The Critical Consumer

This unassuming restaurant on Charlotte Ave serves a surprisingly tasty meal. Best of India is a small, simple (and I’m assuming, family) establishment located in the sometimes-sketchy area that makes up Charlotte Ave between White Bridge Road and Old Hickory Blvd. The staff is slim as there seemed to be one person working the entire dining room, maybe two. They seemed a little disjointed, coming to our table multiple times before they were ready to take our order. However, if you’re not in a hurry and willing to relax a bit, the pace didn’t drag at all.

The menu is fairly standard for Nashville Indian cuisine, although there were a few items I’d never heard of before. We ordered the fried garlic naan (which has a more appropriate name that I can’t remember) which I expected to be the traditional naan stuffed with garlic. Naan is usually cooked in a clay oven and is served with the meal. This naan, though, seemed to be deep-fried, something I’ve never seen before, and something I wasn’t too thrilled about. It was tasty enough, but I just was not in the mood for something fried.

For our main meal, we ordered Lamb Curry, Chicken Biryani, and Saag Paneer (or spinach and cottage cheese). We asked for them to be medium heat and that had just enough kick. We were definitely feeling the burn by the end of it. I wasn’t too impressed with the Lamb Curry. The meat seemed to be a little tough and I could tell we didn’t get very good cuts of meat. The Chicken Biryani, though, was excellent. It is mostly a rice dish and you have to dig for your chicken, but its worth the work. The spices and aroma make the dish truly delicious.  The Saag Paneer was some of the best I’ve ever had. If you like cooked spinach, you’ll love this dish.

The portions were relatively generous for an Indian restaurant, each dish being served in a larger-than-normal bowl, with plenty of rice on the side. We couldn’t eat everything, although we really wanted to.

The whole meal was just under $40 with taxes, which isn’t bad considering we got an appetizer and a side-dish. For simple, yet delicious, Indian cuisine, Best of India is definitely worth trying.