We understand that we have a devoted following in Red Deer. When we say devoted, we mean 3 people read the website regularly. As a reward for their patronage, we decide to do a special review in Red Deer. (matt)

There's nothing that two men like better than a road trip.  Unless maybe it's movies about road trips.  Or beer.  Or maybe pretty ladies in swimsuits.  Or all combined into one.  (ren)

One Sunday afternoon, while flipping aimlessly through my TV channels, I happened to stop on what I think was once RDTV (Red Deer TV) but is now called CHCA. I don’t really know. All I do know is that, Rob Gibson is their news anchor and he used to be the sports guy on one of the stations here in Calgary. The last time I saw him he was singing the national anthem at a Calgary Vipers game and HE WAS DRUNK!!! It’s good to see people are still graduating from the Ron Burgundy School of Broadcasting.  Anyways, I digress; there was an advertisement for Astha Fine Indian Cuisine and after a few emails, we had everything arranged for a Tuesday evening in Red Deer. (matt)

I had the whole week off with a vacation from work so originally I had planned to try to walk to Red Deer.  I figured I could take pledges, and raise some money for some important cause, such as keeping me fed, but then I decided that would be too much work.  Matty and I decided to carpool.  (ren)

I beat the rush hour traffic to Ren’s house where I presented him with a special memento: A framed portrait of former Calgary Flames defenseman Andrew Ference. He hasn’t played with the Flames since the 06-07 season but that doesn’t stop Zellers in Market Mall from selling his portrait. Now reduced from $8 to only $4. Fantastic. (matt)

I was originally going to give matt crap for his last paragraph because the action-shot he gave me is clearly labeled “Brad Ference”, but upon further review we have decided that it is, in fact Andrew in the picture.  It would be very strange for anyone to market a picture of Brad Ference in a Flames jersey since he only actually suited up 5 times for the team.  His major claim to fame was actually dropping the gloves with Mario Lemieux a few years back.  Classy!  Of course, Andrew is no angel either, having been the co-combatant in Sidney Cosby's first official NHL fight.  (ren)

Ren had his Camaro ready and fully stocked for the road, but we needed some drinks and so we stopped at a local 7-11. In front of us at the till, some young girls were paying for gas. Neither Ren, nor I was fully convinced that they were old enough to know how to drive. Several minutes later, our suspicions were confirmed when the young ladies stalled their mother’s 1984 Toyota Corolla twice in the intersection in front of us.  (matt)

If you're going to go on a road trip, you need to have an appropriate vehicle.  For entertainment value I had considered making matt ride bitch on the back of my vespa all the way to red deer, but its 80km/hr top speed and our reservation being made for 7pm made this a poor choice.  Anyways, when it comes to bombing up and down the “QE2” you can never have enough power, and detroit iron fits the bill perfectly.  (ren)

Other than the girls learning to drive on the fly, our trip up to Red Deer was uneventful and we arrived about 40 minutes early. Just enough time to check out Ren’s old stomping grounds as well as our webmistress’ old trailer park. Unbelievable. It only illustrates that we are all fragments of our old selves. Where will I be in 15 years? Possibly working at Safeway. I hope they change the dress code. (matt)

It's always kinda fun driving around Red Deer.  I only lived there for 3 years but they were a fun 3 years.  We drove past my old house, which was just down the street from where Chelsea was renting a room from a family friend in the trailer park.  During my year at Red Deer College, Chelsea got on the bus 2 stops after me and despite us always being the only two people on the bus we never even spoke until the last month of the school year, and even then under dubious circumstances. (thanks Sean Chapman!!!) Oh, the memories!!! (ren)

Webmistress' note: ask Ren how we met sometime. I dare you. By the way, that trailer rocked. We had so many nights of Extra Old Stock + Sour Patch Kids that I had to cut candy gobs out of the orange shag carpet when we moved.

When we finished the tour, we still had to wait for our dinner guests to show up. Spotting a liquor store, we popped in where I purchased a bottle of wine and Ren bought a bottle of Chilean Grape Liquor in a bottle shaped like the Easter Island Statues. We plan on naming the statue and possibly making it our mascot. As for the taste of the liquor inside, we really can’t comment on that since the Chileans apparently made it impossible to open the bottle. (matt)

We're not sure that anything could possibly be more appropriate a mascot for our site than an easter island moai.  I mean, what could be more indian than that?  Heh heh.  Plus he photographs terribly, being all black.  I think we need a better plan.  (ren)

Soon afterwards, our good friends Jeremy and Jason arrived with some co-workers. All together, we had 10 hungry diners.  Too bad the guy who took our reservation forgot to write that down. Nonetheless, the staff whipped together a table quickly and we didn’t have to wait long. (matt)

I only counted 8 of us, however, matty and I are having a Kenny vs Spenny-esque competition to see who can stay off their meds the longest so there's a pretty good chance that we could both be wrong.  It was suprisingly quick getting together that large a table for us.  Many of the places we hit in calgary would actually have difficulty seating 10 people total, let alone together.  8 might be manageable though. (ren)

Astha is termed fine dining in Red Deer. And while they are in the same building as a Subway, judging from the décor, they didn’t skimp on the fine details of restaurant design. I’d say that the interior of the restaurant could match anything we have in downtown Calgary. The menu offered easy to read descriptions of the dishes for the one or two curry novices in our group. Of note, they had Pork curry on the menu. We’ve never seen this before and while we were tempted to try it, we stuck with old standbys. Ren had Chili Chicken and I had Shahi Chicken.  Our other guests had chicken curry, chicken tikka masala as well as shrimp and lamb kormas. Additionally, everyone except Ren and I ordered appetizers. The samples of the veg pakoras we tried were impressive. Almost everyone agreed that the mango lassis were decent. (matt)

The mango lassis were good.  Maybe could have used a bit more of the dairy ingredients, but it was ok.  The other diners were appalled that sometimes when we've ordered a mango lassi we've received what seems like nothing more than a glass of mango nectar on ice.  “Isn't that just called a mango juice then?” one of our companions asked.  Touche! (ren) 

As we waited for our entrees and naan, conversation floated between my experiences in India and a surreal but true story from another diner, about a pharmacy student being eaten by a shark in Australia. I guess you never really know what to say when something like that happens to a storyteller’s acquaintance.  That being said, I’m not sure if it’s more OR less awkward, when the storyteller reveals that he or she is happy that the acquaintance was eaten by the shark because the victim was their personal enemy, as was the case here.  (matt)

We also discussed our recent (but quickly fading) publicity in the Calgary Herald.  It was mentioned that we should have capitalized on our recent “fame” with more reviews..... we hung our heads in shame.   While the conversation proceeded I took in the sights, sounds and smells.  The entire restaurant smelled delish, very authentic and tasty.  The music was mostly that new-ish indian style pop, with the magical combination of tabla, sitar, drum machine and synthesizer.  Good enough.  The walls were decorated with many, many pictures of a general indian vibe.  Elephants, hindu gods, buildings....it was all there.  Still, I was left with the feeling that it had all been ordered out of a catalog.  You know the feeling you get when you go to a brand new “Irish” pub and it is filled with the exact same nicknack's and mirrors and harps carved into the woodwork as every other pub.  Also I noticed there was a vehicle out front with the license plate “Piracy”.  I have nothing else to say about that. (ren)

 When the food did arrive, there was the usual chaos about who ordered what. This is probably why Ren and I usually eat sans guests. We just want our food and don’t want to have to guess if there is adequate naan in the shared baskets. Nonetheless, for the most part, everything sorted itself out and all 10 of us eagerly dove into our entrees. Actually, more accurately, everyone except me dove into their food. While everyone else’s dishes looked appropriately tasty, I was presented with what appeared to be a egg-yellow colored soup with chunks of chicken floating it. It was bad news from the start. It was barely thick enough to be soaked up by half a platter of rice. Lacking spice and flavour, the dish ruined my evening. The dish should be removed from the menu or the waitresses should steer diners away from it. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that a menu item is not your best dish.  (matt)

Of course, if you make a dish so poorly that you're actively steering people away, it might be best just to leave it out.  I won't even mention matt's dish.  I tried my best to see a positive in it, but I just couldn't.  My chili-chicken was a bit on the watery side as well, but not too bad.  Could have used a bit more of the red and green peppers to fill things out.  There was plenty of chicken however, and the taste and spice level were spot-on.  I had ordered a cheese-naan with my original order, however this was missed on the first pass of food deliveries.  It did quickly show up after re-ordering though.  I almost wished it hadn't.  There just wasn't enough cheese in it to justify the name.  Had better from the grocery store.  As well, I tasted a little of our co-diner's chicken tikka masala.  It was .... ok.  The sauce was a bit heavy on the tomato flavour I thought, and it seemed that the chicken was cooked all-in with the sauce as opposed to being chicken tikka (tandoori cooked chicken) in a masala (sauce).  All the same, it was still better than matt's dish.  And I'm still sure there were only 8 of us.  (ren)

Everyone else’s dishes were very good. I think the prawn korma was my favorite and Ren’s Chili Chicken was also quite reasonable. He might not admit it but I saw him sweating a little during his meal. Ultimately I felt like a man left out. I tried unsuccessfully, to rationalize how it is possible to always pick the second fiddle dishes in comparison to everyone else at the table. Is it Karma? Maybe the chefs have it out for me. I don’t know. Whatever the reason, I left Red Deer somewhat disappointed. (matt)

I was definitely sweating.  The chili-chicken may have been lacking in solid bodies of chili peppers, but it was not lacking in their spice.  My nose was running and my eyes were watering for most of the meal, lucky I had a lassi to help put out the fire.  (ren)

As we made our way back to Calgary a giant grass fire was swirling out of control near the Torrington Gopher Museum. We debated calling the fire into the authorities but figured someone else on the busy highway had probably already done so. When I got home, I remembered the story of Kitty Genovese and the subsequent social psychological phenomenon known as “Genovese Syndrome”. Anyways, if your farm burned down on July 29th,  we're very sorry. (matt)

We witnessed some fantastic driving skill on our way back to Calgary.  The highlight for me was when a car got tired of waiting for a mini-van to pass a semi and decided to open up a third lane by heading out onto the shoulder.  Perhaps the girls from the seven eleven were also giving driving lessons? (ren)

Scoring Astha was again, a difficult task. My meal was the statistical anomaly that would have been thrown out of the “best fit line”. That being said, if you’re gonna get one dish wrong, it better not be the one for the guy who is a food critic. We debated about giving Astha a good score based on what is presumably available in Red Deer but that hardly seemed fair for the places in Calgary that work so hard to earn props from us. In the end, while we enjoyed the company and were thoroughly impressed by the decor, the meal wasn’t worth driving a sum total of 3 hours for. (matt)

Astha scores a 6.

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