We were craving Indian food on a Saturday for dinner and looked up for places Midtown when we stumbled upon Chola, a place that was on my list of restaurants to try. We were there at the time they opened, our brunch that day being quite early as I wanted to try another spot downtown. Taking its name from a Tamil dynasty in southern India, Chola is not new: it opened in 1998. Elegant, with a very courteous staff, it was for sure not crowded at that time and I liked it: less people equal less noise and they gracefully gave us a corner table that is normally for four people, allowing me to side sit as Larry David would say.

Menu wise, they offer a large choice of small dishes that is great for sharing and perfect if people want to try many different dishes. And it has a wide variety of vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes all mouth watering. Here is what we had:

As a drink, I got my usual: a mango lassi. I should mention that often, I drink it if the food is spicy, but it was not the case with the dishes we picked.

They brought us some papadam with tamarind sauce, mint sauce and onion chutney.

Then, our first appetizer was the samosa: classic but always good. These were well made, the outside being crispy and flakey.

Next was the onion bhaji or onion fritters that I loved: crispy and not greasy at all.

It was followed by the batata sev puri that is little crispy pockets (puris), stuffed with potato and chickpeas and covered with yogurt and chutney. If you never had this, know that you have to put all of it in your mouth to eat it because if you only get a bite, you will end up with some yogurt on your shirt. A one bite, like an amuse bouche, gives the sensation of a explosion of flavors in your mouth.

I also wanted to try one of their crab dishes as I do not see often crab on the menu of Indian restaurants, and I went for the Khekda Narital, that is sautéed crab cooked with coconut and mustard seeds. It was good and flavorful, the crab not being overpowered by any spices.

For sure I would have liked some sort of sauce on it, especially as they served it with a parotta, a layered bread from Kerala that we also ordered on the side with some dal malai marke, a Dish that was very creamy (I believe it is dal makhni in fact).