Ajanta

1888 Solano Ave.
(510) 526-4373

Indian in Berkeley

This is an "upscale" (kind of) Indian restaurant in Berkeley's cute Solano area. By upscale, I mean that the restaurant has a nice interior and the food is cleaner (i.e. less greasy, more subtle flavors, if Indian food can be subtle).

For the food, we got chicken biriyani (rice, chicken, nuts, yogurt sauce, and other stuff), chicken samosas (mine had chicken cartilage in it! ugh), these scallop and corn fritter things (few pieces of scallop, and heavy on the fish paste), and the "madras jhinga masala," which was basically prawns with an onion sauce. The scallop fritters were gross - all you could really taste was the fried-ness. The samosas and the biriyani were OK. The prawns were REALLY good. I could just eat the onions+sauce with naan and be satisfied with that.

The beer we got was pretty rich, dark, and chocolatey - Ayinger ale from Germany... the brand was Celebrator I think. Anyway, this is a lackluster review for a whatever meal. Satisfying, but you can get Indian food just as good for cheaper. The end!