I had been the road a lot and I was starting to get into that food funk where nothing sounded good to me even though I was hungry for something. Usually, I can break that food funk with sushi or Indian food. The weather was cold and blustery and I got into Omaha late in the day after a long drive down from up north. I decided on Indian food and found a place about a 10 minute drive from my hotel called Maharaja Indian Cuisine.
For a number of years, the New India Gardens was a staple for people looking for Indian food in Omaha. They had two locations on the west side of Omaha, one on S. 125th St. and a second location on N. 114th, just north of Dodge. In May of 2013, Kusum Bhalla bought the N. 114th St. location and turned it into Maharaja Indian Cuisine. He kept many of the same things on the menu including the popular wraps and dosas (crepes) that New India Gardens customers liked so much, as well as the lunch buffet that is served daily between 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Their dinner offerings begin each evening at 5 p.m.
Maharaja Indian Cuisine is located on the far south side of a strip mall known as Miracle Hills Square just north of Dodge at N. 114th St. (see map) It's located next to the Namaste Plaza international grocery store. There was plentiful parking out front when I got there around 6:30 that evening.
The decor at Maharaja Indian Cuisine is pretty spartan and basic. The chairs were made of lime green plastic seats. A wood floor and high ceilings in the long narrow space made it rather loud in there even though the place was about half full of patrons.
One of the guys from the back came over to greet me, dropped off a menu and asked me what I would like to drink. They had Kingfisher on tap and I said I'd take one of those. "A large one," he asked. Sure - I didn't know what a large one was, but it turned out to be a 25 ounce glass.
Not long after he brought out my beer, another young guy brought out some leavened bread with chutney dipping sauces. The two different types of chutney were mild and spicy. I like the leavened bread with the chutney sauces to start out at Indian restaurants.
For dinner that night, I considered the shrimp biryani and the lamb vindaloo before settling on the lamb curry dish - boneless lamb cubes cooked in a curry sauce and served with rice. The lamb was tender and the curry sauce was a bit spicy, but nothing bad. It was a hearty meal for a cold winters night. I also got some garlic naan bed to go along with the meal. Dipping the garlic naan in the curry sauce was a great taste combination.
Needing to get out of a food funk that I was in, Maharaja Indian Cuisine was a "spot-hitter" for me that evening. The lamb curry was very good as was the garlic naan. Maharaja Indian Cuisine wasn't anything fancy, the service seemed to be fine, and the food was above average for Indian food. For comfort food on a cold winter evening, Maharaja more than fit the bill for me.
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