Majestic dining at Moghul Express

Moghul Express
1670 Oak Tree Road #A
Edison, NJ 08820
(732) 549-6222
www.moghul.com/edison/index.html (this leads to the Moghul Restaurant website)
(other locations available)

My coworker, V, swears by this take-out place in Edison. Last weekend, DJKung and I decided to drop by en route to Atlantic City. We initially had a hard time finding it because the GPS for some reason was not recognizing the name. We were really glad that we persevered, because it was a worthy stop.

From its earlier online reviews, it appears that the current location has been long overdue. It is now housed in a sleek glass-fronted storefront, with very contemporary decor, and plenty of seating. It was around 3 pm when we arrived, so it was understandably empty.

The menu is divided into Chinese, Thai, northern Indian and Southern Indian fast food. They even had kulfi! They had a nice flat screen tv playing a satellite channel with old movies.

Masala dosa. This is a paper-thin crispy crepe made from rice and black lentils, stuffed with masala-flavored potato, and rolled up into this humongous thing. It was very light, so despite its size, it was easy to gobble up. DJKung's dad quite liked it.


These were the sauces that came with the dosa. Left, from top: coconut chutney, a mild sauce, and a more spicy red sauce. The large cup has some type of fiery veg curry. With the dosa, it like having these flavor explosions in your mouth with each bite--- there is just nothing like it!

Potato filling inside the masala dosa. This was cooked real Keralan style, but toned down. I could taste the mustard seeds and curry leaves in it!

DJKung ordered the lamb seekh kababs, which reminded him a lot about Bademiya. These kababs are spiced ground meat, molded to a metal skewer, and grilled. This came with a bit of onions, chili-onion salad and some green sauce. DJKung did not say much about the food, but at the end, had a very big smile on his face.

Some naan to go with the kababs.

DJKung and I really liked the food here. I'm not sure if it would exactly qualify as fast food, because most of the food was made fresh to order (I think the naan was reheated, but still tasted very fresh), and took more than a few minutes. We were quite ravenous, and the food was very flavorful and hit the spot. We're looking forward to trying more from their menu, and definitely will make this one of out pit stops whenever we go to South Jersey.

Way to have fun at Wawayanda State Park!!!

Wawayanda State Park
Hewitt, NJ

On one of the nicer weekends we've had this summer, the UFC was lucky to finally have a little picnic. We picked Wawayanda because it's relatively close, and we wanted to scope it out for canoeing later on.

Wawayanda (Lenape for "water on the mountain" or "winding water") sits in the northern part of Passaic County at the NY/NJ border. The terrain is mostly very hilly. The NY/NJ Trail Conference lists 29 miles of park trails, including a bit of the Appalachian Trail, in 17,500 acres. Besides hiking and canoeing, there is a beach area for swimming, some picnicking and camping facilities, and plenty of fishing spots (the lake is even stocked with landlocked salmon!).

Most of the picnic/grill areas were already taken by the time we got there (1 pm), so we had a short trek along the lake to reach a second, less crowded picnic spot.

Most of the picnickers here look like regulars, with tents, hammocks, camping chairs and coolers and coolers of stuff. Lots of kiddies on bikes, and a lot of furs too! Chibby and Babams were so excited!

Furs hanging out in Wawayanda.

Superfatty grillin' some kick-ass chickens.

"Is them chickens ready yet???"

This is what we had for lunch: cold ampalaya (bitter gourd) in black bean sauce, rice, some kick-ass bbq chicken, and some home-style bbq ribs. Everyone was really hungry!

After lunch, DJKung and his dad tried their luck fishing. They did not have any bait with them, but it was not so bad foraging for worms and bugs for bait. The furs went for a lilttle swim and fetched some sticks.

The furs relaxing by the water after a nice lunch.

Babams and DJKung fishing. It was too bad that the fishes here were just too wily--- they were fast and readily gobbled up the bait.

Wayayanda was a great experience. We have to try the hiking here with the furs next time... I remember from past hiking trips that the rocks here are pretty spectacular. I'm sure the furs would love it!