There is now an Indian restaurant in Woodland, and I’m holding you all personally responsible if this place goes out of business. So far as I know this is the only good cup of chai in a 10 mile radius of my house. Don’t blow this for me.
The place is called the Taj Mahal. Shawn and I walked into this nice and very empty restaurant one night. The waitress comes up to us. “You do realize this is an Indian restaurant, right?” she says with trepidation. The walls are covered with Indian folk art, the specials board says things like “masala” and “saag”, and one entire wall is covered with a mural of its name sake.
“Um, yeah. We picked up on that.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “For some reason everyone seems to think it’s a Mexican restaurant.”
Not surprising. This building used to be a Mexican restaurant, like every restaurant in town used to be, is currently, and/or will be a Mexican restaurant in the future. I googled “Mexican Restaurant near Woodland, California” and came up with more than two dozen legitimate examples. Don’t get me wrong. I like a good carnitas taco and no doubt eat them more often than I should, but, dude, seriously, how many tacos does one small town need?
We had an Egyptian restaurant in town for a millisecond. Lost it. We had a Vietnamese place downtown for awhile that had some killer tofu dishes. Lost that too. That one became (drumroll, please) a Mexican restaurant. Now I can get chicken tikka masala within the city limits. Don’t screw this up for me.
The place is on the corner of Court and 6th. Nice atmosphere, not too pricey, friendly staff in need of people sitting at tables ordering food. Don’t be afraid to say you want it spicy.
Go. Eat. Tell friends.