Spinach Dal? ....... or?

Americas - USA West Los Angeles
1

I don’t have much experience with Indian cuisine except for a week I spent in India on business many years ago. If I’m remembering correctly there were several different types of dals or similar dishes served as sides. I particularly remember enjoying one that I think was mostly like a creamed spinach. If it had lentils in it they were not the main ingredient.

I’m in South Orange County, CA and would like to know what to order that would be closest to that dish if I go to an Indian restaurant. Also, do I need to know some basics about Indian regional cuisines, if there are such things? TIA

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A quick Yelp menu search reveals no Daal Palak or spinach dal in your neck of the woods. You may have better luck in Irvine where there’s a larger Indian population…or Little India in Artesia.

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3

The dish you had may or may not have had lentils in it. Just order palak paneer or saag paneer, and that should be what you want. My personal favorite is chicken saag ,rather than cheese (paneer).

4

Thanks. I’d checked menus on Yelp in the area and couldn’t find it, but wasn’t sure I was identifying it correctly.

5

. spinach daal appears to be a thing but we have indians on board to confirm

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Actually that’s not what I meant. [quote=“Midlife, post:1, topic:9700”]
If it had lentils in it they were not the main ingredient
[/quote]

The other thing I’ve noticed on the menus is that an assortment of dals served as sides (what I remember from my trip) doesn’t seem to be a thing here. My meals were in factory towns in the North mostly, so I wondered it this was regional.

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I’ve seen restaurants that specialize in just daal…usually the vegetarian restaurants. But still going to defer to the resident Indian FTC specialists.

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Scroll down to the Veggie section of the menu. Perhaps this is what you’re referring? Punjabi regional cuisine?

[Tikka Curry Bowls Menu - Mission Viejo, CA Restaurant](http://Tikka Curry Bowls Mission Viejo)

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Palak Daal is a thing, just not as common. I think most restaurants here don’t bother to offer multiple daals on the menu, since it’s considered a more plain dish. It would be like a BBQ restaurant having multiple kinds of beans.

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I’ve seen Palak Paneer on all the menus but don’t recall the cheese in what I remember enjoying. Need some Personal research I guess, though I think posters have reinforced a plain spinach dal as what I likely had.

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Tikka Curry Bowls has this Daal Saag Curry Bowl, made with spinach and yellow lentils cooked with garlic and traditional spice. Served over aromatic basmati spiced rice.

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the original description of it being like a creamed spinach and no noticeable lentils makes me think it’s just saag paneer no?

14

Yeah, it does sound like sag paneer or palak paneer (which virtually every Indian restaurant has), minus the paneer. I’ve had that in thalis.

Quality of that dish varies a lot. To me the best versions have a mix of greens.

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Got Palak Paneer for lunch at Tikka Curry Bowls. The spinach part of the dish seemed like just a lightly creamed spinach. It was good but I’m still going to look further. Thanks for all the input.

16

there is no dal i am aware of* that has more of some other ingredient in it than dal/lentils.

*as always, it’s a big country.

17

As I said, the trip was a long time ago (really… maybe 30 years or more) and I’m probably not remembering what I was told the dish was called.

18

that’s a long time to jones for a particular dish without scratching the itch.

19

The ‘jones’ just began a couple of weeks ago. We don’t eat Indian food for some reason. When our daughter started talking about how much she loves it… there you go… jones.

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