In Toronto for a trade show earlier this fall, my colleague from France and I were on our own for dinner one evening. There are so many Indian restaurants in the Toronto area that you can't swing a cat by the tail without hitting one. And because of that, they're all pretty good. I convinced my European colleague to join me for dinner at one that was about a 10 minute Uber ride from our hotel, a restaurant by the name of Tandoori Masala.
Tandoori Masala is actually found in two locations in the greater Toronto area. The Brampton location opened in 2018 and the Etobicoke location opened in 2023. Both locations are combination restaurant/nightclubs and open until 5 a.m. But that seems to be the norm with the Indian restaurants around the Toronto area.
The trade show got over about 6 p.m. and by 6:30 we were on our way to Tandoori Masala which is located in a strip mall along Queens Plate Drive near where Ontario Highway 27 and Rexdale Boulevard meet up. (see map) Before we walked inside, my colleague looked at the restaurant's closing times on the door and he said in a hesitant manner, "What kind of restaurant closes at 5 a.m.?" I told him, "I've found that a lot of Indian restaurants in the Toronto area stay open that late!" (or that early) In fact, the original Tandoori Masala used to stay open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
To the left as you walk into Tandoori Masala, there was a small den/lounge area for people to gather. There was a spot for people to take off their shoes and literally climb over the short backrest into the rectangular den. It was very South Asian in the feel of the space. There wasn't a lot of people in the place when we got there - I think there were two other tables that were occupied in the restaurant. And they only had one young man working as a server, so things were a bit slow while we were there.
The "Funky Desi" decor continued into the main dining area with a number of decorative light diffusers over lighting on the ceiling. A small bar toward the front of the had rows of LED light ropes that changed colors about every ten seconds or so. And while other Indian restaurants I've been to that have flatscreen televisions on the wall that will play Indian movies, cricket matches, or Funky Desi music videos, the four television monitors at Tandoori Masala had rotating pictures of specialty drinks and cocktails on them.
The LED lights on the front of the bar changed from red, to green, to blue. And they were bright. I sat on a banquette seat bench looking toward the bar for dinner and I have to say that it was kind of disconcerting after a while. But it had a night club feeling to the place and there was Desi and Punjabi music from artists such as Satinder Sartaaj, Tegi Pannu, Manni Sandhu, and Amrit Maan playing in the background. Not loud, but noticeable enough.
We were brought out an offering of a couple crisp papadum wafers with a dual container of plum sauce (which had a spicy kick) and mint chutney (which did not). I was parched and needed a cold beer and I asked our young server if they had Kingfisher. "Kingfisher," he asked back. "Kingfisher, yes sir." Knowing how long it took him to get to our table in the first place, I immediately ordered two knowing that the first one was probably going to be gone in under five minutes.
My colleague from France doesn't drink alcohol - not even French wine! He's not religious, but more of a health nut who gave up drinking a number of years ago. He stuck with water throughout our stay. But because of the "nightclub" vibe Tandoori Masala gave off, they did feature a full bar with liquor, wine, beer, boozy shakes and "shooters" available to order.
To say that Tandoori Masala has an extensive menu is an understatement. It was like reading a large print novel from front to back as they had authentic Indian "street food" such as lamb-stuffed naan and a Bombay grilled sandwich made with spicy potatoes to start out. Vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes proliferated the menu, along with noodle and pasta dishes (the pasta dishes turned out to be somewhat interesting to me), along with soups, appetizers, and a number of curry dishes. True to their name, Tandoori Masala also had a wide selection of items with chicken, lamb and seafood made in a tandoori oven.
The one dish that caught my eye was a mash-up of Indian and Italian cuisine - the butter chicken pasta. I was intrigued by the meshing of the two cuisines - penne pasta tossed with a creamy butter chicken sauce. I mean, it works with rice and noodles, why wouldn't Indian food work with pasta? Everything else that I saw on the menu that I thought I would like to have, well, I could get that at basically any Indian restaurant that I've been to or going to be at in the future. Indian food and pasta are two of my favorite types of food. To complement the pasta and butter chicken dish, I got some garlic naan to go along with it.
I ordered mine as medium in spiciness, but the first couple bites I had told me that the chef's idea of medium and my idea of medium was a tad off. I mean, it was spicy! At least for the first three or four bites until my taste buds calmed down or warmed up or whatever they did to make the subsequent bites more palatable. I killed two more Kingfisher beers during the meal to stave off the spiciness of the meal.
And not that the spiciness detracted from the overall flavor of the butter chicken pasta - quite the opposite. It was like the flavor of the butter chicken popped with each bite. I was sitting there shaking my head and thinking, "Pasta with butter chicken. Pasta with butter lamb." Why didn't I think of it before this? I wanted to go to our favorite little Indian place when I got back home and get some butter lamb or lamb saag to bring home and pair it with angel hair or tagliatelle pasta. But what I had that evening, it was way too much food. I had a bunch of pasta leftover by the time I threw in the towel.
My friend doesn't like spicy food. (We joke that he is the most boring Frenchman on the planet, but in all reality he's a great guy.) He got the chicken tikka masala along with rice and some regular naan bread. And he ordered the tikka masala as mild as the chef could make it. It looked really good with a drizzle of cream mixed in along with some chopped parsley flakes. But from his first bite, he was in trouble. He started to sweat and said, "Wow! This is spicy!" I apologized for dragging him to the Indian restaurant and having his food turn out to be too spicy. But he trudged through the meal continuing to mix the chicken tikka masala in with the rice, taking a bite, taking a drink of water, and then going, "Whoa!"
After a bit, I asked him if I could dip some of my garlic naan into the tikka masala sauce. "Please do," he replied as he gestured toward the bowel. I tore off a chunk of garlic naan and dipped it. After I tasted it, well, I have to say that I didn't think it was spicy at all. Then again, I had just tried about 10 to 12 bites of my butter chicken pasta that was going to be noticeably more spicy than the spiciness level of his tikka masala. I guess I should have tried it earlier on as my taste buds had already wrapped themselves around the heat level of what I was eating. But just like me, after a few bites my colleague had gotten use to the spicy nature of his tikka masala sauce and was happy with what he got.
Other than my colleague thinking his chicken tikka marsala was too spicy for his liking, I have to say the meal I had at Tandoori Masala was excellent. And in retrospect the next day, my friend said that he thought what he had was very good, too. "Ooof..." he said in an exasperated manner. "It was really spicy, though." But his level of tolerance for spicy food is significantly lower than mine. Tandoori Masala was a delightfully funky place, the butter chicken pasta dish that I had was surprisingly great, and the most important thing - they had Kingfisher beer ! But the service was pretty slow. It didn't matter after we got our food, we had more than enough to keep us captivated for at least 20 minutes. I'm just still amazed - pasta with Indian food! It was just a great combination that I was so stupid to figure out until my visit to Tandoori Masala.
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