• 5
• Excellent vegan-friendly veggie restaurant

Possibly the best Indian restaurant I've ever eaten in. Very good service, pleasant ambience (outdoor, semi-outdoor and indoor seating), and a decent beer and wine selection, but the prime attraction is the food. My bagara baigan (slow-cooked eggplant in sesame-peanut-tamarind sauce) and my spouse's sabji Manchurian (cabbage-cauliflower-carrot fritters in hot cilantro-garlic sauce) were superb. With a side of tawa paratha (multi-layered whole wheat flat bread), we were too stuffed, but pleasantly so, to sample the unusual and intriguing dessert items. The waiter seemed almost shocked to hear my request that nothing I order have butter in it. In my experience only one kind of bread in Indian restaurants is usually butter-free, namely roti, but here it appears that 8 of their 10 bread listings are dairy-free. We stopped here because it was near the halfway point of a 400-mile, 8-hour drive, as always using HappyCow as our information source. It's not right on Broadway -- look for the sign down a quiet little pedestrian walkway next to the bookstore. It's quick and easy to get to from I-95 in a nice part of New Haven between the university and downtown. Sad for all the travelers who don't think beyond fast food for sustenance when on a long trip. Thali Too was the ideal respite and restorative.