Aahar: The Taste of India

Aahar is one of those restaurants I've had on my "to try" list for a couple of years. I would drive by their Carling and Churchill location occasionally and make a mental note that I still hadn't gone. I'm glad to have have changed that.

Upon entering the restaurant, I was surprised how bright it was inside. From the outside of the restaurant, it looks like it's really dimly lit, but on the inside I almost wished the lights were a bit dimmer, to give that dining feel.

For starters, we ordered Allo Tikki, which is a spiced potato with curried chickpeas, tamarind sauce, mint sauce, yogurt and coriander.

I would rather there have been less yogurt on the plate. I'm not an expert on Indian food, so maybe that's just the way it is served. Personally, I found that it overly neutralized the spiciness of the potato and took over the other flavours in the dish.

We also ordered samosas, which were quite good. The accompanying sauce was just okay.


For the mains, we order Vindaloo, which included a warning that it was hot even though it was relatively mild. We both really enjoyed it though.

Finally, we went with the typical Butter Chicken. Along with the naan, it tasted great. We even debated over who would get to have it the next day for leftovers.

The service was mixed. The younger guy seemed really nice, although only came out of his shell to chat with us toward the end of the meal. The female working there was polite, but really missed the mark when we gave her feedback on the house red. I told her that the meal was good, but the wine that they served was off. After a quiet giggle, she said, "we don't make the wine." I think it's kind of a ridiculous response. I wasn't assuming that they were producing wine in the back of their restaurant. However, if they're serving wine that tastes bad, they should still feel responsible for the quality of it. It's not like I drank the whole glass and then said it was off. I had two sips and could stand any more of it.

That incident aside, I'd definitely recommend Aahar and intend to go back and order take out from them in the future.