Further Explorations

I have decided that Chicago's weather is terribly indecisive. Perhaps not as wildly confused as the weather in some places (read: Boulder, CO; huge blizzard one day drops 3ft of snow and 60F the next, all in January)... however, this winter's crazy vacillations definitely take me back to those waffely winters of my college days. Good times good times.

Just a week ago we had light jacket weather.. now we're back to waking up to single digit degrees.
Really, I'm just ready for Spring.

However, even when winter seems unwilling to ever relinquish its grip on our city, there are things we can do to keep warm, or at very least, distracted.

Last month some folks from work (we'll call them Skaddenites) and I decided to set out on in exploration of the city's restaurant scene. Yesterday we met up again, this time to get some Indian food. Mmmmm.. I do like Indian food. Our Resident Expert suggested Klay Oven and, since we all trust her judgment and taste, the vote was unanimous and we all set out.
So far we've kept things pretty close to our home base, and last night was no different. Klay Oven is just a few minutes journey for a Skaddenite, so we had plenty of time to enjoy each other's company and also our dinner.

To start we had Samosas:

We got Lamb (Keema) Samosa and Potato (Aloo) Samosa. Both were very tasty!

We were all feeling fairly adventurous (despite some in the group who had never tried Indian food and professed to not "do spicy") and we ordered a few things that most of us had never tried.

The orange dish on the left is Chicken Tikka Masala (chicken in a creamy tomato sauce, my favorite), in the center was the Vegetable Biryani (veggies with rice, mildly nippy but tasty) and on the dark green dish on the right is Palak Paneer (spinach, onions, tomatoes and garlic with Indian cheese, yummy and quite mild). Along with those main dishes we also got Nan, of course (the bread in the front right), as well as the other bread in the back center -Aloo Paratha (Nan stuffed with potato).

I don't actually get Indian food very often (and I'm not brave enough to attempt to cook it at home). I think the last time I had it was nearly 6 months ago when a friend, who was visiting the city to help his sister move, wanted to see Devon Street and partake of the authentic Indian cuisine there. Having it again last night made me remember how good it is! And that I need to have it more often than once every six months :)


*(Cold Chicago pic from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jatherton/2119843696/)