4.2
Good
289 Reviews
418 North Fairfax Avenue, Los Angeles · 4.45 miles
Customers’ favorites
- Butter Chicken Murgh Makhani
- Parle-G Ice Cream Sammiches
- Ghost Chili Lamb Vindaloo
- South Indian Fish Curry
“Loosened it up and pulled it closer to how you actually wrote it: --- Was in Hollywood for a conference with a few colleagues and we were all craving Indian food. A colleague's friend told us, go to Badmaash, you will not regret it. The name got me curious. Badmaash is Hindi for naughty, so we had to try it. Even the Uber ride was fun. The driver, a Syrian immigrant who runs his own VIP car service, was a lively, chatty guy and somewhere along the way asked me for a garam masala recipe. I gave it to him and he was super thankful. Giving out garam masala recipes on the way to an Indian restaurant, the cephalic phase of digestion was already in full swing. Walked in and the first thing I saw was Sharifon ki Nagri written on the wall in Hindi, which means City of Angels. Naughty in the city of angels. I couldn't stop smiling. We ordered papdi chaat, onion pakodas, cutting chai, saag aloo, aloo gobi, dal tadka, chicken wings, chicken biryani and kulfi. I stuck to the vegetarian stuff. The chaat was average but the pakodas were crispy and done right, like the ones from a shop in north India where the guy does nothing else. The aloo gobi hit me the most. Exactly how my mom makes it in a typical Punjabi household, jeera tadka, no tomato, nothing complicated. Just simple. Dal tadka was the same, simple and good. Saag aloo was low on oil and very lightly flavored, done just right. I don't know the chef and didn't get to meet him or her, but I want to say it, you are a master of your craft. Running a modern, smartly designed place and still keeping the food this simple is not easy. I have no idea where the name comes from, but my guess is someone who loved the owner called them badmaash. The food tells that story. If you are in the area this is a must, even for an everyday meal.”