Taste of India is a delicious, locally owned restaurant in Layton Utah. The outside may not look like much, but step inside for authentic cuisine in a warm and inviting atmosphere.
Last week I was in Utah for the Everything Food Conference. This was my second year attending, and I absolutely love it. Kami and her team put together an amazing conference, and I’ve made some wonderful friends in the process. Last year it was in downtown Salt Lake City, and my first meal of the trip was at Stoneground Kitchen. This year the conference moved to Layton, a suburban community 25 miles north of the airport and near Hill Air Force Base. Being near the base means you hear and see F16’s doing practice runs regularly during the day. It’s pretty cool…unless you’re trying to take a nap!
I always arrive in the conference city a day early. You never know when you’ll hit travel delays, and you can get a good night’s sleep and start fresh the next morning. My other travel rule is I don’t eat at restaurants I can get at home. I do research ahead of time, and then I also ask the hotel staff for recommendations. After a lot of back and forth I decided on Taste of India.
Taste of India is about half mile from the hotel, in a mini strip center with another restaurant plus a day spa. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but I’ve learned not to judge a book by its cover. The inside is very warm and inviting, with jewel-toned colors, Indian art on the walls, and Indian music in the background. I arrived after 1pm on Wednesday, so I wasn’t at all surprised that there were only 2 other tables occupied.
Taste of India is open for lunch and dinner Monday – Saturday. In addition to the full service restaurant, they also offer online ordering, takeout and delivery.
The Taste of India menu is surprisingly large, and includes appetizers, soups & salads, chicken, lamb, tandoori, shrimp, vegetarian, rice, naan bread and dessert. I don’t do well with big menus, so it was a little overwhelming. They offer a lunch special where you choose from 6 different entrees, but none of those entrees really jumped out at me. What did jump out, and what I had read good things about, was the naan bread. They offer a wide variety of options, and I went with the garlic naan
Oh my goodness this naan bread is absolutely amazing. Warm, crispy outside, lots of garlic. It’s a little thinner than naan I’ve had in other restaurants, but that’s okay. It’s all about the flavor.
For the entree, I went with chicken curry
With entrees, you choose from mild, medium or hot. I went with medium because the server said it wasn’t that spicy. Clearly we have different ideas of what that means! My mouth wasn’t on fire, but that spice certainly woke up my taste buds. The curry is rich and extremely flavorful, and I dipped the naan bread into the curry as I ate.
All entrees come with a side of rice
The rice is a simple Basmati rice. It’s good, and if I didn’t have the naan bread I would have eaten way too much of the rice. Instead, I only ate a little bit.
As much as I love curry, it has a powerful smell, so I don’t think anyone would appreciate me reheating it in the microwave in my room. I didn’t take any leftovers, but I made sure to eat all of the chicken.
I rarely do desserts at restaurants because I’m usually too full. However, I needed something to cool down my mouth so I chose pistachio ice cream.
Wow, this ice cream is delicious! Very light and creamy, and tastes homemade. You can taste the pistachio flavor in the background, but it’s not powerful at all. The ground pistachio on top adds another punch of flavor. I could have eaten the whole thing, because let’s be honest, ice cream doesn’t take up any extra space in your stomach. But I decided to be good and only have one scoop.
Will I go back to Taste of India? Well, the only way I’m going back to Layton is if our conference is there again next year. But if it is, I will certainly make a return visit.
Lori Har1
Wednesday 16th of May 2018
Will have to try that next time if the conference is in Layton again.
Karyl
Monday 23rd of July 2018
It's gonna be there again next year! We should definitely go back for lunch