Mia's Indian Cuisine

It's common to hear stories about people having a lot of challenges after immigrating to Canada.  Finding a job in your discipline (or one that pays sufficiently and is satisfying), adjusting to a new culture, learning English or French and developing a network are some of the keys to successful integration.  Often times, this takes more than one generation.  So, it's really nice to hear exceptions to this, like the recent restaurant opening of Mia's Indian Cuisine.  Take a moment to read a little bit about the family's story here.

While Giz was in town, we went for dinner to check out the new restaurant.  The decor was simple, with nice white linen on the table.  Some of the reviews insinuate that the service hasn't hit its stride.  But, I found everyone to be friendly (maybe a bit timid).  Even though it was a Saturday evening, the food came out at a reasonable pace.  

To start, we order vegetable samosas.  They were fresh-tasting and better than what we've had at several other local Indian restaurants.

They also brought out some cracker-like appetizer with a chutney dip.  

For the main, we order butter chicken, a tandoori dish and a chana masala.  The chana masala was the favourite at our table.  I found the butter chicken to be too sweet and the tandoori was mixed.  The lamb was quite tough, but the chicken was good.  Since we like spicy food, I was hoping for a bit more heat in our food.     

The naan was delicious.

The salad came with the meal.  I'm still trying to figure out if a side salad is typical to Indian cuisine or if the owners are doing it to appeal to local clientele.  If it's the latter, it's a bit lame.  I think a basic iceberg lettuce salad with a couple of cut vegetables doesn't add much to the table.   

Overall, we were happy with the meal and would return.  In the future, I'll probably opt for some spicier dishes and hope that they modify their butter chicken recipe.