Address & Telephone No:
Monsoon Express
684 Oak Tree Avenue
South Plainfield, NJ 07080
Ph: 908-226-5678
Hours:
Tuesday - Friday
11:30 AM - 3:30 PM
4:30 PM - 9:30 PM
Saturday & Sunday
12:00 PM - 9:30 PM
Closed on Monday
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Monsoon Express
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Reviewer's Summary: Lousy, Stale Sweets; Average Food
Monsoon Express gives Indian sweets a bad name.
Of course, Monsoon Express claims its Mithai (sweets) are the best in North America. If you believe that nonsense, you'd better also believe that Aishwarya Rai is ugly, Lata Mangeshkar has a bad voice and Sachin Tendulkar is a bad batsman.
Located in the Golden Acres Shopping Center on Oak Tree Avenue in South Plainfield (a few miles down the road from the main Indian strip on Oak Tree Road in Edison/Iselin), Monsoon Express offers some of the worst Indian sweets we've had the misfortune to taste in the New Jersey/New York area over the last several years.
During our visit to Monsoon Express the other day, we tried several sweets including Chum Chum (both the pink & white varieties), Badam Burfi, Milk Cake, Malai Sandwich and an Almond sweet. Every sweet that we tasted was pathetic and some were downright stale.
Gosh, why are Monsoon Express' sweets so rotten?
Our guess is that Monsoon Express' management must have dredged the low end of the human gene pool to find a sweetmaker this bad. If we had our way, the restaurant's sweetmaker would be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
The Milk Cake was overcooked and had a slightly burnt odor. Badam Burfi was an ugly gray-white mass of rubber. But the Pink Chum-Chum took the booby prize with a sour and stale taste that made us want to quickly rinse our mouth with Listerine.
If you are the reckless, masochistic kind and still intent on buying sweets at Monsoon Express, we strongly recommend that you keep a big bottle of Listerine handy.
Compared to other Indian sweet stores in the area like Sukhadia's, Moghul Express, Bengali Sweets, Chowpatty and Jassi Sweets, Monsoon Express has a limited selection. Housed in one corner of the restaurant, Monsoon Express' sweet section has a mostly empty and forlorn look.
At $11 a pound for Mix Mithai (mixed sweets), Monsoon Express' sweets are a total ripoff. In fact, these sweets are so bad that even if offered free we'd still consider them a ripoff.
Beyond those horrible sweets, Monsoon Express' problems extend to the quality of its food itself. This restaurant's kitchen's performance was erratic with few hits but lots of misses.
Our first grouse was that that the food at this self-service restaurant is mostly lukewarm.
Our Vegetable Noodles and Peas Pulao were barely warm when we picked it up at the counter. And the Masala Chai was so hopelessly tepid that we had to ask for it to be heated.
What's wrong with these bozos?
When you keep in mind that the kitchen is just behind the counter there is simply no excuse for not serving food piping hot.
Not serving hot food is a reflection of Monsoon Express' contempt for customers in the arrogant belief that they will keep coming no matter what.
Much to our irritation, we've observed this irksome issue of lukewarm food at other Indian restaurants too lately.
A big favorite with Indians, Peas Pulao goes very well with both vegetarian and non-vegetarian curries. For Peas Pulao to taste good, it requires - besides the obvious Green Peas and Basmati Rice - onion, cardamom, cloves, cumin seeds, coriander leaves, crushed ginger and garlic flakes.
Just adding a few Green Peas to White Rice - like Monsoon Express does - does not make it Peas Pulao. We doubt if the folks at Monsoon Express can even recognize real Peas Pulao.
Vegetables in Garlic Sauce was far too sweet while the Chicken Raseela (a kind of Chicken curry in a thick gravy) was depressingly bland.
Kadhai Paneer was bad because it had more salt than warranted and to spend any more time on this abomination would be a waste of time.
Besides being tepid, Vegetable Noodles had no flavor and seemed to have been thoughtlessly put together.
Our meal was not an utter disaster however.
Chilli Paneer and Black Pepper Chicken ($8.95) were the two standout dishes from our lunch although Black Pepper Chicken could have done with a bit more pepper.
Cooked to perfection in a nice hot and thick sauce, memories of Monsoon Express' Chilli Paneer linger long after the meal ends.
To describe the lukewarm Masala Chai ($1.50) as pitiful would be too charitable.
Far too often, Indian restaurants serve such lousy Masala Tea these days that we wonder why they even bother keeping it on the menu.
Our cup of Mango Lassi ($3.00) was satisfactory but did not raise above the ordinary.
With the exception of the Chilli Paneer, we felt that food at Monsoon Express seems a little underspiced for Indian palates.
Since this is a self-service restaurant, there's not much to say about the restaurant's service. But we were irritated to see customers who came in after us being served earlier.
It took 18 minutes from the time we placed our order to picking it up at the counter. The young Tamil fellow at the counter was clueless when we asked him about one of the sweets that did not have a name-tag attached to it.
Although low on satisfaction for customers, Monsoon Express is a restaurant high on ambition.
After all, how many restaurants can you find that offer North Indian, South Indian, Chinese, Thai, Vegetarian and Non-Vegetarian cuisine besides lousy sweets under a single roof. Reminds us of those bad Bollywood movies (particularly Tamil), where the story, screenplay, dialogs, direction and more are all handled by a single person.
Monsoon Express is a prime example of a new generation of Indian restaurants in New Jersey that is big on talk and low on delivery. - © Rekha Inc.
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