It all began when I found Shiva Indian on restaurants.com. You can usually buy a $25 gift card to a restaurant for $10, but Border had a sale which made it just $8. We loved our last trip to Shiva Indian, so I just had to buy it! But of course, I didn’t read the fine print closely enough. This gift certificate was not good at the Rice Village location that is much closer to us. It was only good in Sugar Land.
Well, we had to use it right? So we decided to make the trip to Sugar Land last night. There was a free parking garage and it was in the middle of a nice shopping center. But as soon as we walked in, I knew it was not going to be the same as the Rice Village location. It was lacking the same decor, and was much smaller. They actually had to turn a group of people away because one party was taking up most of the restaurant.
The rules of the gift certificate say that you must spend $35 to get your $25 off. So we started with wine (although I’m not sure if alcohol was supposed to be included). I ordered a glass of Riesling and Pat ordered a glass of the house Merlot. The Riesling tasted like pure alcohol to me – it was so gross. Pat’s was not so bad. My wonderful husband agreed to switch wines with me… even though he had ordered lamb 🙂
We also decided to order soup to be sure we would hit our $35 goal. I ordered Tamater Shorba (“mildly” spice tomato soup). It was much spicier than I expected, but was decent.
Pat ordered the Muligatawny Soup – lentils and rice.
Once again, Pat’s choice was better. I loved the curry taste in his soup. So he switched with me 🙂 He said the tomato soup tasted like spicy pasta sauce, but it was good.
No worries though, I didn’t steal his main dish: lamb and rice.
I ordered the Shiva’s Delight. It’s a vegetarian platter that I also ordered at the Rice Village location. It came out looking the same, but I don’t think it tasted quite the same.
The spinach dish was definitely not the same. It wasn’t as creamy. But overall, still a good choice. I was so full from the nan and soup that I didn’t eat much of the platter, and asked to have it all packed up.
When the check came, our bill was $46. The $25 gift card only lowered it to $30 – they add an automatic 18% tip to the original amount. Overall we probably saved a few dollars, but it wasn’t worth the trip out to Sugar Land. The Shiva’s Delight in Rice Village is still our favorite!
After dinner, I saw there was a Charming Charlie across the street. I’ve heard about this store before, but had never been. They sell inexpensive clothes, purses and shoes, but the main attraction is all the jewelry. The whole store is organized by color, which made it easy to browse. They began in Houston in 2004, but their locations are growing in other states. I picked out a few things:
It was fun to visit Sugar Land, but we were happy to be back in The Loop.
Jessica
Home Sweet Houston 