Many moons and two husbands ago, when I fraternized with the
South Indian (Dravidian) linguistics crowd at Cornell, the overriding belief
was that you couldn’t master the reflexives of Telugu, the language of 50
million Indian people, unless your tongue was burned. Mopping sweaty foreheads
and gulping down quantities of Kingfisher beer was the order of the day, flaming
heartburn a sign of academic muscle. But that was then, and that was south-Indian
food.
No longer required to prove my flame tolerance, I very much enjoy
stopping in at New Delhi Diamond’s, operated by the Sekhon family who hail from
the northern Indian Punjabi region. Their
restaurant, which has occupied the 106 West Green Street since 1993, has grown
more and more wonderful as the years have progressed. Their north Indian-style food relies less on
chilis (though they’ll heat it up for you if you so desire), and more on the
complex flavors and textures I fear to experiment with at home, despite guidance
from Madhur Jaffrey’s fine cookbooks. And because, with Diamond’s open seven
days a week for lunch and dinner, there’s really no need to mess up my kitchen.
The restaurant at 108 West Green Street, for many years a
coffee shop beloved by the City Hall crowd, and then Dos Amigos, a Mexican
joint beloved by the rest of us, is a no-frills kind of place, with the few
requisite Indian tapestries adorning the walls, and an abundance of artificial
flowers, paper placemats at lunch, linens at dinner. Diners seated in the cozy banquettes looking
out over Green Street take in the scene on the busy corner of Green and
Cayuga.
At lunchtime, the place draws the downtown throng to a large
and colorful all-you-care-to-eat buffet with softly charred naan, a bread
roasted in the barrel-shaped clay tandoor oven, warm and fragrant; tandoori
chicken and a chicken curry, an abundance of vegetarian offerings with their
layers of flavors and textures, a modest salad selection, cooling raita, spicy
pickled onions and greens, and, if you can still manage it, dessert. It’s quite the feed, especially given the
$8.61 freight, plus tax and tip.
At dinner recently, we ordered the thick and spicy chicken
soup, like none my Brooklyn mom ever made, but likely with similar medicinal
qualities. An order of vegetable pakora,
made with chickpea flour, was crisp, its mildness a contrast to the
sweet-and-sour tamarind sauce provided for dipping. Onion kulcha, one of the
many Tandoori flatbreads they offer, is useful for sopping up chunks of meat,
vegetables, and sauce. The sweet taste of the roasted onions incorporated into
the dough calmed the spices of our lamb vindaloo, which I always expect to be
hot-hot-hot; this was spicy, but not aggressive. Hefty chunks of slow-cooked
lamb swam in a complex sauce of ginger? turmeric? coriander? cumin ? ginger?
cinnamon? Whatever it was, it was delicious, with its not-over-the-top addition
of cayenne and vinegar. Sag paneer, one of my favorites of their dishes, is a
rich spinach preparation, flecked with little cubes of house-made mild cheese,
and plenty of ghee or clarified butter.
There’s a reasonable selection of desserts. We usually go for the kheer at lunch, a sweet
rice pudding flavored with cardamom, but this time opted for rasmalai, cheese
patties swimming in a sweetened milk, a sort of north Indian take on
cheesecake. This we washed down with a glass of mango lassi, a refreshing
thinned yogurt and mango drink. All of this was supremely satisfying.
While I wasn’t surprised to find a good selection of Indian
beers on the booze list, I was delighted to find Finger Lakes Rieslings
available, a good match for a bit of spice.
We’ve occasionally employed their catering services,
especially useful when we’re expecting a hungry mob of vegetarians. They also
provide dishes that are vegan and gluten-free. For more information, check out
their Web site at newdelhidiamonds.com.
