Traveling up to the Madison area earlier this year, I was sort of getting burnt out on burgers, Mexican food, and brewpubs that I'd been visiting a lot during the summer. Staying on the city's west side, I found an Indian restaurant that wasn't far from the hotel. I thought it was interesting enough to share my experience of dining at Dhaba Indian Bistro.
The Singh family - father Sital and his son, Sumanjit (a.k.a. "Sonu") are well known in restaurant circles around Madison and beyond as they are also involved with the Taste of India restaurant in Madison, as well as restaurants in Brookfield, WI, Green Bay, WI, and Rockford, IL. With the Madison suburb of Middleton continuing to grow, a number of restaurants have opened up in that city over the past few years. The Singh's saw that there was no Indian restaurant in the line-up of new restaurants coming into Middleton and they decided to look for a place to put one in. They found a space in a multi-purpose retail/restaurant building along Greenway Boulevard in Middleton that used to house an Asian fusion restaurant and opened Dhaba Indian Bistro in September of 2012.
Actually, you have to turn on to Deming Way from Greenway Boulevard and then take a quick left into the parking lot to get to Dhaba Indian Bistro. (see map) The restaurant occupies the far west end of the building. The place was relatively full when I walked in - a good sign in my book. I was escorted to a table toward the back of the restaurant by the host that evening who turned out to be Sonu Singh.
After ordering a Kingfisher beer, I was looking through the menu to check to see what they offered at Dhaba Indian Bistro. It was an extensive menu with a number of lamb, chicken and seafood dishes. They also had some biryani items on the menu, and - quite interestingly - they had beef Indian dishes. You don't see that in a lot of Indian restaurants, but I was told that it is Muslim Indian restaurants that offer beef dishes.
Of course, I had to order some garlic naan bread. When the waiter brought it out to the table, I could smell the garlic before he even set it down on the table. The leavened white bread was pliable and pulled apart easily. But the garlic taste in the bread was simply wonderful. I definitely wanted to keep some around to dip in the curry sauce I ordered.
Along with my dinner that evening, I got a cup of the lentil vegetable soup. It was actually pretty good. It sort of looked like chicken noodle soup, but tasted more like bean and bacon soup. I wasn't really certain I needed the soup, but I was glad I got it.
For my dinner that night, I got the lamb curry. My server asked me how spicy I wanted it on a scale of "1 to 5" with one being the most mild. I thought about it for a moment and told him 3.5. Well, I have to say their idea of 3.5 on their spicy scale would have been more of a 4.5 on my scale. The curry had a vicious bite, but - to me - it didn't seem to have a lot of flavor. I wondered if the spiciness masked the overall flavor of the curry sauce.
The lamb turned out to be somewhat disappointing. Many of the pieces of lamb I was served were very fatty. More than once I pulled pieces of the meat out of my mouth as it was just too fatty. Along with the somewhat too spicy curry sauce that didn't have a lot of flavor, the lamb curry was disappointing.
I'm still not what I would deem an expert when it comes to Indian food. But I know what I like and I have to say that I was disappointed in my lamb curry at Dhaba Indian Bistro. The lamb had too much fat on it and the curry sauce was sort of bland. The spiciness of the sauce could be the reason it was wasn't as flavorful as many other Indian restaurants I've been to. But the garlic naan was excellent, the service was prompt and professional, and the decor was tasteful and contemporary. I just wish my meal would have been better than what it turned out to be.
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