Resturant Review: Tangra (queens, Sunnyside)

[mneme]

Tangra
Chinese-Indian cuisine ("asian fusion")
39-23 Queens Boulevard
1-718-786-8181
suitable for very large parties (banquet hall)
Entrees are $7-$14, except for crab and lobster at $20

This is apparently an expansion from a much smaller, established resturant, and it shows -- the food is very well prepared, not at all generic, and not very expensive. We got a chicken tangra (dry -- like many of their dishes, this can be prepared dry or with sauce) and a tofu manchurian.

The chicken was quite moist, but very mild (we'd been warned that this was spicy, and it did have a bite, but only a small one), and quite flavorful. Very pleasant, but we werer glad it was "dry", since it really didn't need a thick sauce. It was more Indian than Chinese, which makes sense.

The tofu, we'd ordered extra spicy, but came with much less bite than the chicken (the table did have chili oil, fine-ground black pepper, and pickled peppers, though, and I made liberal use of the first two), in a black bean sauce. Lisa was miffed that the bean curd was lightly fried (we'd asked and been told it was soft -- guess we should have been more specific), but it was quite pleasant and comfort-food-like (and, of course, quite Chinese).

They also had shakes at $3.25 -- $.25 cheaper than their lassis, so we ordered a pistacio one. Unfortunately, they were out of pistacio ice cream, so we got a malai shake, which was very vanilla, but quite pleasant.

Their rice (free with entrees) was very Indian -- short-grain and very dry.

The menu's got a much higher variety than we tried, of course -- goat, "fish", prawns, lobster, crab, beef, chicken, fried rice, chow mein, thai noodle, chop suey and a quite long variety of veggiterian dishes ("gobi", eggplant, potato, string bean, paneer, tofu, and baby corn).

Alltogether, a positive experience, though we'll want to make a greater attempt to get them to spice up their food next time; I'm not quite sure what they're used to, but they clearly have an expectation that their customer base likes things very mild, which is not really the case for us.

Comments

[davidfcooper.livejournal.com]

Since being forced onto a low sodium diet by a medical condition I've found that I can eat Indian and other South Asian food without a problem but that Chinese and other East Asian food is off limits. Nepalese is something in between with some dishes too salty. I expect the same would be true of Tangra: I would have to order the "Indian" dishes, and my wife would be able to order Chinese dishes she doesn't get to enjoy as often as she would like.

[mneme]

Hmm. I'm curious as to how well this would work.

very good

[(Anonymous)]

my husband and i ejoy going to tangra,we go every chance we get or for any occasion there food is delicious and always well prepaired. i would recoment this resturant to anyone who would like to try something new. from a 1-10 1 being the lowest, i would give tangra a 9!

Re: very good

[mneme]

THanks for the comment. I agree that they're quite nice (though by my tastes, I'd probably rate them as 7/10) -- very comfortable food, never diappoints, and not the "usual" Chinese or Indian fare.