SWAGAT

If you know me at all, you know that I am a self-proclaimed "foodie." I love going to new places and trying new things. I find joy in discovering restaurants that I love and can recommend to other people. Lucky for me, Ben has a similar interest. Heck - our first date was at a Thai restaurant! One cuisine that I have struggled with though is Indian food. I'm not huge on spice, so finding dishes that I enjoyed and didn't burn my mouth off was hard. We tried Korma Sutra a few different times and I just couldn't get on board with it because I couldn't find anything that I liked.

For Christmas, Ben got a gift certificate to SWAGAT in Zona Rosa from one of his cello students. Ben is friendly with the owner of SWAGAT because the business banks at his bank branch as well, so this weekend when we had a kid-free night, we decided to try it out. Naturally, I went in skeptical. I told Ben we might need to stop at Chipotle on the way home because I just didn't think I'd find anything that I'd like. Ben assured me we would find SOMETHING.

What we ended up doing was getting the SWAGAT dinner for Two. This included:

• Vegetable soup (lentils, fresh veggies, cilantro, spices)
• Vegetable samosas (turnover stuffed with mashed potatoes, peas, and spices)
• Chicken tandoori (bone-in chicken marinated in yogurt and spices)
• Chicken tikka masala (marinated chicken in tomato-based cream sauce)
• Lamb rogan josh (lamb in a curry cooked with yogurt and spices)
• Rice
• Nan (white bread)
• Kheer (rice pudding) OR Gulab Jamun (cheese dumplings soaked in sweet syrup)

We were also treated to an order of Vegetable Pakora (vegetable fitters made from spinach, onions, potatoes, cauliflower, and spices) because the owner and Ben knew each other. So we really did the opportunity to try a little bit of a lot of things! Ben was really great and we ordered everything mild so that it wouldn't be too spicy for me, and we "tried" everything at the same time so we could discuss how I felt about it (haha).

My thoughts? I LOVED IT! I don't know if my taste buds have changed since we last had Indian food (over a year ago), or if I just had different things and I cared for them more, but HOLY COW IT WAS DELICIOUS!! On top of that, we had excellent service and yummy beverages. I tried their homemade Limeade and it was sooooo wonderful. Ben tried a beer at the recommendation of the owner.

Overall, I'd say the food was delicious, the restaurant was beautiful, and the service was great! We will definitely go back. I'm thinking I need to round up a group of adventurous ladies and have a girls night too! Here are the photos that I took. I couldn't help but snap a shot of every course - the food had such a great presentation!

  

 

 

 

For me, the only questionable thing was the dessert course. I'm not a huge rice pudding fan, and the texture of the cheese dumplings wasn't my favorite. They had other options on the menu though, and I'm sure I would be able to find something that I liked on my next visit!

Until next time! XXO.