Midtown Lunch

I’ve walked by Bombay Eats, the just out of bounds Indian restaurant on 52nd btw. 8+9th, a million times… but had only noticed this sign for the first time last week.  Indian pizza!?!  And not some strange Indian creation with some similarities to real pizza. This is real New York City pizza, with Indian toppings.  Tandoori chicken, minced lamb, chicken tikka, saag paneer (!?!)

I mean, how could I not right?

Bombay Eats looks like most middle of the road Indian joints in New York City, with one difference.  In the middle of the restaurant, at the front of the counter, is a glass case with a couple of pizzas.  Pretty standard stuff actually… with cheese, sausage and pepperoni offered by the slice.  The guy working the counter told me that they had been selling pizza for years and years, but the sign out front was brand new.

I was pretty disappointed to discover that they don’t serve Indian pizza by the slice- and I didn’t really want to order a whole pie (too expensive and I was by myself.)  I asked the guy if he would ever consider selling Indian pizza by the slice.  You know…  just keep a single pie with tandoori chicken or saag paneer in the front.  He told me that there wasn’t enough interest for single slices, so you’d have to order a whole pie if you wanted Indian pizza.

After a bit of hemming and hawing, trying to decide what I should do (I really wanted some Indian pizza), the guy finally offered to serve a slice of cheese pizza, topped with saag from their lunch buffet for $3. Why yes.  I think I’d like that very much thank you.

It’s actually not as weird as you would think.  You can get pizza topped with spinach at a regular pizza place, why not pizza topped with Indian spiced spinach.  And since saag usually comes with paneer (Indian cheese), it worked pretty well with the cheese on the pizza.  A tasty treat!  I tried convincing the guy to top another slice with some of the other items on the buffet (lamb curry, chicken tikka masala) but he said that you couldn’t do it because the gravy was too wet.  Oh well.

I still think he’d make a killing offering Indian pizza by the slice.  Maybe if enough people go in and ask him to top their pizza with saag from the buffet, they’ll decide that it would be worth it to at least have one Indian pizza in the window to sell by the slice.  You think we could make this happen?!?

Bombay Eats, 314 West 52nd Street (btw. 8+9th), 212-265-7777