Club-like trance music was playing when we sat down at Nirvana, Woodstock’s long-awaited new Indian Restaurant. Painted on otherwise white walls, very green-canopied palm trees, even if India has over 100 species of them, felt weird. Like I should be in Palm Springs or a Miami Beach retirement home. I immediately wanted to leave.
But resolve, patience, openness.
The sister to Rhinebeck’s yummy and tasteful Cinnamon, my girlfriend and I were looking forward to Mountain Gate’s replacement, the go-to Indian restaurant at the same location on Deming Street for over two decades. After our kind and witty server changed, at my request, the jarring and incongruous melodies to something quieter and more germane, we picked two entrées from the menu. Heavy-weighted, golden-tinted utensils (neither brass nor bronze) that had been wrapped in our cloth napkins sparked a flash of surprise, a glimmer of originality.
Some confusion ensued when the food arrived. Both meals were served in ceramic dishes; only tiny white plates, ostensibly for holding breads and garnishes, were also on the table. We resorted to using these to share our food, though they became tabletop messy and impractical. Later, the gracious owner came by to explain that this dish issue was due to the small kitchen size. Larger ‘dinner plates’ for two were too large for the tiny kitchen and broke when stacked. Storage space, she explained, was so limited that they had to rent a house nearby, and trundle supplies over during the morning.
A benchmark we use when checking out any new to us Indian restaurant, we found the lamb korma muted, bland. While copious, the tiny pieces of meat were tough, not tender. Returned from the kitchen to make it richer, which it became, the owner herself later explained that unlike the Rhinebeck establishment and most other Indian restaurants, ghee, the final ingredient, wasn’t much used—a key binding element. I had to request a second portion of rice since only one rather small one first arrived. A lack of cohesion, or binding, constituted the whole of our dining experience.
Our other entrée, Malabar meen curry, called a fish stew, was spicy but tasted much like tangy tomato, which we learned from our server was due to tamarind flavoring. Overpowering sensations rather than integration of complements were the dilemma. The four lumps of fish in the low-lying red sauce we smushed around to make it more palatable. After this second dish was rapidly enhanced when it, too, was returned to the kitchen, we deceived ourselves as best as we could that it worked.
That made two out of two dishes back to the kitchen. Roundabout-ness was another theme of the night.
Deflated, arriving at the table cut in two, even the garlic naan, a simple enough but important staple, was lackluster.
There were two highlights to the evening. Watching who turned out to be Neil Gaiman repeatedly fail to parallel park his sensible hybrid vehicle in a huge space just outside our table at the window, crunching the curb at 45° in old man slo-mo, even with a large interior camera screen a-glow, was amusing. Totally in keeping with the whole evening. Before he entered the restaurant with female company, and prior to our identifying him, I’d said to my girlfriend, “You can tell that driver doesn’t come from the city,” where half an inch on both the front and back end of your vehicle is still considered plenty to do the job swiftly. The other was our lovely server. He was charming but not unctuous, and we wish this gentleman well. Otherwise, Nirvana, with its highfalutin name, highly suggestive of an otherworldly experience, remains rather untouchable.
Total loss: 70 USD
Service
Dine in
Food: 2
Service: 5
Atmosphere: 1
Club-like trance music was playing when we sat down at Nirvana, Woodstock’s long-awaited new Indian Restaurant. Painted on otherwise white walls, very green-canopied palm trees, even if India has over 100 species of them, felt weird. Like I should be in Palm Springs or a Miami Beach retirement home. I immediately wanted to leave.
But resolve, patience, openness.
The sister to Rhinebeck’s yummy and tasteful Cinnamon, my girlfriend and I were looking forward to Mountain Gate’s replacement, the go-to Indian restaurant at the same location on Deming Street for over two decades. After our kind and witty server changed, at my request, the jarring and incongruous melodies to something quieter and more germane, we picked two entrées from the menu. Heavy-weighted, golden-tinted utensils (neither brass nor bronze) that had been wrapped in our cloth napkins sparked a flash of surprise, a glimmer of originality.
Some confusion ensued when the food arrived. Both meals were served in ceramic dishes; only tiny white plates, ostensibly for holding breads and garnishes, were also on the table. We resorted to using these to share our food, though they became tabletop messy and impractical. Later, the gracious owner came by to explain that this dish issue was due to the small kitchen size. Larger ‘dinner plates’ for two were too large for the tiny kitchen and broke when stacked. Storage space, she explained, was so limited that they had to rent a house nearby, and trundle supplies over during the morning.
A benchmark we use when checking out any new to us Indian restaurant, we found the lamb korma muted, bland. While copious, the tiny pieces of meat were tough, not tender. Returned from the kitchen to make it richer, which it became, the owner herself later explained that unlike the Rhinebeck establishment and most other Indian restaurants, ghee, the final ingredient, wasn’t much used—a key binding element. I had to request a second portion of rice since only one rather small one first arrived. A lack of cohesion, or binding, constituted the whole of our dining experience.
Our other entrée, Malabar meen curry, called a fish stew, was spicy but tasted much like tangy tomato, which we learned from our server was due to tamarind flavoring. Overpowering sensations rather than integration of complements were the dilemma. The four lumps of fish in the low-lying red sauce we smushed around to make it more palatable. After this second dish was rapidly enhanced when it, too, was returned to the kitchen, we deceived ourselves as best as we could that it worked.
That made two out of two dishes back to the kitchen. Roundabout-ness was another theme of the night.
Deflated, arriving at the table cut in two, even the garlic naan, a simple enough but important staple, was lackluster.
There were two highlights to the evening. Watching who turned out to be Neil Gaiman repeatedly fail to parallel park his sensible hybrid vehicle in a huge space just outside our table at the window, crunching the curb at 45° in old man slo-mo, even with a large interior camera screen a-glow, was amusing. Totally in keeping with the whole evening. Before he entered the restaurant with female company, and prior to our identifying him, I’d said to my girlfriend, “You can tell that driver doesn’t come from the city,” where half an inch on both the front and back end of your vehicle is still considered plenty to do the job swiftly. The other was our lovely server. He was charming but not unctuous, and we wish this gentleman well. Otherwise, Nirvana, with its highfalutin name, highly suggestive of an otherworldly experience, remains rather untouchable.
Total loss: 70 USD
Service
Dine in
Food: 2
Service: 5
Atmosphere: 1
So excited to have amazing Indian food in Woodstock. Every bite was wonderful! The service was pleasant and kind and the place had a great vibe. Excited to come back for more.
Service
Dine in
Meal type
Dinner
Price per person
$20–30
Food: 5
Service: 5
Atmosphere: 5
Recommended dishes
Butter Chicken
So delicious! I ate here for dinner with my partner for the first time tonight and we loved it. We were surprised that there were plenty of thoughtful and creative vegan options on the menu for us— even more than at their sister restaurant, Cinnamon. We had the mini masala dosa, the rasam, the malai kofta, and the chickpea jalfrezi. Almost everything was a home run. The rasam was delicious and nicely tart. The malai kofta, which is usually heavy with dairy, was instead made with a delicious savory cashew cream sauce and the dumplings had a perfect melt-in-your-mouth texture. The jalfrezi was my favorite, though— it was so well-spiced and filled with beautiful shiitake and oyster mushrooms. With the dosa, we craved a little more flavor in the masala potatoes, and we thought the sambar it came with could have used more salt and tartness. But finding dosa available on the menu of any restaurant feels like a small miracle, so we weren’t exactly gutted. We’re happy to live locally and look forward to returning to Nirvana again soon.
Service
Dine in
Meal type
Dinner
Price per person
$20–30
Food: 5
Service: 5
Atmosphere: 5
