The Secret to a Great Indian Buffet

There used to be this Indian place called Bayleaf  The Civee and I would go to that had an amazing lunch buffet. The buffet was great because there was a big selection and the food was always fresh. In fact, when you ordered the buffet, they would bring out a just-cooked plate of tandoori chicken for your table.

The Civee and I would frequently comment that Bayleaf put too much money into their buffet for it to last. Sadly, we were right. Bayleaf closed their Columbus location and moved an hour away. The Columbus restarant was replaced by a similar (but not similar enough) Indian place, the name of which escapes me. We took Hope to the new place and while it was okay (if not on the unnecessarily spicy side), it wasn’t worth the drive.  We thought the days of having a great Indian buffet in town were over.

But yesterday, we checked out this place that opened up in our old neighborhood called Aab. We got there at noon, just as they opened for lunch. They had a big selection, and even though there was no plate of tandoori chicken for each table, the food was fresh. And good.  Even Hope liked a number of the dishes (and the mango lassi we had for her to drink), probably helped by the fact that because it was for a buffet, the food wasn’t that spicy.

I wasn’t the only one who thought the buffet was great.  As I was loading up my plate, I overheard a couple sitting near the buffet discussing how much they liked the food.  The guy said (and I couldn’t make up a line like this): “that tandoori chicken is so fresh, I could spank it.”

I hope he was talking about the chicken.

Despite the odd commentary, he was right, the freshness of the food made it good (which was also probably helped by the fact that we got there just as they opened) and there was also a variety of dishes.

I can’t say we’ll go to the Aab lunch buffet all the time. But it’s nice to know we have a new place to replace an old favorite. And I hope that guy resolved his issues over the chicken.