Alright, so where is Napoleon, Ohio? That's a really good question, actually, because it's not on one of the major interstates in Ohio. It's actually on US-24/US-6, between Fort Wayne Indiana and Toledo Ohio. Don't be fooled though, US-24 is a major thoroughfare with an interstate feel to it. On this heavily traveled-by-trucks road is Napoleon, home to a few major truck stops and..Campbell's Soup. (among a few other places but last time I was there, this is where I had to go).
This is not your typical T/A. It's a little older, yes, but it did have some remodeling done which has made a difference. They have a Chester's Fried Chicken and a Blimpie's..or was it Quizno's?...no I'm pretty sure it's Blimpie's. They have the usual Country Pride menu but they also have their own special Indian menu, and this alone is worth stopping for. Also worth noting is the Indian menu is part of their all you can eat menu, and you can reorder the same thing but a little more spicy if you want to turn it up a notch.
I began my introduction into Indian food with a simple mild chicken curry with basmati rice and naan. What's naan, you ask? It's a type of flat bread. There, now you have a new word you can throw around and sound pompous and arrogant "Oh, I could really go for some naan right now!" and people around you will be like "wtf are you talking about, Willis?" Yeah okay I know that's not what Gary Coleman's character said exactly but I changed it with the times.
Can we just get back to the food, please? So, right, the chicken curry was really good. It was surprisingly good. I had never had Indian food before so I wasn't sure what to expect. The one thing that did seem unusual was...the color. Bright colors because of the spices that go into it. Green, yellow, orange..such an interesting departure from what I'm used to.
After a great first time experience (and filling, too, by the way), I made a note to always stop here if I had the time. Believe me, I try to make time to stop here. While I don't have pictures of chicken curry, or the other chicken dish I tried the second time I was there, I do have a picture of my third visit and what I tried that time.
Haag chicken..or chicken haag? It's one or the other.
Liz, what is that green unappetizing mush I see before me? Well let me tell you, it's delicious green mush! Haag chicken is...chicken (shocker), with spices and spinach. It's amazing. It's wonderful. It's tasty. It's worth trying. Like every other time I've ordered Indian food, I ordered it with basmati (long grain) rice with naan on the side. I tried the plain naan and that was fine, but then I tried the garlic naan and that's what I've ordered on the side ever since.
Naan! You better get some now before there's...naan left. (the puns just write themselves here)
See? Nothing fancy, just an oven-baked flatbread that you can eat along with your tasty Indian cuisine or you can break it off into bite sizes (well you should do that anyway because you, my loyal blog readers, are sophisticated individuals and not hulking neanderthals). Where was I again? Oh right, you can break the naan off into smaller pieces and put some of your delicious Indian cuisine on top and eat it that way. Both ways are perfectly acceptable and you're not going to offend someone if you don't eat it a particular way.
So how was that Haag chicken, Liz? IT WAS FANTASTIC! It was delicious, it was great, it was worth ordering a second time. It was also filling. I never leave that restaurant hungry, not by a long shot. Usually by the time I'm done, I don't want to look at food for the next hour. It's a little bit more expensive than the normal truck stop menu, which I attribute to higher cost of imported spices, the extra effort involved in making it and the extra training involved by the cooks who actually make it. Rumor has it (and this is coming from one of the cooks), this food is so good that a few Indian patrons were convinced that it was made by a man from India and the men were surprised it was prepared by a Caucasian lady from the US. That's just the rumor I heard! Don't go spreading that around.
I guess it goes without saying that I highly recommend stopping here. How often do you get to find Indian food at a truck stop? Well there's that one place in Tennessee that I haven't tried yet. Okay, where else can you find Indian food at a truck stop? Exactly!
Don't be intimated by the odd colors or the weird names. Try something new, try something different. Another thing worth nothing about the Indian food here is that you can get it in 3 levels of spiciness: mild, medium or hot. If you're new, get the mild just for starters. You can always reorder and try the medium. Funny thing about those Indian spices: the burn stops shortly after you finish eating. Unlike spicy American food where the heat lingers long after, shortly after you've stopped eating, the spicy burn stops. I didn't believe it myself until I tried it myself and the lady was right! Now in my defense, I've only tried mild and medium. I'm tempted to try hot next time but I usually just play it safe and go with medium.
Next time you're in Napoleon, don't stay at the Pilot or the Petro, try this place instead for a break from the norm. :)
I have a friend in Omaha who is Indian, I love Indian food! Some of my favorite dishes are Chicken (or lamb) Korma and Chicken (or lamb) Tikka Masala. And of course garlic naan, yummm! Samosas are also excellent.
ReplyDelete