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Review: Laxmi’s Indian Grille

exterior of a strip mall business with a sign that reads "Laxmi's Indian Grille"

Berks County has been going through a restaurant boom for well over a year now. It seems like new restaurants have been popping up constantly in recent months.

And nowhere is that more evident than Wyomissing. For a while it felt like I was reporting weekly on a new restaurant coming to or opening in the Reading suburb.

Among those restaurants are a Philly-area sports bar, an Irish pub, a retro hamburger chain and two barbecue restaurants. But to me, the most intriguing of all of the new openings had to be Laxmi’s Indian Grille.

The State Hill Road location is the third for the Philadelphia-based operation. The first location in Manyunk led to a second in East Falls in 2013. Now, the micro chain has expanded west, all the way to Berks County.

Laxmi’s opened in January in a State Hill Rd strip mall that also included Mama’s Original Pizzza and Alebrije Mexican Restaurant (which has since moved).

A surprisingly large number of seats are squeezed inside the restaurant. Booths line the outside with four-person tables running through the middle.

brass holder with three small bowls of chutney - one gree, one red, and one dark brown

The tables are all pre-set with plates for appetizers and cloth napkins. Three chutney sauces are set in in the middle of the table waiting for the complimentary basket of papadum, a wafer-thin dish that is similar to a tortilla, but crispier.

a basket with two papadum from Laxmi's Indian Grille

It was light and airy, but did well to soak up the flavors of the chutney. Chutney is a very general term for a lot of different condiments, and the three on the table could not have been more different.

The first was a dark, reddish-brown sauce that was very runny. It was similar to a chili sauce, but thinner and with a little bit of fruity flavor to it. The second was the green chutney, which was close to a green taco sauce but the spice was more tolerable. The third, my favorite of the three, was tomato based and closer to salsa, but with bits of carrots. It was more sweet than spicy and the chunky texture was great for the papadum.

Laxmi’s menu is not very big, but it is diverse in its offerings. There are nine curry dishes, all of which can be served with vegetables, paneer (a type of south Asian cheese), chicken, lamb or seafood. There are also several tandoor-prepared items including kababs and tandoori chicken.

All of the items sounded delicious, but I finally decided on one of the curries: chicken jalfrezi.

metal bowl of chicken jalfrezi in red sauce with sliced peppers

Jalfrezi looks very similar to the more well-known tikka masala, but the two are very different dishes. Despite its red color, jalfrezi is onion-based. Green peppers, ginger and garlic are also listed as ingredients in the menu description.

The dish was very flavorful. The onions were easy to pick up, but more for the sweetness they added than for any potency. I dumped every last drop that I could onto my plate, dousing my pile of rice in the sweet red sauce.

white bowl with white rice topped with two green peas

Back in April, when I took a road trip to Saffron in Ambler, I thoroughly enjoyed their korma. I guess it sounded good to Julie because at Laxmi’s, she ordered the chicken korma.

metal bowl of chicken korma with slivered nuts on top

The two versions of the cashew-based dish were very similar. Both were creamy with a nice nutty flavor. The spices were a little stronger with Laxmi’s dish, making just that much better than what I tried a month ago.

Along with our main dishes, we ordered a side of naan. While Laxmi’s offered eight versions of the bread, but we went with the plain version.

basket with four pieces of buttered naan

It was anything but plain. It was soft and buttery, like pillowy pitas. They were perfect for soaking up the last of the jalfrezi on my plate.

Our total for the visit was just over $30, but we were probably closer to the low end of the price range (some of the tandoori entrees are in the $20-$25 range). Still, the food packs flavor that is well-worth the price.

Laxmi’s Indian Grille is one of many restaurant chains that have expanded into Berks County, but it may be among the best. If all of the new restaurants are of the quality of Laxmi’s, there’s going to be a lot of happy customers to go with them.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Excellent
Price: Reasonable

Laxmi’s Indian Grille
1806 State Hill Rd
Wyomissing, PA 19610

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Vegetarian Mango Chicken from Chen Vegetarian House
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Review: Chen Vegetarian House

exterior of a restaurant with a light orange awning that reads "Chen Vegetarian House"

It is very hard for a Chinese restaurant to set itself apart. With so much competition—it seems as though there is at least one in every town—there has to be something unique, a hook that separates it from the pack.

One West Reading restaurant found a way to make its mark on the Berks County food scene by taking Chinese food in a new direction by giving it a vegetarian twist and making it more healthy.

That’s what makes Chen Vegetarian House different from the rest.

In addition to healthful foods, Chen offers a range of healthful drink options including 18 fruit and vegetable juices, five dairy-free smoothie flavors, and four kinds of hot teas.

large glass with a papaya smoothie

I was craving something sweet so I went with a papaya smoothie. Papaya has always been one of my favorite fruit flavors, but it’s one that isn’t readily available. The fruit has a light sweetness, a perfect base for a refreshing drink.

large glass with pineapple juice

Of the 18 juice bar options, more than half start with carrot. The rest are pure fruit, most mixed with ginger to add a little spice to the sweetness. Julie’s juice cocktail was a combination of apple and pineapple with a hint of ginger.

Chen Vegetarian House has some familiar sounding entrees on its menu: General Tso’s chicken, beef teriyaki, and sweet and sour chicken. But as a vegetarian restaurant, all of the “meat” is made from soy  and wheat. The shapes and textures are meant to resemble the real thing because sesame chicken sounds a whole lot more appealing than sesame tofu.

My original plan was to try the vegetarian version of General Tso’s, but the description of the mango chicken sounded so good that I changed my plans. And it was the right decision.

sliced mangos with a bowl of rice

The dish included strips of mango, “chicken,” onions and peppers tossed in citrus sauce and served inside a mango shell. The best part of the dish was the fresh mango, which took center stage over the tofu that was there strictly to absorb the sweet sauce and make the dish more filling.

I was actually happy that there was no meat in this dish because chicken would have made it too heavy. It was hard enough to finish the giant plate of food as it was, but I couldn’t let any of it go to waste.

plate with broccoli topped with vegetarian version of orange beef

Across the table from me, Julie went with the orange flavored beef. The tofu in this case was made to look and feel more like strips of steak and served atop a bed of broccoli. The orange tangerine glaze was thick and stuck to the tofu.

The flavor was spot on, sweet and tangy with just a little spice. The tofu came close to the right consistency, though it was a little chewier, closer to beef jerky than steak. Still, it was a great dish, one that Julie got two meals out of (it was just as good heated up as it was fresh, the mark of good Chinese food).

Not only are Chen’s dishes comparable to its meatier counterparts, but the prices are similar as well. Entrees are all in the $10-12 range. Our two specialty drinks put our final bill right at the $30 mark.

Chen Vegetarian House is truly unique in Berks County, a place that serves one-of-a-kind dishes not found anywhere else around.

And it’s meals like this that make Chen as good as, if not better than, all of the other Chinese restaurants out there.

BCE Rating
Food: Excellent
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Fair
Price: Very Reasonable

Chen Vegetarian House
709 Penn Ave
West Reading, PA 19611

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Road Trip: Saffron Indian Kitchen – Ambler

black awning with yellow letters that read "Saffron Indian Kitchen"

Berks County Eats crosses the county line to bring you some of the best dining both near and far. This edition takes us an hour east of Reading to Ambler, PA.

Every day I make the trek from my home in Wyomissing to my job in King of Prussia, a 50-mile journey down the Morgantown Expressway and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

While I wish that I could work closer to home, my job affords me the opportunity to experience some great places—and great restaurants—in Montgomery County.

A recent outing with some of my colleagues took us to one of Montgomery County’s coolest small towns, Ambler. And it’s there that we found Saffron Indian Kitchen.

Ambler is a lot like West Reading. The main street, Butler Avenue, is lined with independent shops and enough restaurants to keep a blogger busy for months.

Parking is scarce, especially on Friday or Saturday evening when it seems like everyone comes to town for dinner.  But if you are lucky enough to find a parking space (and thankfully, I was), the metered lots are free after 6 p.m.

Saffron has the look and feel of a traditional bistro. A handful of tables and chairs are set up on the sidewalk in front of the building it shares with Caffe Maida. The yellow walls and yellow tablecloths added brightness to our seats in the back of the room, away from the large front window.

Indian food is something that I don’t get to eat very often. There are only a couple authentic Indian restaurants in Berks, and my only taste so far as been a sampling of Aashiyana’s delicious chicken tiki masala at the Centre Park Gourmet Garden tour.

The trip to Saffron was a chance to broaden my horizons, and being with three other people, it meant a chance to share several appetizers, starting with onion bhajai.

plate of bhajai (fried onion) with dipping sauces

Bhajai could be best described as an Indian version of the blooming onion. What made this different was the use of chickpea batter for deep frying. Amazing on their own, they were even better dipped in one of the two sauces. It was hard to choose a favorite between the two: the green sauce tasted like fresh salsa while the red reminded me of a sweet chili sauce. Though very different, both sauces worked beautifully with the fried onions.

two samosas on a plate with a small salad

Our second appetizer, spinach and feta cheese samosas, was from the “Saffron Blue” monthly menu. The large turnovers were stuffed full. One of my fellow diners said it reminded them of spanakopita. The main difference between this and the Greek dish is that the samosas had fried dough instead of filo, which gave it a little different flavor and made it feel more like an appetizer.

basket of naan bread

The final appetizer on our table was a basket of naan. Saffron offers eight different flavors of the Indian leavened bread, and I would have loved to have tried them all. Instead, we just tried rogini naan, the traditional version. Lightly buttered, I found the bread was best used for soaking up the sauce from my goat korma.

metal bowl of korma sauce with goat meat

Goat korma was another offering on the monthly menu. I had planned on ordering the chicken tiki masala (which came highly recommended), but changed my mind when I read about the goat dish served in cashew cream sauce.

Saffron will make the dish to your desired spice level—mild, medium or spicy. I went with the medium, and it offered plenty of kick. The sauce was thick and rich, with just a hint of sweetness to go with the nutty flavor of the cashew. I happily ladled all of the sauce atop my bed of rice, which we served ourselves out of communal bowls.

metal bowl of white rice

Goat is a very tender and flavorful meat, but the one problem with it is that there are a lot of bones. But there was still plenty of meat to pick at, and with the help of a couple slices of naan, I cleaned my plate.

My meal was one of the more expensive items on the menu at $20, which brought our total check to $90 for the four of us. That included four entrees, two appetizers, a double-order of naan and a bottle of Pellegrino (not my choice).

Walking from my car to Saffron, I passed about a dozen restaurants and bars, all of which looked welcoming and intriguing.

I have no doubt that I will find myself in Ambler again. I just hope all of the restaurants are as good as Saffron.

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tokyo hibachi and bar exterior
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Review: Tokyo Hibachi and Bar

brown colored building with red neon lights that read "Tokyo Hibachi & Bar"

Dinner is a sensory experience.

Taste is at the top of the list, but a truly great dinner encompasses all five senses: taste, sight, smell, touch and sound.

No dining experience can touch all five quite the way a hibachi can.

Wyomissing’s Tokyo Hibachi & Bar offers diners an experience that is just not available at most restaurants. Three circular seating areas with six hibachi grills are set up in what was originally a Denny’s along Woodland Road.

Tokyo Hibachi arrived in 2008, offering not only the tableside cooking show, but a large menu featuring nearly 50 different types of sushi as well as Chinese chicken and beef dinners.

But we were only interested in the hibachi.

Things started off slow at our table as we had to wait for more groups to fill around the table. Five must have been the magic number because after three more people trickled in, the waitress took our orders.

bowl of salad topped with creamy dressing

While we waited for the chef to emerge, our server brought out house salads for everyone. The simple salad consisted of a bowl of lettuce and one cherry tomato topped in the house dressing, a creamy Thousand Island-like sauce with a strong taste of citrus and just the slightest sour note from the vinegar. It was very good, and I was more than happy to have something to hold us over until our chef emerged from the kitchen with a cart full of food and equipment.

Hibachi grilling is part dinner, part show. And the show began with quite a flash.

flame rising from a hibachi grill

Following a display of Ninja-like moves with the spatula, the chef oiled up the hibachi and set it ablaze. The eggs, which were to be chopped and toss with the fried rice, were the first to hit the grill, after a bit of juggling on the spatula. Then came a pile of rice, enough for all five of us at the table.

hibachi grill with sliced onion mounded to look like a volcano with flame coming out the top

After throwing on the vegetables, it was time to play catch. Everyone at the table took turns trying to catch a piece of broccoli that was flipped to us off the grill. I failed (twice), taking one sprout off my chest and another in the face. Julie didn’t fare any better, but two of our tablemates caught there’s in one shot. Being first and second in line, I’m going to say the chef’s accuracy got better as he went along.

Items were dished out one at a time as they were finished so our plates gradually filled, giving me a chance to taste everything hot off the grill.

plate of fried rice

First came the fried rice. It was, hands down, the best fried rice I have ever tried. From the fresh cooked egg to the nicely browned rice, everything was perfect. If I didn’t have that salad to hold me over, the rice would have been gone before anything else hit my plate.

plate of fried rice with two pieces of shrimp

With every hibachi dinner, you get a two-piece “shrimp sampler.” I’m not a big seafood fan, but I gave them a try, and I have to admit that they weren’t bad. And seeing them transformed from the raw, gray blobs into the nice pink pinwheels was pretty impressive.

plate with a stir fry of steak, rice, broccoli and onion

The final pieces to the puzzle were my NY strip steak and mixed vegetables (thankfully no game of catch was involved for these). The steak was nicely caramelized from the oil and sauces that it was cooked in. It was just a little greasy, but the strong flavors made up for it.

plate of shrimp with lo mein noodles

Julie decided to go a different route for her meal, opting for a side of noodles instead of rice for her shrimp. Everything on the plate really absorbed the soy sauce, but somehow the sauce did not overpower it.

two chambered bowl with two dipping sauces, one light brown and one dark brown

Everyone at the table also gets two dipping sauces: mustard and ginger. The mustard was a little more complex that your store-bought brand; it reminded me a little of a Carolina barbecue sauce, but not as sweet. The ginger sauce was my favorite, though. The namesake spice was very strong and I thought it went perfectly with the steak.

With the hibachi dinner, you are paying a premium for the experience, but at $44 for the two of us, it was still a good deal considering the sheer amount of food (and entertainment) we received.

We could have gone to the restaurant and sat at a booth and had the exact same food. But I know it wouldn’t have been the same.

Instead of having plates of food delivered to us, we got to watch our dinner crafted from scratch, feel the heat of the hibachi (and the broccoli hitting my face), hear the sizzle of the grill and smell the aromas of everything that was prepared.

The fact that the food was outstanding made it all the more enjoyable.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Very Good
Price: Reasonable

Tokyo Hibachi & Bar
960 Woodland Rd
Wyomissing, PA 19610

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Review: Jambalaya J’s – Fairgrounds Farmers Market

window on a faux brick wall with a large banner that reads "jambalaya"

I have explored many of Berks County’s culinary hot spots: places like West Reading, Wyomissing and Kutztown have been good to me since starting this blog.

But there is one place in the county that has a higher concentration of restaurants than anywhere else. No, it’s not a town. It’s the Boscov’s Fairgrounds Farmers Market.

The 60 stands at the market feature fresh produce, butchered meats and bulk foods. But among the poultry and vegetable stands are more than a dozen places to enjoy a hot meal on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

One of those stands is located right inside the front door, and is the place I was eyeing up for my first market meal: Jambalaya J’s.

Jambalaya J’s is one of 60 stands inside the market. Opened in 2000, the stand has been offering Cajun fare for 15 years.

black chalkboard with a menu and prices for a New Orleans-style restaurant

The menu is narrowly focused with only a few options every week. The constants are jambalaya and crab cakes, two items that appear weekly on the menu board. The rest of the offerings are constantly changing. A range of po’ boy sandwiches, soups, sides and barbecue are offered each week.

We placed our order at the counter and the food was ready in a snap. The challenge was finding a pair of seats. The stand, itself, only offers a couple counter seats and a two-seat table that felt like it was a mile long. Thankfully there was a small table open in the seating area across the aisle.

I pulled up a chair and dug into my meal: a pulled pork sandwich combo with jambalaya and cole slaw.

paper plate with a pulled pork sandwich, dirty rice and coleslaw

The sandwich was gargantuan, served on an oversized, dusted kaiser roll. The sauce, sweet and rich, made a mess of my hands as it dripped out of the bun. The pork didn’t need much help as it was very flavorful on its own. With the sauce, it was up there with some of the best pulled pork I have tried.

With a name like Jambalaya J’s, the jambalaya has to be good. And this did not disappoint. While the Andouille sausage added some kick, it was not overly spicy. Instead, the thick rice creation was a little sweet. It was only when I got a little piece of dried chile pepper that I really got hit with the heat. That’s when the cooling, creamy cole slaw came in handy.

paper plate with crab cakes topped with remoulade and dirty rice

Julie’s Blue Plate Special was also covered in jambalaya, but with the addition of a pair of crab cakes topped with remoulade sauce. The remoulade really made the dish, adding a sweet and spicy element to the perfectly fried cakes.

The Cajun cuisine was not only delicious, but nicely priced as we only spent $20 for what was a very filling meal.

My first meal at the Fairgrounds Farmers Market did not disappoint. It was a delicious, filling meal that I would definitely order again.

But it might be a while until I get to try it again. After all, I still have dozens of other stands to visit.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Ambaince: Good
Price: Very Reasonable

Jambalaya J’s
2930 N. 5th Street Hwy
Reading, PA 19605

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The exterior of Emily's facing south on Route 10
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Review: Emily’s – CLOSED

The exterior of Emily's facing south on Route 10

Editor’s Note: Emily’s is now closed. The last day was New Year’s Eve 2024. The space is now Emily’s Event Venue, though they do offer public events on select Fridays.

A romantic dinner means something different to everyone.

For me, it’s pretty simple. It’s a special night out with my wife where we splurge a little for finer food, drinks (she drinks, I drive) and the ambiance of a nice restaurant.

So when it came time for our third anniversary, I was charged with finding a place for a romantic dinner for two.

Fortunately, Berks County has no shortage of restaurants that could be considered “romantic,” and on this occasion, that led us on a short drive south along Route 10 to Emily’s.

The historic building that Emily’s calls home has stood along Morgantown Road for nearly 200 years. At one time, the restaurant served as a local post office, a history that is celebrated in the uniquely appointed Post Office bar room, with PO Boxes lining the shelves and “Mail Pouch Tobacco” scrolled across the far wall.

Backyard area with bird feeders and a small creek

We were led past several intimate dining rooms, through the bar and out the back door to the creekside porch. Our table was along the rail overlooking the backyard, which doubles as event space for receptions and parties, evidenced by the worn out grass where a tent would generally be set up. A family of bright yellow finches enjoyed their own supper at the four feeders set up along the creek, which was merely a small trail of water as it trickled past the building.

flatbread cut into triangles topped with lamb sausage and cheese

We started our dinner by sharing an order of lamb sausage flatbread. The triangular flatbread pieces were topped with two kinds of cheese (Fontina and Mozzarella), caramelized onions and red currant syrup, garnished with fresh herbs.

The first thing you notice is the chunks of sausage, but the first thing you taste is the red currant. Red currant is a variety of European gooseberry, and when pureed into the syrup, it provides a very sweet flavor. Mix that with the slightly spicy lamb sausage and the mild cheese, and the ingredients combined for one of the best appetizers I have had.

white plate with red designs holding a mixed green salad

In between the flatbread and our main course we were served our house salads, which were offered with one of four homemade salad dressings, including raspberry vinaigrette. It was thicker than I had expected with a beautiful purple color and just a hint of sweetness to balance out the sour of the vinegar.

Emily’s has more than a dozen entrees and several more pasta options that include everything from chicken and ribs to duck and scallops, but it was the Two Peas in a Pasta that caught my eye.

pasta topped with cream sauce, peas and prosciutto

The namesake peas, spring peas and snow peas, were tossed with fettuccine pasta, prosciutto and leeks in a parmesan sauce. The sauce was thick and creamy like an alfredo, but with a lighter flavor. The prosciutto, which was chopped into tiny pieces, added a little bit of salt. Instead of being served al dente, the peas were cooked soft so that as I twirled my fettuccine, a pea pod would often find its way onto my fork as well. It was heavy and filling, but also very good with excellent flavor.

On the other side of the table, my wife enjoyed Emily’s pork rib cap steak, marinated pork steak topped with chorizo sausage and smoky lime aioli, served with a mixed vegetables and wild rice.

pork bites topped with aioli with dirty rice and green beans

The pork was cooked tender with just a little bit of fat remaining. The heat of the chorizo was tempered by the sweetness of the lime and the rice, which was tossed with walnuts and cranberries, the latter providing a hit of sweetness in almost every bite. With the two meats, it was like eating two entrees at once, both of which were very good.

tall glass filled with brownie covered in chocolate syrup and whipped cream

In true romantic fashion, we decided to share a dessert to end the evening. Even though neither of us were hungry anymore, we couldn’t pass on the chocolate parfait, a tall glass layered with chocolate mousse and brownie. The brownie was crumbled so that you had a little bit of the cake in every bite. It was very rich, but so delicious and satisfying.

With entrees that ranged in price from $15 to $30, our $60 check (which also included a mixed drink for my wife) was on the lower end of a meal for two at Emily’s and worth every penny.

It was a slower weeknight so we sat and enjoyed the cool evening air for a few minutes after our meal. The finches were fighting for space on the feeders as the sun was just beginning to set. As we sat, full and content from our meal, it was the perfect ending to a romantic night out.

And I was already looking forward to our next romantic dinner.

BCE Rating
Food: Very Good
Service: Very Good
Ambiance: Excellent
Price: Reasonable

Emily’s
3790 Morgantown Rd
Mohnton, PA 19540

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