Hi, On New Year's Day, in search of something besides Chinese (been there, done that, on Christmas) for dinner, two friends and I decided to try a relatively new Indian restaurant in Brighton Center (on Washington Street) named Ashoka. The lunch menu mentioned some southern Indian dishes, but the dinner menu was relatively standard Northern Indian. However, all three of us concluded that this was the best Northern Indian food that we have eaten in a long time. The fried dishes weren't greasy, and all of the ingredients were very fresh-tasting. We started with a mixed appetizer assortment, which had some very good fried chicken pieces, a small chunk of fried fish, some vegetable fritters, and a samosa. For dinner, we shared half of a tandoori chicken, chicken korma, and the eggplant dish roughly called "bangan bhartha." The tandoori was the most surprising to me, in that the chicken was moist and not tough or dry the way that it is at too many Indian restaurants that I've tried. The chicken korma had a lovely rich-tasting gravy. The eggplant dish was not at all oily (the usual pitfall of that particular dish). The total for three people (no alcohol), after tip, was fifty dollars. The restaurant takes Transmedia (no complaints, please; that was one reason why we were eating there).--Rob
Boston, MA