#46 – DUM BIRYANI at TULSI

For the third year in a row, I’m going to attempt to eat every single item on Time Out New York’s annual 100 Best Dishes list. In no particular order, here’s my take on their Top 100. Let the gluttony continue…

Time Out sort of does an injustice to some of these restaurants. Every year, the names change but oftentimes the types of dishes stay the same. As we were walking to Tulsi in Midtown East for our latest list item, we said “Let’s see how this year’s fancy Indian goat dish stacks up.” See, last year Time Out brought us to Tamariand Tribeca, a higher end Indian restaurant, to try their Mutton Punjabi. This year, it’s Tulsi for the Dum Biryani with Goat Meat. So it’s impossible for me not to compare the two.

Aside from the obvious comparisons, Tulsi (which translates to “Holy Basil”) is related to Tamarind because the executive chef Hemant Mathur first worked at Tamarind before helming Devi and now Tulsi. His food has gotten raves in all the critic circles when Tulsi opened last year, although they were critical about the service and ambiance.

We were seated in a dark corner of the white fabric-heavy restaurant and were greeted promptly and kindly. The service ended up being attentive and the cheesy setting wasn’t any more offensive than at most Indian restaurants in the city.

The food, unfortunately, was rather hit or miss. Perhaps we made some bad ordering decisions. The amuse bouche (a complimentary bite of curried eggplant on a crisp papadum) was delectable and hinted at good things to come.

We picked the crab cake next because the version at Tamarind Tribeca was mind blowing and we were hoping for more of those delicate, refined flavors. These crab cakes were horrible! They were three hockey pucks of battered and fried fish cakes. This is a dish I expect to see at a diner and I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were originally frozen. Really, a terribly uninspired dish that made the rest of the promising meal suffer.

The tandoori aloo were stuffed potato skins that had a wonderful sweet and spicy tamarind chutney accompanying it. The lamb kebab appetizers were like flat kofta patties that I expect to get much cheaper (and just as good) at any respectable street cart nearby. A side of black lentils heavily doused with ghee (clarified butter) and tomato sauce was astoundingly delicious.

And then we come to the Dum Biryani. Or as I like to call it, the Indian pot pie. I had never seen anything like this. It comes to the table like a beautiful cassoulet and is cut and opened up by the server.

I was expecting lots of steam or something magical to appear, but below the puffy pieces of nan bread is just a typical biryani dish. It’s a mixture of saffron rice, spices, and tender bits of goat meat falling off the bone. I found the dish more aromatic (lots of cardamom, ginger, and garlic) than spicy, although the phenomenal yogurt sauce it was served with was a nice cool down.

It was a good dish – the nan bread was great and the rice mixture was full of flavor. It was on par with the goat dish from last year, but I have to say Tamarind Tribeca’s food was far superior. I hate to pit restaurants against each other, but it’s all Time Out’s fault!

Would Tulsi’s Dum Biryani make my Top 100 of the year? It was one of the better dishes on the menu and was flavorful and fresh, but aside from the tender goat meat nothing about it was much different than any other good biryani dish I’ve tasted. 7 out of 10.