Indian Cuisine Preference

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South Indian for sure.

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Dosa, Uthapam and Thalis are South Indian. If you see any dish with "malabar" in the name, that's South Indian as well. Coconut heavy dishes tend to be South Indian, but my mom makes some bomb coconut shrimp which is Bengali food, which would be considered northern. I don't know how prevalent South Indian specific restaurants are outside California, none in Nashville at least. If you are ever in the Bay Area, try out Saravana Bhavan in Sunnyvale. And if you are in Los Angeles go try out Tirupathi Bhimas in Artesia,CA. At the same time you can check out "little India", even though not many Indians actually live in the city but anyways...

Opebo, it's amusing that the Thais don't like Indian food. There are a lot of similarities, at least the stuff that is popular in America. Definitely with South Indian food there are similarities with the liberal use of coconut in their food. I guess they are still sensitive about the Cholas colonizing them, eh?

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South is terrible. Everything that's good is either North or British.

Dude, I love home cooked South Indian food. Miss it so much...

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South is terrible. Everything that's good is either North or British.

Narrow taste there.

Ouch! Although I daresay I have consumed more South Indian food than anyone on this forum, sans Sbane. And maybe Lewis?

Aren't you south Indian? If you are, you have definitely eaten more than me.

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...I don't know how prevalent South Indian specific restaurants are outside California, none in Nashville at least.

There was at least one in St. Louis, used to go there all the time.  But for sure, North-Indian is a lot more common around the country.

Opebo, it's amusing that the Thais don't like Indian food. There are a lot of similarities, at least the stuff that is popular in America. Definitely with South Indian food there are similarities with the liberal use of coconut in their food. I guess they are still sensitive about the Cholas colonizing them, eh?

No, its just that they think Indians have atrocious B.O., and that it may at least partially come from their food, which Thais also say 'mehn mack!!' (stinks badly).  The Thai food you get in the US is almost always the more 'Indianized' style dishes - in practice their cuisine is quite different from Indian - hotter but less 'heavily' spiced if you see what I mean - more of a 'fresh' taste, intense but not 'lasting', unlike Indian which you may be burping up or farting out for a few hours, and for sure exuding from your pores for a couple days.

For example, when I used to constantly eat Indian food in the US, and go visit the family, I usually arrived home after my father had gone to bed.  The next day he said he always knew whether I was home because he could smell Indian food (he hated Indian food of course, like most bedrock middle-americans).

Indian food that you eat at restaurants isn't really what people eat.  They are usually much more loaded with fats, spices (though not necessarily hotter)and meats than what people eat. It's usually roti, dal and some vegetables. In Bengal usually some fish. Same with south Indian food. They usually don't eat dosas and uthapams at home. And lol at the Thais complaining about BO. The smelliest flight I have been on was one from Taipei to Bangkok full of a bunch of working class Thais. Yeah they have an inferiority complex.

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Indian food that you eat at restaurants isn't really what people eat.

Tends to be the case with restaurants, of course.

Indeed.

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North; I like meat and I don't like it when my food is so spicy that I can't taste it.

South is terrible. Everything that's good is either North or British.

Dude, I love home cooked South Indian food. Miss it so much...

Aren't you Bengali?

Our neighbors back in India were South Indian, from AP.

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The only South Indian I've had came from a corner market, and tends to be dosas and snackier fare like that.  What are the entrees like?

Rice, Dal and various vegetables. Similar to most of India of course, with less reliance on roti (naan). I like the way they prepare their Dal.

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The only South Indian I've had came from a corner market, and tends to be dosas and snackier fare like that.  What are the entrees like?

Rice, Dal and various vegetables. Similar to most of India of course, with less reliance on roti (naan). I like the way they prepare their Dal.

Is Dal Saag popular in Southern India......it's so damn good.

I think that's a northern dish, but wouldn't be surprised if the south had some version of it. What's really popular in the south is Sambar with rice, and Rasam in Tamil Nadu, both being different preparations of lentils (Dal).

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Ethiopian food isn't bad, though their bread is too sour for me.

Also in bengal as well sometimes people will ask you "Bhath khecho" when asking you whether you have eaten. That literally means have you eaten rice. There is another word for food though, and using that makes infinitely more sense to me than assuming rice is food. Of course traditional Bengalis eat rice for breakfast...bleh.

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Ethiopian food isn't bad, though their bread is too sour for me.

Also in bengal as well sometimes people will ask you "Bhath khecho" when asking you whether you have eaten. That literally means have you eaten rice. There is another word for food though, and using that makes infinitely more sense to me than assuming rice is food. Of course traditional Bengalis eat rice for breakfast...bleh.

The other word being "khawa", yes?

Khawar khecho?

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Yes, I mean injera.

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Not sure, but I like having meat in my diet, so certainly whatever Indian food I am eating is westernized to some degree.  This is the restaurant I go to for my Indian food.  Would anyone know if the food (meat aside) there is primarily northern or southern in origin? 

Like Lewis said, everything is basically northern with a heavy mughlai influence. Of course a lot of food, especially those found in restaurants, has a heavy Islamic influence.

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If the restaurant doesn't serve Dosa or Uthapam, it's not southern.

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South is terrible. Everything that's good is either North or British.

Britain has good food?

I absolutely dispise Indian sweet food.How anyone, let alone Dad, can eat those blandified sugar cubes evades me.

Huh? What are the blandified sugar cubes? In terms of Indian sweets I really like ras malai and gulab jamuns are ok. Not a fan of gajar ka halwa. I don't like rasgulas either. Not a fan of sweet foods in any case.

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EDIT: I just realized that this might have been what you meant, i.e. worth it for her even if she gets burnt up afterwards. But, yeah, that wouldn't happen either.

Yes, I was formulating a pick-up line before I travel to the sub-continent - 'hey sweet stuff, my manly allurements are so prodigious and overwhelming you won't mind the inevitable subsequent immolation'.  (don't worry, I would keep it lighthearted by working my eyebrows up and down or winking broadly - perhaps both if she looks like a 'go-er')

I am starting to see why no one will sleep with you unless you pay them.

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EDIT: I just realized that this might have been what you meant, i.e. worth it for her even if she gets burnt up afterwards. But, yeah, that wouldn't happen either.

Yes, I was formulating a pick-up line before I travel to the sub-continent - 'hey sweet stuff, my manly allurements are so prodigious and overwhelming you won't mind the inevitable subsequent immolation'.  (don't worry, I would keep it lighthearted by working my eyebrows up and down or winking broadly - perhaps both if she looks like a 'go-er')

I am starting to see why no one will sleep with you unless you pay them.

I think a more suitable line would be "sleep with me and you will not only get burnt on the outside, if you know what I mean"

A little better, but you wouldn't be getting laid either.