THE DAY AFTER TURKEY DAY

So the day after Thanksgiving, I had to work. But it was my uncle's birthday, so additional cousins came up from LA to celebrate. In all, there were 12 of us. My aunt made a traditional birthday food, which is noodles with marinated eggs. You usually have stewed pigs feet with this, too, but we used left over turkey meat instead. Here's my bowl.

This is the perfect thing to have on a cold morning- steamy, warm and delicious, it got me all ready to head off to work.

While I was at work, my sister spent the day with all the cousins and kids, which ended up wearing here out. (There were 4 kids, all under the age of 5). We were supposed to go back and have dinner with them after my shift, but my sister just couldn't deal with any more crying, so I picked an Indian restaurant for dinner.

I'm still trying to find some good Indian in the East Bay, but after speaking to my friend last week, it seems that this may be more difficult than I had planned. Anyway, we ended up going to Cafe Raj on Solano Ave., which I had been told is a pretty good place. When we arrived, the restaurant was packed, but luckily we were able to grab the last open table.

After taking a look at the menu, I decided to get my old stand by, which I use to gauge all Indian restaurants- the Chicken Tikka Masala. But first I got a few starters. Here's the order of papadams I got. They were ok, though not very flavorful.

Then I got an order of veggie samosas. The exterior on this was a little different- much more similar to a spring roll wrapper cause it was so thin and crunchy. It actually wasn't too bad, but I prefer to have tamarind as a dipping sauce, and here, they just gave you a mint sauce.

Lastly, here's my order of chicken tikka masala. I had ordered this medium, but it seemed to have no heat to it at all. It's a pattern that I'm noticing for restaurants on Solano- they just don't like to really spice things up. The flavor was Ok, but I disliked the fact that there were raisins.

Overall, this was another disappointing venture into the world of Indian food on Solano Ave. Also, the service wasn't so great. I realize they were busy and only one us was eating (my sister had already had dinner), but it took forever to get our bill, or even a refill on water. I don't think I'll come back here, but I'll keep searching for a good place while serious missing Gourmet India of Comm Ave.