shaan indian cuisine

although i hardly ever blog about them (like i blog about anything anymore), i eat at cincinnati's various indian restaurants pretty regularly. in my opinion, baba is best for lamb saag, dusmesh is best for tikka masala and for overall spicing, amol is best for eggplant (bharta? i forget what it is called) and apna is best for other vegetarian dishes (but only if you order off the menu... the buffet is just blah). i like ambar for the atmosphere but the food generally is just average in my opinion. and akash has a good lunch buffet (and by "good" i mean "located within walking distance of my insipid downtown job") but nothing really stands out there for me.

i was suspicious of shaan when it first showed up in hyde park plaza because india hyde park used to be there and that place was gross. but i was out with some friends in the area one night and we decided to stop by. they are indian (and would prefer to remain anonymous) so i figured they could tell me if it was really authentic or not.

here is a picture of my leftovers

well readers we were very pleasantly surprised. shaan offers a great deal on their dinner menu which is that you can get a sampler platter of 3-4 dishes, either vegetarian or meat, along with garlic naan, rice, and dessert for only about $14. this was a ridiculous amount of food and between the three of us we had a ton of food with enough for each of us to have another whole meal. everything was delicious. one problem i have with some indian places is that the dishes can be so rich and/or creamy that it gives me a horrible stomach ache. i did get a stomach ache at shaan but that was because i ate too much, not because the dishes were too rich.

the spices were really good and even the shrimp curry, which i usually find to be kind of boring, was awesome. the garlic naan was super garlicky and soft. i actually liked the vegetarian dishes better than the meats, which is surprising because a lot of times i think that they can be kind of boring and bland. but not at shaan.

service was excellent, they were very attentive and even brought us extra rice to take home with our food. and the prices were good. on average the menu items were $9-12, and to get the sampler platters with way more food and selection it was only a few dollars more. the atmosphere is very much strip mall indian, but who the hell cares. they were pretty empty when we went so get your ass over there and give them some business. if they close i am going to be crabby.