TastyBurgher

Bombay Grill
416 Semple Street
Oakland, 15213
412-578-9778
M-Sun, 11am-Midnight

First up in our Indian Food-A-Thon is a little-known, backwoods-of-Oakland restaurant called Bombay Grill. When I say backwoods, I mean Semple Street, which is quite possibly the worst street in all of Oakland. But, the best Korean restaurant in Pittsburgh is on Semple, which bodes well. And in spite of the fact that you are best off not peering down the dark alleyways while walking around that area after 10pm, I have always heard good things about Bombay Grill itself. I’m no sissy, and neither are the Core 5, so we made it our very first stop! Thankfully, Bombay Grill was full of deliciousness!

Now, being our first stop in the marathon, we learned a few things. For instance, we determined that we might need a ‘calibration period’ before our ratings are truly meaningful, and we may need to revisit the first one or two restaurants at the end of the marathon to ensure accurate ratings. We also decided to add a couple of ratings, like Atmosphere, Service, and, at Thiago H.’s suggestion, Video Sleeze. Video sleeze does not exist at all Indian restaurants, but it appears a surprisingly large number of them, and thus deserves rating as well. At Bombay Grill there was the skimpy music video type, which was not altogether unpleasant.

The food is the true focus of our survey though. At Bombay Grill, the samosas stood out as the most peculiar, containing all kinds of objects in the filling including carrots and peanuts. It was more unusual than good, but it wasn’t bad either and in fact the crust was quite nice. The pappadams came with an onion relish that was fantastic. The Tandoori Chicken was generally thought to be tremendous, with a juicy, flavorful bite. Too bad they were out of mango chutney to accompany it! The plain rice had a lot of nice little thingies in it that gave it an appetizing aroma and subtly delicious flavor. There were some discrepancies among ratings for the Channa Masala and Daal, with comments ranging from ‘best I’ve ever had’ to ‘bland’. Clearly, this is a case for the ‘calibration period’!  Overall, the rating for Bombay Grill was 3.8 out of 5. Pretty good for the first restaurant! But, like I said, we may have to go back for a re-do once we’ve developed a better sense for the range of Indian possibilities in Pittsburgh.

GET:
Tandoori meats and Daal

DON’T GET:
Samosas, if you are looking for the traditional-to-the-Pittsburgh-area potato and pea filling.  They do offer a meat samosa, which is unusual for around here, and may be worth trying.

SNEAKY TIP:
Take a look at this graph, and check in later for another restaurant!