Dear Patron:

I hope all is well with you and your loved ones.

The San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate/Baylist contest results were published on Thursday, June 17, 2010, and Ajanta was once again voted the Best Indian restaurant in the Bay Area. Thanks to all of you who voted for us. This really means a lot to me, since the Chronicle continues to ignore Ajanta and shows only one star for our food. I do believe that we deserve more than one star. SFGate/Baylist has 138 reviews from our diners, with an average rating of 5 stars out of 5. A special thanks to those of you who took the time to write a review.

Business at Ajanta continues to be soft. Our customer count so far is down about 7% as compared to last year, which was down from the year before. I hope the recognition in the SFGate/Baylist competition will help us gain some more customers. As a business model, I have chosen to operate on a very thin margin and I rely on volume in order to make a reasonable profit. In operating this way, the loss of a few customers impacts our bottom line substantially. So, any help by the way of reviews and ratings is highly appreciated. While on the subject, we would like to remind you to please vote for us on Zagat.com, unless you have already done so. We were the Best Indian Restaurant in the Zagat guide for 2010 and would like to get this recognition for 2011 as well.

All the new dishes introduced last month were very well received. Following are the new dishes being introduced for the month of July 2010:

Goa Lamb Curry: If you have read my newsletters over a period of time, you may have noticed that almost all curry sauces in our Indian dishes are made with a base of onions. The lamb curry from Goa being featured this month has an unusual and very tasty sauce that does not use any onions. The sauce is made with tomatoes, coconut milk, ginger, and spices. The spices include chile peppers, coriander, cumin, turmeric and paprika. Boneless cubed leg of lamb is simmered in this sauce until tender. The dish is finished by adding malt vinegar. Like most dishes in Goa, this dish is eaten hot and we recommend for you to order it as hot as your palate will permit.

Green Curry Prawns: This dish was served by President Obama's chef Marcus Samuelson at the first state dinner hosted for India's Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh at the White House. In Mr. Samuelson's recipe, the green color for this curry came from green chile peppers. His recipe, which serves four, uses 8 green chile peppers (half serrano and half jalapenos). That would make a really fiery hot curry! Our recipe is different. In our recipe, the green color comes from a mixture of cilantro, mint and dill. The sauce also includes onions, coconut milk, ginger, lime juice, cardamom, cinnamon and cloves. We will use some green chiles, but just enough to make the sauce medium hot on our scale. Featured for the first time at Ajanta, I believe this will become one of my favorite recipes. We look forward to hearing your comments on this dish.

Palak Kofta: The vegetarian dish this month is kofta balls made with spinach and potatoes, served in a creamy curry sauce. The kofta balls are made with chopped organic spinach, boiled mashed potatoes, breadcrumbs, and spices (chile flakes, dried pomegranate seed powder, and black cumin seeds). The sauce is made with onions, garlic, tomatoes, cream, and spices. This dish, like all kofta dishes at Ajanta, has been very popular every time it has been featured.

The following dishes will be discontinued to make room for the new dishes:

1. Daalcha Gosht

2. Andhra Shrimp Curry

3. Mixed vegetable Kofta

It is always a pleasure to see you at Ajanta.

Sincerely,

Lachu Moorjani