It was my first Father's Day when both of my children were permanently full-time employed, so I allowed them the privilege of taking me to a long established local buffet, the House of India on Delmar in University City. It is located extremely close both to the church where we attend and also to the apartment where my son now lives, so I selected it as the perfect Father's Day meeting place where I could enjoy the company of my offspring.
I showed up after church before our agreed upon meeting time so I was able to peruse the large tent of used books, music and movies over at Half-Priced Books while I waited. It was amazing how many of those movies I had already watched, but I still did not want to pay just $2 to purchase a permanent copy for our home. I soon wandered back over to House of India and saw my eldest had arrived so the two of us grabbed a booth in the restaurant where we could both look out the large windows facing Delmar, and watch the buffet so we could see when the buffet line was empty. Once my son made it there from his apartment less than a mile away, we could attack the buffet line to see what was there.
The buffet only had maybe a dozen selections, but they had the standards we all expected. Of course there was Naan bread, along with both white and yellow biryani rice, and among the entrees was chicken tikka masala, tandoori chicken, saag paneer (spinach), chilli chicken, aloo matar (potatoes/peas), and perhaps some others I had forgotten. I would probably say my favorite was the chilli chicken, perhaps because it was not as "standard" as the others, but all the dishes were very good and they kept the buffet line well stocked.
Father's Day was a fairly busy place there with most of the tables full, quite a bit more crowded than the Himalayan Hut was when I visited Father's Day 2018 with my son. The Hut actually had more available options, but the selections that House of India did provide they prepared very well. For example, the chicken tikka masala was so meaty, with large tender chunks of chicken which almost surprised me after being more familiar with the frozen version from Trader Joe's where there is always a lot more sauce than chicken! (But I do love the Trader Joe's Indian entrees.)
We all ended up going back to the buffet twice, which was plenty for me since I loaded both plates pretty well. I even skipped the naan the second time since I did not want to be TOO stuffed. The wait staff was responsive, filling our water glasses and taking away our old plates, as well as getting us the bill to pay. They were willing to split the bill two ways and charge two different VISA cards, neither of which were mine! I was able to watch both of my offspring fill out their bills and they both tipped exactly the same amount without communicating.
So my Father's Day buffet with my two children was another fine meal thanks to the good people at House of India. I wonder what buffet we can visit on Father's Day 2020?
Food Quality, Service, Value
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