Thali in Ridgefield CT. Great Indian Meal

This Saturday Evening we had decided to make it a family dinner night.  Anita, my wife, had said that our 7 year old son Jonah had really enjoyed Indian food when they were visiting friends overseas a few weeks ago.  I was worried about our 5 year old but knew once he tried the food, he would like it.  It was a gamble, but in the end, it was one that paid off.

Thali is located on Route 7 in Ridgefield and is part of a Motel there.  Since we had gone with kids, we went early and were actually the first ones there.  By the time we left, every table had people sitting in it.  We had decided to start with Samosa's since we knew they were safe.  Since our son really enjoyed this overseas, we ordered two servings.  The outside of the Samosa's were harder than I had remembered from having them in the past but there were delicious.  Each one was filled with a tender potato and green peas and there was a light dipping sauce to go with it.  Our other appetizer was Ragda Patties.  Now I had expected something different than what we got.  The dish almost looked like a low bowl of Chili with cheese on it, but what was inside was a mix potato, ginger and a flavor of cumin that was in a dark brown sauce with green peas and chick peas.

We were excited when our Main dishes came because the place smelled great as the server approached us.  I am a big fan of Saag Paneer and theirs was real good.  large Chunks of Panner (a solid version of cottage cheese) were mixed in with a savory creamed type spinach that had garlic mixed into it.  To be safe, we ordered Chicken Tikka Masala so the kids had something safe to eat since it's traditionally a mild dish.  The sauce was a thick tomato gravy that had lots of flavor.

The third main was the biggest hit of the night.  The dish was called Chingri Malai Korma.  It was Cardamom flavored sauce with small shrimps in it.  As it turned out, this went the quickest.  Normally our oldest son Jonah isn't a big shrimp fan but he couldn't get enough of them.

The fourth dish was Malai Kofta which was basically the same thing as the shrimp but with a potato paneer ball.  We learned this later when the dishes came and we gave each other the oops look.  But the shrimp dish tasted better for some reason.

We also got Naan and Garlic Naan which were both delicious and we got Jasmine rice.  All of those did a great mopping job that you look for in Indian food.

Overall, the food and service was excellent.  We were under a bit of pressure with ordering since we didn't want to go to far from safe because of the kid factor.  I think in the future, our dishes will have to encompass a dish with no gravy.   When we were done, it looked like a table of left over soup.  The portion of the gravies were very generous and we were just too full to add more rice and Naan to soak them up.

I highly recommend Thali to anyone who likes Indian food and is in the Ridgefield area.  They also have locations in New Haven and New Canaan.  Thali can be found online at http://www.thali.com/home.html