Explore the Flavors of India at Indus Indian & Herbal Cuisine

Nothing beats going out for a great meal, unless you’re enjoying that great meal with a group that enjoys the food as much as you do. I think that’s why our tastecasting outings are so exciting. These excursions bring together a group of food bloggers, who restaurants invite in for a tasting. At the event, we tweet, take photos, drink and eat to our heart’s content. Life had gotten in the way of things recently, but this past weekend we were invited in to Indus Indian & Herbal Cuisine for a grand tasting — and taste we did.

Indus Indian & Herbal Cuisine is a welcome addition to West Palm Beach. In a city that is lacking great Indian food, Indus offers an enticing menu — filled with authentic menus items from various regions of India — seven days a week for lunch and dinner. During lunchtime, it’s the buffet that draws in a regular crowd. I’ll admit, I’m not a buffet person, so it’s dinner that is calling my name.

We visited Indus on a Friday night, and gathered in the bar area where a few high top tables filled the room. While some ethnic restaurants offer just a few beers and wine by the glass, Indus offers a full bar — bonus in my book. We recommend going for that true Indian beer, or perhaps, even an exotic cocktail.

After the group arrived, we made our way into the main dining room, where the aroma of fresh herbs and spices like coriander, turmeric and ginger filled the room. We were ready for our culinary journey to begin. With adventurous diners among us, we were able to share a variety of dishes (highly recommended) and found some favorites amongst ourselves.

Chili Gobi

While Indus does offer the common dishes that you see on every Indian menu, the menu is large enough that you can venture out and try something new. The staff at Indus is well versed in the cuisine, and is happy to personalize a menu to your liking.

For us, we did a combination. First up, Chili Gobi. This dish of battered cauliflower and onion, tossed with mild chili, ginger, garlic, and plum tomato sauce was an instant hit with the group. The sweet sauce complimented the battered vegetable and was borderline addicting — and we’d come back just for this. We had a lot more dishes to try, so it was time to move on.

Chicken Tikka Masala

As the night went on, we savored the comforting richness of the curry dishes like the Chicken Tikka Masala and Palak Masala, enjoyed the tingling on our tongue of the spicy Lamb Vindaloo and the depth of flavor in the Shrimp Biryani — and were quick to add a variety of naan to our plates — so perfect to sop up the sauces. Coming in a variety of flavors (including chili, tandoori, onion, raisin and cashew, garlic and more), this is an item that you should never pass up, a staple to Indian cuisine. They also offer some Southern Indian specialties of which I’d never experienced before.

Mango Mousse

To complete our meal, we were treated to a sweet bowl of Mango Mousse made with mangos, cardamom and condensed milk — and now the evening was complete.

Indus Indian & Herbal Cuisine is located at 1649 Forum Place in West Palm Beach. They are open for lunch and dinner 7 nights a week, with belly dancers and Bollywood dancers on the weekends. Right now, they are offering 30% to all of their facebook fans and 50% off to city officials. 561.249.0123