Yay, we finally made it to Iselin! The Iselin-Edison area has a large Indian and Pakistani population. Over the years, this enclave has produced this bustling community of shops, stores, and of course, restaurants. This was UFC's first sojourn into the area (exit 131 on Garden State) and we were very excited.
The main strip, Oaktree Road, was congested (we went on a Sunday). Parking was not too easy, specially with the restaurants that only had street parking.
We picked Shanawaz because its lunch buffet was pretty crowded. The posted menu was pretty good too, but since we are pretty much novices when it comes to Indian food, we opted for the buffet ($7.99 per person).
Shanawaz has an odd layout. Basically, you go snag a table, then go up to the counter and place your order. You can flag a waiter if you need drinks and whatnot, but you will have to go back to the counter if you wish to order other dishes.
The lunch buffet was excellent, but had few veggie options. There's a nice selection of the sauces, fresh naan bread, chicken biryani, chicken and lamb korma, a lovely spiced chickpea dish, and a nice potato dish.
Fresh naan, great for sopping up the sauce.
Chicken korma. The spice blend was excellent. DJKung went back for seconds and thirds. DJKung's pops liked the lamb korma, which reminded him a lot of the Philippine-style caldereta. The lamb was gamy and likewise excellent.
Superfatty's plate. This was my second helping, so there was more overlap of the dishes on the plate. DJKung's pops wanted some white rice, which no good meal can go without. I also wanted to try their other apps, and ended up ordering a samosa and a fried potato puff.
Foreground: Fried potato puff. This was very yummy. I forgot what the app in the background was. This was denser, and was also very good.The food was overall, pretty excellent. My advice is to scope out the buffet before picking this option, because at most, there are about five or six main dishes. They have a decent a la carte section, and the prices are very reasonable.
We did not have room for dessert; there were some sweets shops and bakeries on the main strip. I guess we'll have to reserve the food crawl some other time!
Their curry dishes are awesome. There are plenty of other restaurants in this area worth checking out and all are very affordable.
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting! Iselin is quite a hike for us, so it would be great to hone in on the local hot spots, instead of doing the old trial-and-error dining. A friend suggested Mughal Express, but I think that's a takeout joint. Any suggestions are welcome!
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