Saturday, February 12, 2011

Zaika Indian Bistro Bar

Cuisine: Indian
Location: Ellewood Road
Hot topic: Buffet

So today for lunch my dining companion and I took advantage of a coupon bought of the GoodNews site (see my post for this further down my blog).

We were very excited to finally try this place out and decided to go and have the lunch buffet (12$). Upon entering Zaika's I was blown away at how beautiful the place was and how modernly decorated it was. Very very attractive and chic inside. Quite a change from the Punjab Sweets I typically go to. The restaurant has lots of seating and is nice and dim to give it a nice ambiance.

As for food the buffet area was very nicely laid out, a circular island in the middle held most of the chaffing dishes and you just walked around the island filling your plate. To the side there was a small salad bar, dessert bar, and condiments area. Main dishes included butter chicken, goat curry, tandoori vegitables, tandoori chicken, pakora fish, spinach and paner, chickpeas curry etc. Soup and fresh naan was also available. The salad bar area had an assortment of fresh greens, a Greek salad, curry pasta salad, chickpea salad. And the dessert today consisted of rice pudding, mango custard, fresh fruit and those honey/sugar soaked sweet pastries.

Because we were the first customers of the day the food was fresh and we were the first ones to make a dent in it, which was nice. I tried a bit of everything today minus the salads because I decided it wasn't necessary, I would rather fill myself up with butter chicken and naan.

To drink I had a mango lassi (4$) and my companion had chai tea (3$). The lassi was good and I enjoyed it, but I did wish it was a bit colder. The yogurt in the lassi really came through which I thought was nice, but for those expecting a mango milkshake you might be taken back.

I quite enjoyed Zaika's. The restaurant itself was beautiful and a great place to go with friends or even for a date, the food was good, and the price just couldn't be beat. My only real complaint would be that the food wasn't as spicy as I would have liked it and the chaffing dishes could have been a little hotter. But other than that the meal was very good and I highly recommend this place if your craving some Indian.

Zaika's also has a dinner buffet at 17$.

Unfortunately because of the lighting I didn't get to take a picture of my food and forgot to snap a photo of the buffet area (so I got one off the internet to show you)...but I suggest maybe you go check it out for yourself :)


Sorry for the dark pictures, I had no flash


( photo credit goes to
http://kelly.cybr.org/)

The buffet area
(picture credit http://kelly.cybr.org/)


Check them out at: http://www.zaikabistro.com/index.html