar is also quite good. They have a liquor license with very reasonably priced wines. It's on Oak Tree Road just a short distance from the two reastaurants already mentioned. One of my favorites.

[Laksa]

So we left home early thinking that traffic would be a nightmare on the GSP seeing how it's the friday before a long weekend, but it turned out to be easy sailing all the way.

We got to Oak Tree Road at 5pm, and found ourselves too early for Moghul or Ming. Moghul Express, however, was open, and was just across the road.

Except for "masala" and English words like "shrimp" and "chicken" that I could understand, the menu, at least the Indian parts, presented a challenge. The guy behind the counter was helpful with recommendations, and we ended up ordering the lamb dosa, and the "Chinese" ginger chicken.

I was hesitant at first about ordering Chinese food at an Indian restaurant, but the guy assured me that it's Chinese food cooked with Indian spices. That was to me a strangely convincing argument that makes it all ok.

Ginger chicken with basmati in the foreground, and lamb dosa in the background. The dosa came with a soup and two sauces, shown in the middle of the picture.

The meal was an explosion of flavours. An exquisite combination of pleasure and pain (delivered in the form of hot spices).

The dosa, surpisingly, had a sour undertone. I was expecting it to taste like a Western crepe. Cutting open the thin pastry revealed a generous pile of fragrant and strongly spiced minced (or chopped?) lamb.

Lemongrass was more prominent in the chicken dish than ginger. Unlike anything Chinese that I've ever tasted, I think it draws more from Thai influences.

The dessert was a welcome relief to the tastebuds:

I believe what is covered in the cooling and creamy sweet soup, with a flavour that reminds me of condensed milk, is a milk curd. Chopped pistachios topped this delicious dessert.

In the counter display cabinets there must have been a thousand pieces of Indian sweets in countless varieties. We took five home:

Thank you all for the wonderful recommendations!

Edited July 3, 2004 by wongste (log)

[BrianYarvin]

Wongste:

Yesterday, I drove by Moghul Express (from where I live, I almost can't go anywhere without passing it) several times and wondered if you were there.

I was delighted to read about how well your meal went.

Welcome to Edison!

[Curlz]

Glad you had a good meal, Wongste! The 'soup' you had was probably a milky version of rice pudding, right? It was likely Ras Malai, which is sort of like cottage cheese, and the milk is usually infused with cardamom. Kheer is more like rice pudding and I don't think it has any cheese in it; I think it has almonds in it, but they often top it with pistachios as well. In both cases, there's likely a touch of rose water involved, which, in addition to the cooling properties of the milk itself, makes it a refreshing and cool way to end a spicy meal! I never order dessert when I have Indian food any more b/c I'm always too full, but many restaurants serve it as part of their Thali. The dosa with lamb on the inside is intriguing; the only Indian 'breads' that I've had that are stuffed are parathas or kulcha--essentially naan with stuffing, and that can be herbs/onions or meat, usually lamb. All good! Keep eating, and keep reporting!

Edited July 3, 2004 by Curlz (log)

[Laksa]

Glad you had a good meal, Wongste!  The 'soup' you had was probably a milky version of rice pudding, right?  It was likely Ras Malai, which is sort of like cottage cheese, and the milk is usually infused with cardamom.  Kheer is more like rice pudding and I don't think it has any cheese in it; I think it has almonds in it, but they often top it with pistachios as well.

The soup was runny, not thick like rice pudding, but it does taste vaguely like rice pudding. There is a single round curd-like piece swimming in the soup that resembles cottage cheese in texture, but it's whole, not crumbly, like a ball of cottage cheese. Does that sound more like Ras Malai or Kheer?

Update on the sweets:

These were incredible. The white square on the bottom left is the most unusual of the five. There's strong aged cheddar taste, and it's sweet at the same time. Truly amazing.

The top two with the orange dots taste very similar, and have the same texture as the "ball" in my soup dessert. The one on the right has a green pistachio paste sandwiched in between.

The bottom right has a wonderfully aromatic fruit ester that might be cantaloupe or some kind of melon.

The brownie-like piece is topped with slivered almonds and sweetened with brown sugar or maybe palm sugar.

We will definitely be going back.

[Curlz]

I'm sure you had the Ras Malai, wongste--the Kheer definitely has rice in it! Sounds like it was a great meal, sweets included. Sweets are a HUGE part of the Indian culture--to the point where when someone goes to India, they always bring boxes of them home. The ex-bf's parents took a trip and came home with (no exaggeration) an entire suitcase of sweets to give to friends and family--a cultural phenomenon that nobody objected to! There are a zillion kinds, as you can see! I can't say that I know one from the other, but I've only ever tried a few that I didn't like--and in general, I'm not a sugar fiend. The mix of flavors is always intriguing to me, though.

[Curlz]

And of course, now I'm totally craving Indian food!!!

[jb_973]

The sweet on the bottom left is my favorite - Kalakand. A mixture of paneer (cheese), condensed milk, and something else I do not remember!

I'm fortunate enough to work 5 minutes from Moghul Express - I may have to make a sweet run.

By the way, if you're in the Oak Tree Road area, I'd definitely recommend a trip to Swagrath (1700 Oak Tree Road, in the middle of a strip mall). They serve South Indian cuisine (pure vegetarian), and have a great lunch special. Some wonderful Dosas, and the Pancham Poori (sp?) is my favorite.

[jpr54_]

my son and i ate lunch at chowbatty today-

it was a great experience-we had the super thaili plate-thanx for the suggestions of restaurants

we also went shopping at patel's cah and carry-

i bought fresh tumeric, okra,green chana, greenpeas, long beans,,tindora, and karela-

the produce looked good and was priced reasonably-

other shoppers helped me pick out the produce-

i am using "classic indian vegetarianand grain cookbook" by julie sahni