[Irvine] [Indian] Annapoorna Indian Cuisine

Annapoorna Indian Cuisine
14450 Culver Dr #A
Irvine CA 92604
(949) 651-1144
http://www.myannapoorna.com

We felt like having Indian buffet for lunch.  We like Haveli a lot, but I wanted to try a new restaurant.  There are always coupons from Indian restaurants in this coupon book we get in the mail.  After a quick flip through the coupon book, I found Annapoorna Indian Cuisine.



The coupon is for $6.99/person lunch buffet ($8.99/person original price).  On their door I saw that they also have buffet lunch special on Monday and Tuesday for $6.99, no coupon needed.



Lunch Buffet ($6.99)

The restaurant was small.  It was full of Indian families, a sign of authentic food.  My first plate consisted of only vegetarian food.  My favorite is the vegetable korma.  Besides basmati rice, they also have vegetble noodle.  I actually like the noodle better than rice.  It didn't have much flavor, and it was perfect to mix with all the wonderful Indian sauces.  They also served this white bread that I've never tried before.  It was an Indian version of sour dough.


Garlic Nann

Like all Indian lunch buffet, we had complimentary nann bread.  We always pick garlic nann.  Everything just tastes and smells better with garlic.


Dosa

But the complimentary dosa was something the other restaurants don't have.  Dosa is like an Indian crepe.  It was crispy on the outside, and a little softer and chewy on the inside.  Dr. P LOVES the Masala Dosa from India Sweet & Spice.  So he took some potato from the buffet, and made his own masala dosa with the plain dosa.  He said it tasted just like a regular masala dosa.


Soup

I tried to observed how the Indian family who sat right next us ate the dosa.  They dipped the dosa into this spicy Indian lentil soup until the dosa was soft, then ate it like that.  I was a copycat and tried it the same way.  Oh yeah it was really good like that.



My second plate was a meat plate.  Their tikka masala chicken sauce was really really good.  But the chicken breast was a bit dry.  They used dark meat for curry chicken, so the meat was much much softer.  They also have curry goat.  I ate every piece of the meat off that bone.  The piece of tandoori chicken I got was dry, but Dr. P said his was great.  I also got more noodle with lots of veggie.  I was too greedy and couldn't finish this plate though.... >_<


Mango Pudding

But there's always room for dessert.  I am not a fan of Indian dessert at all.  They had that yucky cheese ball thing, and the ginger carrot thing.  But I was only willing to try mango pudding.  The mango pudding turned out to be really good.  It tasted more like a mango lassi.  There were also pieces of fruit and jello (tasted more like konjac) in the pudding.



We like this restaurant.  The food was good.  They also gave us back the coupon for us to use next time.  That was nice.  Although I still think Haveli's food tastes better.  But now we have another option when we feel like having Indian food.

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