My family was provided with a complimentary dining experience at Spicelife Indian Fare in exchange for my honest review of this new restaurant.
It’s not always easy to find a meal that the whole family likes - whether cooking at home or trying to agree on a restaurant! We do best when we have lots of options to make everyone happy. We tried Spicelife Indian Fare last weekend for the first time, and my whole crew LOVED it! We loved it so much, in fact, that we returned to Spicelife two days later to eat there again!
My husband and the kids are already asking about when we'll go back! So here it is: If you'd like to join us, we'll be eating dinner at Spicelife on March 26th at about 6:45pm, after Vivi's dance class. We'd love to see you there! Spicelife is running a coupon discount through the end of March - simply bring in the coupon included in the photos of this article to receive your discount any time in March!
And now onto the review!
Spicelife opened just a week ago in the Downtown Crown area, at 128 Ellington Blvd in Gaithersburg. They serve Indian/Nepalese Cuisine from their menu and also offer a build-your-own-bowl option, with salad items, a choice of white rice or yellow lemon rice, and a hot buffet of delicious dishes from which to choose (as many options as you’d like in your bowl, for a fixed price!) This is amazing food in a quick serve casual atmosphere.
When we first visited Spicelife we each ordered a bowl and customized it to our own liking. We also asked for an order of naan, because naan is delicious! Spicelife doesn't have a kids' menu, and so for our 2 year old Vivian, I just asked for a second empty bowl and shared food out of my bowl with her. The portions are definitely big enough to share, and Viv enjoyed her sampling!
We all loved the chicken tikka masala. Delicious chicken in a beautiful red, rich and creamy tomato based sauce - this dish is a definite winner. It’s also, we’re told, the most popular dish among the kids who dine at Spicelife. Mine agreed - they loved the “red chicken” and rice. Nothing on the hot bowl buffet was spicy, so the kids chose freely for their bowls and ordered a bit of everything. Vivian loves chick peas - so for her the chana masala was a winner. I loved that one too! Henry tried and really liked the spinach as well. We all really enjoyed the yellow rice too - such a beautiful color and so aromatic, it really added a nice dimension to the meal.
The lamb on the hot buffet had the most kick. It still wasn’t too spicy for any of us, though, which means it wasn’t spicy at all really. Most of my family has a pretty low spice/heat tolerance. I'm the outlier - I like it spicy! For those of you who do like it hot, when ordering from the regular menu, you are asked whether you want the dish spicy or mild, so you can crank up the heat if you so desire!
Spicelife also had crunchy fried okra slices on the buffet which were an awesome topper for my rice/salad bowl. Some delicious chutney and raita (yogurt sauce) made our bowls complete!
When we returned the second time (only 2 days later because it was so tasty!) I wanted to branch out a bit and try ordering from the menu - I got the salmon tikka masala, and ordered some garlic naan (yum!) and an order of vegetable samosas for everyone to try (another crowd pleaser - they were huge, and delicious!). The kids ordered their own bowls again (this time Henry literally said he wanted to try EVERYTHING - and that's just what he did!)
Even when ordering from the menu, the food was delivered to our table quickly. I loved the presentation of the vibrantly colored salmon dish in the metal bowl, and again, everything was delicious. The whole staff at Spicelife is so wonderful, too! They doted on the kids as we ordered and then came by our table to check on us and see how the kids were enjoying their meals.
We can't say enough good things about Spicelife, and hope you will join us there on March 26th to check it out for yourselves!
Spicelife Indian Fare
128 Ellington Blvd., Gaithersburg
