Heritage India - Georgetown, DC

After dining at the Heritage India in Dupont Circle, I decided to give their other location a try. The host, Andrea Adleman, got in touch with me after my first review and told me there were more vegan options at their Georgetown restaurant.  How could that be?  There were plenty of vegan entrees at the Dupont Circle location so I was excited to see what else they could offer.

The location was pretty far outside of downtown Georgetown -- it was actually really in Glover Park. I guess they call it the Georgetown location because (a) it is close enough to Georgetown and (b) Georgetown sounds cooler than Glover Park.  It was a bit hard to find because we didn't see the Heritage India sign from the road -- we just saw the Heritage Asia sign. Little did we know, the restaurants are right next to each other.  The signs directed us into Heritage Asia and when we indicated that we came for Indian fare, they told us that they serve food for both restaurants in Heritage Asia during the day. The Heritage India dining space is only open in the evenings. As long as we could still get our Indian food, we didn't care where we sat so that was fine with us.

The restaurant was empty on this cold Saturday afternoon. The menu looked completely different than their other location's. They appeared to have many vegan options, but they did not show some of the ones Andrea had mentioned like the vegetable jahlfrezi and vegetable vindaloo. When I inquired about these dishes, the waitress said she wasn't sure they offered them. She checked with the manager and came back and said they do offer those, but they aren't on the menu.

I decided to start with a mango juice while Zach continued to peruse the menu. The restaurant's decor was much more traditional than that of the one in Dupont. It was a much more casual feel from the furniture and tapestries on the wall to the casual dress of the servers. But, remember, we weren't actually in Heritage India -- we were in Heritage Asia's dining room.

We placed an order for the Aloo Tikki appetizer. It took them an extraordinary amount of time to prepare this appetizer so we were pretty hungry by the time it arrived. When it did, it appeared to have yogurt sauce on it. I asked the waitress if it was vegan and she said it was. When I asked if the sauce was yogurt, she confirmed that it was and asked if I didn't eat yogurt. I was getting scared. Once I clarified my dietary preferences, they apologized and made us a new one. And once we were able to try it, we found it to be incredibly good. The dish consisted of spicy mashed potato cakes that were formed into the shape of pears! They were really cool! They were served with spicy chickpeas that had tomato, onion, and cilantro on top. We loved this dish.

Aloo Tikki

For our entrees, we ordered the Vegetable Vindaloo and the Aloo Gobi Masala. The Vegetable Vindaloo consisted of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, peas, and potatoes in a spicy tomato curry with jalapenos and cilantro on top. This curry was incredibly flavorful and great with the basmati rice.

Vegetable Vindaloo

We had also ordered Naan, which was pretty good.

The Aloo Gobi Masala was a dish of potatoes and cauliflower cooked with tomatoes and spices -- it had a really unique taste. The flavors were amazing!

Aloo Gobi Masala

So while there was a long wait for the food, it was definitely worth the wait. The service, however, leaves much to be desired -- not only did the waitress not understand what vegan meant, she also didn't check on us much. We ended up spending nearly two hours there for lunch as we sat and waited for her to check on us. The dishes were reasonably priced at about $10 - $13 each while the appetizer was only $5. The location is in a weird area where there aren't many other good restaurants, but I'd definitely come back. This is a great place to go for more-traditional Indian food in a casual setting.

Heritage India
2400 Wisconsin Avenue
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-3120