BY BETH KAISERMAN

Bhatti Indian Grill
100 Lexington Ave. at 27^th St.
Murray Hill
212-683-4228/bhattinyc.com

Image from bhattinyc.com

On a freezing Friday night, nothing seemed more tempting than a spicy dish of Indian delights.

Unfortunately, the food didn’t stay hot for long at Bhatti in Curry Hill. Maybe I should’ve stopped chattering as soon as the food arrived, because the food turned cold within just a couple minutes.

I arrived around 5 p.m. to an empty, but warm, restaurant. The hostess/server was on the phone when I walked in, and looked like I caught her in the middle of undressing. I told her not to worry about me since I was waiting for someone. Thus, I didn’t receive a menu or water until my friend arrived 20 minutes later. I also didn’t know up until that point that the restaurant is BYOB; I definitely could have run and picked up a bottle of wine in that time if the staff had come over to me in the beginning.

Also, the menu situation was awkward. My friend thought she was missing a page, so she asked for a new one. The waitress promptly brought her a new one, then brashly pointed out that the page was there all along. The customer is always right, and it was unnecessary to prove my friend wrong.

By the time we got into our first dish, a few other parties had been seated. The service remained uncoordinated; that same girl was our server, but someone else (I’m guessing a manager) came over periodically to check on us. I should’ve asked one of them to turn the heat back on.

Maybe I was just hungry, but the first thing on the menu was Tandoori Chaat, and it sounded amazing: grilled diced apple, pineapple, bell peppers and sweet potato tossed in balsamic vinegar and spices. It turned out as basically a plate of spiced apples, like a dryer version of the Stouffers apple side dish I loved as a kid. The dish not nearly as flavorful as the description depicted.

For my main course, I wanted to choose something I hadn’t had before. I went for the Bharwaan Bhindi, a stuffed okra dish. My friend went for the Paneer Tikka Masala. Again, both were too cold to really enjoy, but would have been awesome hot.

A strange service crew and cold food made for a less than ideal experience. I could see it being better if they took care of the heat situation, which is seriously important during these chilly winter nights.