We took my mother here to celebrate Diwali. She is a cook and of the several Indian places we've taken her in the city, she only enjoyed one. Zagat07 said Tam was tops for Indian food and several guys at work said they enjoyed it very much. The decor was bland - just that bland NY indian restaurant look. The service was good - attentive an accomodating...except for the fact that we were seated at a tiny table only inches from the next table. We asked to be moved and were (kindly) told that a lot of people were expected soon and couldn't be moved. As for the food, my cod and crab cakes were moist and enjoyable but nothing distinctive...kind of plain. My wife had pori and it was on par with the delicious pori that my in-law makes. My in-law had shrimp balchau and it was basically a few shrimp in some tomato sauce. We order some sweet nan-e-tamrind and my wife loved that. We ordered 2 rices - tamarind rice and vegetable pillau - neither was anything special but I guess they were being compared against this delicious rice our family had been eating for the last few days which we got from an israeli restaurant. Both ladies ordered some crab soup - my in law said it was too milky and I agree, from what I tasted it was milky with no flavor. For dinner we had chicken tikka masla, chicken biriyani and lamb pasanda - all were pretty normal and nothing spectacular. I feel like this place is toned down for the american palate in a way. Kulfi, rice pudding and ghujjia for dessert were also not that great. Overall, I can see why most Americans like this place...to them the flavors are probably not that threatning and they feel like they are eating unique and special food. I guess for us it was a harder sell because we eat such similar food with the flavor at the level it is supposed to be - not hot or spicy necessarily, but flavorful. I would have liked it if they could have been less restrained and brought some of that to the table.
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