Restaurant Fri Apr 20 2007

Marigold: Indian Eats Fuse with Fasion

By Chris Brunn

Marigold is an Indian fusion restaurant a few doors down from Green Mill in Uptown. From the street, it stands out as a beacon of swanky interior design shining through the windows. The Uptown Theatre next store provides a heavy contrast; the theatre needs some life blown into it. While most of Marigold's food that I tried was quite tasty, it didn't convince me that the premium I was paying wasn't just for the decor. You enter down a hall with candle cutouts in the wall before coming to a host in front of a lavish tile mosaic. Inside you see white linen, fine fabric seat coverings, cube-shaped frames that divide booths and oblong ducts hovering above.

My thali's spinach was excellent - very smooth and well seasoned with the right amount of chili to leave a subtle but lingering burn in the mouth. Ditto for the Andhra-style eggplant - the kind I loved tasting in my pal's Mom's home cooking in Bombay. An accompanying pyramid of saffron rice was fun. The beet salad was refreshing, but the chana masala tasted bland with its chickpeas oddly very soft. If I recall correctly after finishing my Maharaja pilsner, the crème brûlée on the dessert list seemed out of place, even if it might have included Indian favorites pistachio and saffron. My friend Amod's dal soup was a fine implementation of the classic - very smooth and creamy. His samosas had a nice outer edge - long and flaky, coming away from the mass of filling like pizza crust does - but were a bit bland inside. Marigold was especially fun when they expanded our line-up of tables as our party trickled in. Perhaps I'll return sometime for the crusty samosas, a plate of spinach and eggplant over a beer - especially if I'm hungry before a show at Green Mill.

Beet salad