Spice Fusion (the Indian buffet on 8th Ave. btw. 47+48th) used to have a big blow up of the Midtown Lunch post hanging in front of their restaurant. Not anymore. It probably has to do with the headline, where I claimed that Spice Fusion had perfected the “Under $10 Indian All You Can Eat Buffet”. Like most of the Indian buffets in Midtown, Spice Fusion raised their price at the beginning of the year. But is it worth the extra buck? (As you know, I will break my $10 rule for all you can eat buffets.)

I used this silly reasoning as an excuse decided to buffet it up on Friday to “check it out”. 

Still good, and completely worth the $11. Main reasons (aside from the fact that the food is good):

1. They bring freshly baked naan to your table from the back, rather than letting it sit out on the buffet. (It also has a nice butter/ghee sheen.)
2. They have 2 different lamb dishes! In these tough times, many buffets will cut back on their meat offerings, and usually lamb is the first to go. On the day we were there, Spice Fusion had two different lamb dishes- a shish kebab/ground lamb kind of thing (that was delicious) and a stewed lamb (which was melt in your mouth tender)
3. Dessert is always good (and warm!)

I’ve never been able to bring myself to shell out the $17+ that some of the nicer buffets charge in Midtown… but I can’t imagine they are much better than Spice Fusion.

In an unprecendented, never seen before in the history of Midtown Lunch (which is only a little over two years, but whatever), a restaurant has actually *lowered* the price on one of their items!  Z Deli, which put itself on the Midtown Lunch map last year by selling 99 cent pizza, raised their price to $1.50 in May- landing them on the M.L. Price Hike List.  In a complete reversal, they have reverted back to the 99 Cent price.  (Thanks to commenter Seiki for pointing out the change.) I’m guessing that nobody was buying the pizza at its new increased price, and they were forced to go back to the 99 cents.  (Better to sell pizza and make a tiny bit of money, than sell no pizza at all.)  Score one for the cheapos!  Now if we could only get  Del Frisco’s to reverse the steak tips increase…

Al Baraka, Midtown’s best only Turkish buffet, is now Kanaat Turkish Restaurant.  The chef, food and lunch buffet are exactly the same, but it is now $10.95 (up from $9.95 before).  The lamb shanks are still on the buffet, so it’s worth the extra buck, but the current trend of lunchtime price increases worries me that soon all buffets will need special exemptions to be included in the Midtown Lunch’ing price range.

Another popular buffet that has broken the $10 threshold, after the jump…

Curry Dream, the Indian Buffet on 39th St. btw. 5+6th has also raised the price of their all you can eat buffet from $9.95 to $10.95.  For Indian lunch buffets under $10, there’s still Kashmir on 8th Ave. btw. 39+40th, and the West Tandoori Club on 37th btw. 7+8th both still sitting pretty at $9.95.

In the end, as long as the lunch buffet at Spice Fusion (8th Ave. btw. 47+48th) remains at $9.95 I won’t go into panic mode.  Hopefully winning best Indian Buffet in the 2007 Midtown Lunch Readers’ Poll won’t go to their head.

One thing I’ve discovered since starting Midtown Lunch is that most of the time you get what you pay for.  Go to an Indian buffet that’s $9.95 and the quality of the food is not going to be as good as the $14.95 buffet.  Rangole (on 46th btw. 5+6th) was the best deal ever at $8.95, but the quality was a little lacking, and the atmosphere left a little to be desired.  And yet, I love the all you can eat buffets, so I was happy the place was there when I needed my fix.

When Rangole closed, I was forced to look south to Curry Dream on 38th btw. 5+6th.  $1 more than Rangole, it still suffers from many of the same problems.  Good, but not great, clean, but not really… and still, I am just happy it’s there.  (Fat man likey buffet.)  I could pay $10.95 for Sukhadia or even more for one of the expensive Indian Buffets in Midtown (there are plenty, like Utsav), but it is against the under $10 Midtown Lunch rule (read: I’m a cheap bastard, and will sacrifice quality for price).

With the opening of Spice Fusion on 8th Ave. btw. 47+48th, all of my Indian food prayers have been answered.  Not only is the buffet only $9.95, they have take out boxes for $6.95 and the food is not only good, it is borderline great!

What they have, and a +/- after the jump…

Spice Fusion is what I would consider to be a small scale buffet.  There are usually 3 meat dishes, 3 vegetarian dishes, one rice, one dessert, two salads and and array of sauces and chutneys.  You can actually apply most of my Chinese food buffet rules to Indian buffets, with the exception of “don’t eat the bread“, which clearly needs to be ignored when dealing with Indian food, where the naan is going to be one of the best parts of the meal.

My first plate, as always, was a starter plate, as I used it to sample all the meat dishes and the saagwala (spinach), which is my favorite:

Every dish had a very distinct flavor, and none of the sauces were watery- a problem you find at a lot of cheap Indian buffets.  Standard chicken tikka masala was very good, and the rarely seen straight up chicken masala was spicy and delicious.  The lamb rogan josh was also good, and is something they told me is on the buffet every day. 

My string of bad saags at cheap indian buffets came to an end, with their version being particularly good, my only complaint being that it came with “aloo” or potato rather than the standard paneer (Indian cheese).  I would say this was a cheap move to save money, but they quickly disproved that theory by offering a paneer and peas dish right next to the saag. 

Bread is one of my favorite parts of an Indian buffet, and Spice Fusion brings their naan fresh, hot and glistening right from the oven to your table.  In fact, they actually seemed very concerned with making sure all the food they put out was fresh.  When I asked if they ever had Tandoori chicken on the buffet, they replied that you could only get tandoori off the menu or as a take out box, because it dries up and doesn’t taste good when you put that kind of food on a buffet. 

For my second plate, I sampled the remaining two vegetarian dishes, got seconds of the lamb and chicken masala, and tried their extensive selection of sauces and chutneys.  I’m not a vegetarian, but if I was I would be pretty excited about this place.  There are only 3 vegetarian choices, but they were all top notch.  The yellow dal was exceptionally tasty, with this amazing mustardy flavor, and the paneer with pees was also delicious.  A lot of times at cheap Indian buffets, everything ends up tasting practically the same- but here I was really impressed with how strong and individual the flavor of each dish was.

For dessert, I was disappointed to see the standard Indian rice pudding dish (which they have on some days) replaced with some sort of orange dessert thing called Gajar ka Halwa.  Made entirely from carrots, it more than exceeded my low expectations.  Sweet and delicious, seeing it on my next visit will result in a very happy boy. 

All in all, I couldn’t believe how good this buffet was for only $9.95.  And unlike most cheap buffets the atmosphere was warm, inviting and super clean (probably due to the fact that the place is brand new).  And, while normally I would be critical of a buffet that doesn’t offer tandoori chicken, or some of sort of fried something something (can a brother get a samosa or pakora up in this joint???), it was overshadowed by the effort they put into making each of the dishes superb.  My only fear is that when word gets out, it will be so crowded they won’t be able to maintain the quality.

On second thought, this place is terrible.  Nobody should go.

THE +

• All the dishes are far better than you would expect from a $9.95 Indian buffet.
• Nothing was watery
• The naan comes out fresh from the kitchen
• If you aren’t in the mood for buffet, they have take out or delivery boxes for $6.95
• The Vegetarian options are delicious
• It’s a buffet… and all buffets are good
• A really large selection of delcious sauces and chutneys

THE -

• It’s a small scale buffet, and a decent size restaurant.  If it is full, I could see there being a problem with lines and keeping the food stocked
• There is no tandoori chicken, so your office mate who only eats the “red chicken with no sauce” may have to eat some real Indian food!
• There are no pakoras or samosas!  (I’d rather have dried out fried stuff than no fried stuff at all!)
• They seem to put a lot of care into all their dishes (and not serving popular items that don’t fare well in a buffet setting).  I’m afraid that once they become popular, they won’t put as much care into the food!
• With tax and tip, the meal comes out to around $13 (which is technically more than the $10 Midtown Lunch “rule”)

Spice Fusion, 777 8th Ave. (btw. 47+48th), 212-757-8100