Bhojanic

Bhojanic describes itself as "Fusion, Homestyle Indian, Tapas." It is tapas in the sense that there are a series of small, appetizer sized dishes that can be ordered to make a meal. But there are also entree sized dishes and an option called thali.Thali is a plate of several different dishes plus rice with peas and carrots, a yogurt dip, and a small salad. I am not quite sure why it describes itself as "fusion." The dishes all seem to be straight Indian to me.

We started out with an order of samosa chat.

The samosas were warm and filled with a spicy blend of pureed lentils and whole peas. The spice blend gave a warming quality to the dish. Then there was a sauce over top made of yogurt, mint, and cilantro. The sauce was amazing. I could drink the sauce, and I have to admit that I did eat a few spoonfuls of the leftovers. 

For our entree we chose the thali option. Thali means "plate" and is literally a plate full of many small dishes. The menu has three different meat thali options and six different vegetarian thali options. It is really the Indian version of meat and three. You choose a meat and two vegetable dishes to make up your thali or three different vegetable dishes. We each ordered three of the different veggies so that we could try all six.

This is the first thali plate. On the top left is the chili paneer which is the best of all the dishes. It consists of paneer with a spicy tomato sauce. The tomatoes are cooked about two steps above becoming chutney. They are cooked down to the point where they have a concentrated flavor and are sweet. The spiciness is not hot but instead gives the dish a warmth. I feel that I am going to overuse the concept of warmth but many of the dishes did give you a feeling of warmth from either the spices or the heat. Then the other half of the dishes were excellent counterpoints to the warm dishes and provided a cooling sensation. The paneer is a dense cheese with a clean taste. It is like tofu but a little more dense and has a cheesy taste.

The middle dish is potatoes and cauliflower with, of course, a complex blend of spices. My wife thinks that she hates cauliflower, but she loved this dish. This dish was the spiciest of all six.

The dish on the right side is what I would call Indian creamed spinach. I apologize for my limited knowledge of Indian cuisine. For years my wife swore that she hated Indian food based on some experience years before I met her where someone gave her spicy curry. Since then she has resisted the idea of trying Indian food again. A few weeks ago I convinced her to give Bhojanic a try. She was extremely reluctant to try it. After the appetizer she admitted that she loved the food and was already talking about coming back. Back to the creamed spinach. It really was like creamed spinach except with Indian spices.

The rice is on the middle bottom. The yogurt is on the bottom left and the small salad is on the bottom right.



The second plate had a garbanzo bean dish on the top left. The dish was an explosion of spices in your mouth. There were too many spices for my limited palate to comprehend.

On the top middle are onion dumplings with a creamy sauce. On the top right is a lentil dish.

Not only is the food delicious but while not cheap, it is fairly reasonably priced. The appetizer was seven dollars and the thali plates are twelve dollars each.

I would highly recommend Bhojanic for delicious Indian food.

Bhojanic

1363 Clairmont Road

Decatur, GA 30033

404-6339233