Dining Fatigue
In which I take a dinner experience for granted. Or, thoughts from a pretentious New York City diner.
I struggle with describing food often, because everything I’ve eaten in New York has been so special, unique, and one of a kind! To describe each dish in this way is a disservice to you, dear reader, and quite frankly, lazy writing. But, it’s so tempting to do so anyway, because when I have this impulse, it’s because it’s how I truly feel. That’s the New York City food scene, baby.
Sometimes though, the opposite happens. I forget to truly appreciate how remarkable the food I get to eat is, because well, I get to eat it all the time. This especially applies to Indian food, since Viraj and I have been making our rounds to every single Indian restaurant in New York City. I’m truly such a completionist, and I won’t stop until I hit every single trendy Indian spot.
This week’s target: Jazba, a restaurant I learned about probably through one of the millions of food-related newsletters I receive in my inbox. I love a spin-off, and Jazba is the one-dollar-sign-on-Resy counterpart to Junoon, one of the country’s first Indian restaurants to earn a Michelin star. (We did still somehow spend almost $200 at dinner between the two of us. Truly no idea how that happened.) In contrast to Junoon’s fine dining, Jazba was inspired by Indian dhabas, roadside restaurants. Or rather, according to this Eater article, at Jazba the goal is to literally recreate hallowed bites, sometimes by literally bringing employees from dhabas in India to New York.
I think I could appropriately describe this restaurant as extraordinary. Short of actually going to India (someday!) Jazba’s dedication to authenticity paid off, and introduced even more Indian dishes to me that I had never tried before. A few I dream of stuffing my face with days after a meal, a few that I probably wouldn’t order again of my own volition, but all dishes that in retrospect were so damn special.
I had a work event that bled into the evening right before the dinner, and after suffering the horrors of awkward social interactions and a freezing out-of-system subway transfer, I arrived at dinner with Viraj tired and hungry. I think I do my worst food reviewing when too hungry, because I forget to savor the food and simply mindlessly shovel it into my mouth. And this evening, I was most definitely shoveling. But still… the taste of the food lingers, a testament to how unavoidably memorable it all was.
I think I’ve written about this before, but for the longest time I did not like paneer. And then it turned out that I just hadn’t eaten good paneer before, and after eating at Dhamaka for the first time (the best paneer in the city, IMO), I was a convert. Jazba’s paneer teh pe teh had a soft but crumbly texture, and sundried mango dusted the top in a bright yellow. This paneer was already fascinating due to its texture—it was a different style of paneer from Dhamaka’s that was more delicate—yet dipped in the mirch gur ke chutney, a syrupy, sweet red chili chutney that was once again new to me and it felt like my life would never be the same. (Dramatic… but possibly true. You don’t know.)
The paneer set the bar high and ended up being my favorite of the meal, but the two other appetizers we ordered stood out in their own way. Funnily enough, my favorite part of the aminabad ke galouti, minced mutton kebab, was the buttery warqi paratha. However, as Viraj emphasized over and over again, the kebab itself was melt-in-your-mouth tender, a sort of meat paste, in the least gross way possible, all the spiced meat flavor without the chew… Er, you may need to experience this for yourself. The aloo dum dahi bada was lentil fritters and warm potatoes swimming in a cold yogurt. Not my favorite, but a dish I can say with confidence is something I’ve never eaten before, and therein lies the joy of eating out!
Finally, we ended the meal with a hearty portion of mutton (lazeez pasliyan) paired with daal, roomali roti, and garlic naan. Here, we ventured back into more familiar territory, and what sticks with me still from this dish is once again the bread: the roti. There’s nothing like realizing I’ve been scammed this entire time because I’ve been eating something else simply posing as roti—and Viraj tells me that this roti “wasn’t even that good.” I had daal flown in from India while I was in California last week, and honestly, I’m starting to get it. The first words out of my mouth, after a spoonful of the one at Jazba, was “it doesn’t taste nearly as good as daal in India.”
One day after the meal, I sat down to write this newsletter only to be consumed with doubt. My memory of Jazba, before properly reflecting on it, was hazy. Was it even worth writing about? But then I started going back through the meal, and metaphorical drool dripped onto my keyboard. Only in New York can I have a remarkable meal, only to completely forget about it the following day. Thank god for this newsletter—otherwise most of my meals would simply go unappreciated, and we can’t have that!
Bite it!
With some advance planning, a Jazba reservation can be in your future. Yet, it’s harder to get into than I expected. I had another reservation for it a few weeks ago that I put on ResX, and it was taken almost instantly.