I am in love with this place - the food is delicious, the employees so friendly and just happy to be there to serve you and the ambience and decor! It is not so,etching you would expect to see when it come stop a Indian restaurant.

The open concept kitchen where you look through glass windows to see the giant tandoors cooking the food on long skewers, the naans being stretched, baked and fished out of the ovens; the fridges with glass doors showing big tubs of ingredients ready to be cooked.

If you’ve never tried Indian cuisine and have always been apprehensive, give this place a try. I guarantee you will also fall in love. They provide samples of their lemonades and masala sauces to try. Their side dishes are the perfect size for trying something new or even sharing!

They have three levels of hot sauces for those with a spicy tongue. Coriander yogurt an mango chutneys compliment the food. We ordered the Choola bowl with the chicken and masala sauce and got extra protein of paneer. Wow, I’ve never had such huge cubes of paneer before. And they are made in house and literally are so fresh that you can taste it!!!

We also ordered the lamb meatballs (to die for!) which are perfectly spiced and seasoned. Honestly the best lamb meatballs I’ve ever had _ juicy and not at all gamey.the garlic naan is just garlic naan - no explanation required. We also ordered the samosas which were just a flavour explosion. It felt like we were eating street food in India! The mango lassi is thick and delicious. The ice tea/lemonade come with free refills.

And let’s talk about the decor for a moment. The industrial look is just cool. Totally unexpected but in a great way. Th place is just so cool and welcoming. The main eye candy is this long communal table which seats about 20 people. It it made with a plank of wood and a lot of cookbooks glued together and varnished onto the wood. It is a commissioned piece and there’s. a beautiful story behind it. Ask one of the employees. I wonder if there’s a piece like that every location - which I found out there are 4 others of (in PA and VA).

And did I mention the space age hand washing machines? So cool it made the kids want to wash their hands. It is more eco friendly as it uses less water than the regular sink. How it works is that a fine spray of warmish water spins around where you insert your hands into. It does this for 12 seconds - no soap needed, and your hands are clean! I noticed they had this in their food prep area in the kitchen as well. So convenient!

I’ll most likely be returning during our visit to Cleveland as we don’t have anything like this in Toronto. The owners definitely designed their restaurant concept with their end users in mind - potential customers who might be intimidated with dipping their toes in to the Indian Cuisine. I can totally see that as the complexity of the spices and flavours can be quite overwhelming for newbies.

Well done, Choola. We are proud of you and your work!!!