Zyka: The Taste of the Best Family Reunion Dinner You Probably Never Had

I was in London the first time I can remember eating Indian food. I was seventeen and on a Summer EF tour with my then-girlfriend and some of my best friends. After a long day of sightseeing, our tour director had everyone meet at an Indian restaurant a few blocks from the British Museum. EF Tours include a breakfast and dinner meal. I feel like the restaurants that offer these deals to the tour company hate everyone and go out of their way to make everything bland and unappealing. That being said, there's no real way to make Indian food taste bland, and so from that day on, I've been hooked. I live over by Buford Highway, the mecca for ethnic eats in Atlanta, but most of the good Indian restaurants are in Decatur. Like Zyka: The Taste.

The dinner scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was filmed in Zyka's banquet hall.

Zyka: The Taste

You have probably driven by Zyka a couple of times -maybe hundreds of times if you live in Decatur- and not realized that it was a separate entity from the Montessori school built overtop of it. It's a brick building, fairly-nondescript and combines the architectural elements of a funeral home and a convent. I usually don't try to dine out in funeral homes, but sometimes I like to get weird and when J and I pulled into the lot, it felt real weird. There was not a soul around and the air was thick and deadened from the Summer heat. A covered sidewalk with a large sign (see above) beckons you down into the cardamom-scented crypt but the serenity of the location ends when you open the glass door into the restaurant's dining room. I saw about fifty tables of different sizes scattered around the large, hotel lobby-esque space, each full with families of all kinds. Kids ran under tables giggling as the adults ripped apart freshly baked naan and dipped it into the styrofoam bowls filled with something delicious.

It was like stepping into a Chuck E. Cheese minus the game room and the creepy robot show. It had been a while since I've been to a restaurant packed out with children. It gave Zyka a welcoming, youthful energy and made me feel as if I had just stepped into someone's multicultural family reunion. 

Again, Zyka picks up on the trend of no hostess stand/order at the counter. J browsed the menu while we waited in line while I stood and stared through the window behind the counter into the kitchen. The smells coming from the window and the frantic chatter of the chefs made me realize that anything we chose off the menu was going to be amazing. J asked if I wanted to try a few dishes. I was entranced, but I do remember we picked the Chicken 65 and Beef Nehari and two vegetarian dishes: the veggie samosa and Paneer Makhni with a side of naan. With drinks, the total bill came to less than $30.

We gave the counter our name, filled our drinks at the beverage station and found a table. Moments after sitting down, a couple of kids decided our table made the best hide and seek venue, complete with Stranger Legs. This was me from two until a few months ago, so I didn't mind. The children's father tracked them down, boomed at them in Hindi and nodded at the two of us as the rug rats skittered back to their table.

Our names were called ten minutes after we ordered and we grabbed our fully-loaded cafeteria trays and made our way back to our table. At one point the paper bowl containing the naan slid precariously to the edge of my tray and almost teetered off onto a man's back but I maintained and got my balance. The spices were making my eyes water.

Ahh! Snake Surprise!

Zyka's food is glorious and rich. Each dish has at least four complementing flavors and the fresh cut peppers help cleanse your palate between bites. Or maybe it was the water after the peppers. Dipping the soft naan into each dish's sauce gets the slightest taste of the dish and is the best way to mop up the delicious sauces left over when you find yourself out of mains.

I ate everything and felt myself slipping into a food coma brought on by the ever-loving arms of Ganesh.

....::::::Zyyyyyyka:::::....

Zyka serves its Indian and Pakistani cuisine cafeteria style to a C. It comes out on cafeteria trays and each dish is loaded into paper and styrofoam dinnerware. Plastic cutlery rounds it all out. If you're a person that can't handle a low-key but delicious meal, I don't want you reading my blog.

Everyone else, go to Zyka.