Restaurant Review - Lazeez Family Restaurant

From Sunday November 7

Lunch on this, our first, day in Varanasi was a group affair at a place called Lazeez Family Restaurant. At home, as a rule, we usually avoid restaurants with the word "family" in the title. Rightly or wrongly, to us it denotes an establishment more concerned with the quantity and price of the food, rather than the quality. This especially applies to places with the subtitle "Mom's Home Cooking." This usually means that, yes, Mom's at home, cooking; who knows who cooked the stuff at this place.  But that rule obviously doesn't apply to India, at least not to this restaurant. The meal was memorable enough to earn its own posting.

One of the things that is so interesting about this restaurant is how the ambience and initial presentation lowered our expectations before giving us a delightfully delicious experience. There is one seating area -  an open dining area with plain tables unadorned with tablecloths or placements. Our tables were arranged in a bizarre L-shaped configuration along one wall and the counter area. This place defined the word "unpretentious." And there was this tacky length of mirror on the ceiling directly over the row of tables. So far, it's living up to its family billing.

For the first course each person was served a cup of vegetable soup, not bad, but not that special. After the soup, each dish was served family style. The second course was a plate of limp, kind of cold french fries. My expectations for this meal hit the floor. Oh, well, I thought, you've been eating too much anyway. Then, they brought out the vegetable curry. OMG. Best. Indian. Food. Ever. Then they brought out the Dal Makhani. Wow. Then Paneer Masala, followed by a noodle dish that I had never seen before. Each dish was better than the last. And the spices weren't dumbed down for the Western palate. I liked that the dishes were served in courses rather than all at once, as is usual. We had a chance to savor every dish. The downside was that we had no idea what was coming next so we were all stuffed to the gills.

The icing on the cake was the pride the owner took in presenting each dish to us himself, explaining what each dish was, very helpful to the many Indian food novices on our group. The staff was equally friendly and offered explanations as much as their limited English would allow. The meal ended with a dessert new to me, little balls soaked in rose water like Galub Jamon but not. The owner explained that this dish was the same as Galub Jamon but without flour.

If you are in Varanasi, you must go to this restaurant. It is located on Luxa Road, a couple of blocks east of its intersection with Godowlia Road.

A cross cultural note: Many of us arrived at the restaurant a little bit traumatized. A couple of blocks before the restaurant, we passed a corner in a residential neighborhood where the body of a young boy child was being prepared for burial by several women. The body was on a raised dais like the type set up in Asia for people to relax up off of the dirty sidewalk. The body had been obviously scalded or burned and, according to our guide, was being anointed and cleaned for eventual burial in the Ganges River. He explained that children under age 5 are not cremated but put in the holy river of life. Even now, I'm not sure what I should be thinking about this, but every time I think about this meal, I remember that little boy.