Just Ren going solo on this one. Don't worry. We're not breaking up the team. Just need to express my ideas without fitting into the "formula" of the Ren & Matt group. I can't be limited like that you know. Well...actually...despite not having matty along for this one I'm pretty sure it'll read about the same as my normal babblings.

Ang, Yeti-dude and Ms Huggenkiss and Ms. Huggenkiss's boyfriend and I chose to try out the Glory of India restaurant. Located in downtown calgary it is decidedly un-dodgy, as is typical of my excursions with angela. We made a reservation for 7:15 for 5 and the first 3 of us arrived on time. We were shown through the fairly crowded restaurant to a nice big booth alongside a window. After a few text messages back and forth we determined that Amanda was not coming because she was "on top" of her boyfriend. Hmm...good excuse.

We bravely went ahead without them and after finally getting our waiter's attention we ordered. Admitedly we were originally waiting for 2 more people but it would have been nice for him to check-in to see if we wanted to get appy's while we waited.

After my wonderful taste of matty's Namskar tomato soup ages ago and its subsequent disappearance from their menu, I've been craving a delicious indian-style tomato soup. Luckily there was one on the menu. Un-luckily it tasted nothing like the creamy goodness that was Namskar's soup. Instead it tasted as if you had taken a basic can of Campbells Alphabet soup, drained out the veggies and the alphabet and served just the greasy tomato base. Ang and Mariette couldn't decide on a single appy to share so they got the veg combo platter. The paneer pakora were tasty bite-sized morsels of perfection. The samosa's were teeny-tiny grocery-store-looking crap (only got 2 so I couldn't steal a taste). The veg pakora however redeemed the platter for me. Very big, and fairly spicy, much better than most.

For the main course I took Matty's always sage advice and ordered the tandoori sizzler. I couldn't decide on one type so I had the combo platter. It came with 2 pieces each of tandoori chicken, seekh kabab, lamb chops, prawns and murg malai. The tandoori chicken was brilliant. Matty always avoids this one on the buffets and I'll admit, the buffets never taste like this. The perfect mix of sweet and spicy, tender on-the-bone chicken. Mmmm. The seekh kabab was ground lamb-on-a-stick but served off the stick as a creepy little sausage-shaped thingy. It had lots of tasty lamb flavour but due to the cooking process it seemed to be a bit dried out. The lamb chops however were delicious, juicy and tender. The prawns were simply massive. And tasty. The murgh malai....chicken spiced with saffron and nuts was very good. I could have honestly had any of these dishes on their own (except maybe the lamb kababs) and been quite happy with my choice.

Only downside was that since it was basically just a platter with 10 little pieces of meat on it, I wasn't all that full after eating it. Good thing I didn't let the waiter talk us out of ordering 6 naan for 3 of us. How come its always the white waiters that pharang us the worst (see Moti Mahal review)? Also it was a good thing that ang let me try some of her Malai kofta, which was creamy and delicious, although she found the kofta's to be a bit "mushy" compared to other places.

Also, for good thing number 3 it was especially good that Mariette let me eat about 1/2 of her beef rogan josh cause she's just a little Yeti-dude. First off I must say that I've always found rogan josh to be better with lamb than with beef. (Actually I've found pretty much every indian dish to be better with anything other than beef). However I must say that she seemed to get a lot more meat than I usually get ordering lamb so maybe there's an upside there. Like I've said before, rogan josh is pretty hard to screw up. This version had way too freaken much cilantro for my liking, but...it was still pretty good. And combined with the rice and the naan. I had no complaints scavenging every last drop of sauce from Yeti-dude's platter.

Overall I'm a little torn over giving a score for these guys. My soup was very disappointing to me as were the samosa's. The rest of the food was very good however. The service varied from our main waiter questioning my naan order (don't EVER stand between me and my naan), to one of the other servers flirting with Mariette by playing "keep-away" with her food when she tried to take it from him to help him put it down without spilling. Overall I think Glory of India deserves a 7.

Three people not seen at the restaurant.

1. Matty ....so there will be no 2 and 3

Oh yeah...I would take my mother here....very nice, very clean. And, I'd definitely take YOUR mother here. And she can wear that yummy little red dress that she knows I like. (ren)

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