Our menu covers a subcontinent, which is wonderful and slightly daunting. Here is how the sections fit together, and how to build a table that arrives in the right order.
The opening sections — To Begin, While You Wait and the small plates — are built for sharing while the tandoor works. Gobi 65 is the table favorite: cauliflower fried in spiced yogurt with curry leaves and chilli, crisp at the edges. Soups run tangy and peppery rather than heavy, and the vegetarian and non-vegetarian small plates sit side by side so a mixed table never has to negotiate.
Two starters for every three people is about right. Order one fried and one grilled — the contrast sets up everything that follows.
From the Tandoor is where the kitchen shows its hand. The Mixed Platter arrives sizzling with lamb chop, tandoori shrimp, chicken, sheekh kebab and malai tikka — enough to anchor a table of four on its own. Whole Tandoori Pomfret, scored and spiced, is the order for anyone who thinks Indian food means gravy; it comes on a banana leaf with mint chutney and onion rings.
Kebabs come out first and fast, so pace yourself: they are a course, not a garnish.
Then the slow food. Dal Makhni — black lentils cooked down with butter and cream — is the Punjab classic we would not take off the menu. Shaam Savera Kofta hides a paneer heart inside spinach koftas in silky tomato cream. Butter chicken, tikka masala, Kashmiri rogan josh and Chettinad chicken cover the range from mild and sweet to genuinely hot; ask the floor team where a dish sits and they will tell you straight.
Order breads rather than rice with gravies, and one dum biryani for the table if biryani is the point — it is sealed and baked in its own steam, so it stands alone. Finish with gulab jamun or rasmalai, and a masala chai. The full dish-by-dish menu is here, and if you want it at home, order pickup on our website for 10% off.
Two starters, one Mixed Platter, one vegetarian gravy, one chicken or lamb gravy, dal, four breads, one rice, two desserts. That is the order we would place for our own families — and it is the one we suggest when someone hands us the menu and says, you decide.
Feeding twenty instead of four? Catering trays are sized for 10–12, 20–25 and 30–35 guests.
Tamarind & Co., 1275 South River Road, Cranbury, NJ 08512 · (609) 598-1397