Indian restaurants are usually dim, fragrant and cloistered — the smell of spices enveloping you in a sort of ethnic-food mystery.
Star of India is less apt at keeping secrets, and it’s all the better for it. It’s kitschy and bright, an Americana meets Southeast Asian mix of silvery accents (thanks to the spot's former incarnation as Dudley's Diner) and wall-size posters of Indian tourist attractions like the Taj Mahal. Bollywood sirens shimmy on the flat-screen TVs, a welcome dining distraction. Co-owners Jaspreet Kaur and Surjeet Singh, California natives, have a sweet demeanor that makes it seem as if you are dining in their home, not their restaurant. And the environment is as fun as the food.
And the measure of a good Indian restaurant is their saag (or so my dining acquaintance, a generation removed from being a genuine critic, tells me). It's like the creamy spinach dip you might serve at a Super Bowl party, but on steroids. Star of India's chicken version ($12) is creamy and decadent — gluttonously, we ate it with naan instead of rice. Naan is what you present to the enemy whose Atkins diet you want to destroy: flat bread that’s a tinge buttery and super soft.
But perhaps the thing to do at Star Of India isn't to eat: it’s to plop down on a bar stool, order a mango lasso (the Indian version of a milkshake) and watch Bollywood movies and Indian soap operas on the televisions hanging overhead.
Star of India, 415 S. Reynolds Rd. 419-720-6452.
www.starofindiatoledo.com.
Indian restaurants are usually dim, fragrant and cloistered — the smell of spices enveloping you in a sort of ethnic-food mystery.
Star of India is less apt at keeping secrets, and it’s all the better for it. It’s kitschy and bright, an Americana meets Southeast Asian mix of silvery accents (thanks to the spot's former incarnation as Dudley's Diner) and wall-size posters of Indian tourist attractions like the Taj Mahal. Bollywood sirens shimmy on the flat-screen TVs, a welcome dining distraction. Co-owners Jaspreet Kaur and Surjeet Singh, California natives, have a sweet demeanor that makes it seem as if you are dining in their home, not their restaurant. And the environment is as fun as the food.
And the measure of a good Indian restaurant is their saag (or so my dining acquaintance, a generation removed from being a genuine critic, tells me). It's like the creamy spinach dip you might serve at a Super Bowl party, but on steroids. Star of India's chicken version ($12) is creamy and decadent — gluttonously, we ate it with naan instead of rice. Naan is what you present to the enemy whose Atkins diet you want to destroy: flat bread that’s a tinge buttery and super soft.
But perhaps the thing to do at Star Of India isn't to eat: it’s to plop down on a bar stool, order a mango lasso (the Indian version of a milkshake) and watch Bollywood movies and Indian soap operas on the televisions hanging overhead.
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Star of India, 415 S. Reynolds Rd. 419-720-6452.
www.starofindiatoledo.com.
