Yep. I guess they had to cook what sells, and Bengali food wouldn’t fit the average customer’s bill.
Here in nyc, the places I’m referencing are holes-in-the-wall serving primarily their native community (some are cab driver joints). Places my dad wouldn’t have let us sit and eat at - we’d pick up the food and bring it home. Usually in immigrant clusters (Jackson heights, some more neighborhoods further out in queens) but also on convenient cabbie routes in Manhattan.
By contrast, restaurants catering to the local population have to adapt to customer palate here too - of course, or they wouldn’t survive. Food is more generalized, and there’s tandoori and makhani gravy available irrespective of the regional focus.
And how they’re rated has less to do with whether it’s actually good Indian food, and more to do with how well they marketed themselves to the broader customer base (hence my disappointment with Adda).
I wonder, @Harters, what the equivalent of my “divey” joints would be near you. I bet you’d enjoy the food!
