The good thing about New York in the summer is that even at 8 pm, there was still daylight. Sunset was to be at around 8:20 pm! Most restaurants and cafes we passed by were filled with people – inside and outside. We had been curious to try out a Michelin-star restaurant – these generally tend to be very expensive; the more the stars, the more expensive; even the 1-star restaurants are pricier than usual. The other problem is getting veg food – Raghav and Rakesh were veggies. New York has a few options, and we had read about a South Indian Michelin 1-star restaurant called ‘Semma’. It was about 8 pm when we reached the place – fortunately, we didn’t need a booking; inside was crowded, but they did have outdoor seating.
The menu had fancy cocktail names – named after Tamil movies like Chandramukhi Milk Punch. They also had a couple of non-alcoholic cocktails (I didn’t know that these are called zero-proof cocktails) and some beers. Rakesh opted for a beer called Unapologetic UN1, and Raghav went for the Manjal saaru (the literal meaning is turmeric essence/juice). The beer can said it was made using Basmati rice – guess that’s why this restaurant had it.
A Western waitress came over to explain the food menu to us – we pretty much knew what most of the dishes meant but she explained all of them as she must’ve been trained to do so. We asked her for recommendations and selected one appetizer – the paniyaram. This is a South Indian lentil dumpling – it tasted good. But Rakesh and I are very familiar with this dish, so we didn’t find it special – the decoration was unique.
They grouped their items as small, medium and large in terms of quantity. The small section was the appetizers. We picked the Mangalore huukosu (sort of like what we call a Gobi-65; a form of fried cauliflower) and nathai pirattal, and a mirchi ka salan.
I ordered the Nathai pirattal just to try out one non-veg dish – this was a stir fried dish of snails in an Indian curry paste. It came along with a couple of small kal dosas (a spongy type of Indian pancake but made with a different batter containing lentils and rice). Again, the decoration was unique – the whole thing was arranged on a bed of shells.
The mirchi ka salan is a green pepper based curry – had it with a bowl of coconut rice. It was good – all the items were nice, but since all three of us were used to Indian food, we wouldn’t say it was extraordinary apart from the decoration and presentation of the dishes.
The cost of the meal, if you came as one person, would be expensive, but since we ordered only a little and shared everything, it was ok.
Their current menu you will find here: https://www.semma.nyc/
Maybe we should have tried a different cuisine instead of Indian! We walked along towards Times Square, and on the way, Raghav was tempted by an Italian desserts shop that we saw – it was 10 pm, and we were just in time before the shop closed; Raghav asked the staff for recommendation, and he reeled out a couple of them and we picked both – but the Tiramisu and the cream bun were more pleasing to look at than was their taste – unfortunately they were large servings as well.
15th June (Saturday) – Our plan was for Rakesh to take a rental car from New Jersey and drive to Boston on Sunday – it would be his first long drive in the US. On Friday night, he had done a lot of online searches trying to book a rental car, which we could pick somewhere nearby in New Jersey and drop in Boston – there’s generally an extra cost for doing this when you drop in a different city. But with many of the traditional rental agencies, we struggled with their websites – it was so hard to search, and each time you went down a few pages, the search criteria would get messed up. Everywhere, it said there was no Sunday return or that return counters were closed early evening itself. Eventually, we found that there was a rental car agency called Sixt – had never heard of this name before, but they had an outlet in the New Jersey mall near our hotel.
So early in the morning, we landed there, and two employees were at the counter. Rakesh was looking for a midsize car since this would be his first long drive in the US, and we also had to spend Saturday driving on the city roads. But the staff at Sixt said he’d get the best for Rakesh and came up with a large vehicle where he gave a price discount as well – it was like those large 7-seater vans! He said there were no small ones available, but there was a particular BMW that Rakesh wanted that was available, but the guy said it would cost $60 more per day. Oh well, his best deal for Rakesh likely was based on the fact that they were running short of smaller vehicles and were trying to let out the large ones!
He repeated, “It’s a brand new one. Only the best for you, sir.”
The Chrysler Pacifica vehicle was surely new but huge – classified as a minivan. Rakesh practiced within the car parking area to get a sense of the corners of the vehicles, and off we went. Being a little slow in exiting the mall, the car driver behind us honked – a reminder that we were in New Jersey!