Ask five people where to find the best Indian food in Calgary and you'll get five different restaurants, each named with total certainty. Some of that is taste. A lot of it is a handful of beliefs about Indian food that sound right and aren't. They shape what people order, where they eat, and which places they write off before ever trying them.

Gate of India is a family-owned Indian restaurant in Calgary's Country Hills area, and we think the quickest way to choose well is to know what's actually true. So here are nine common myths, sorted: heat, naan, biryani, buffets, star ratings, and more. By the end you'll have a few simple checks for judging any Indian restaurant in Calgary, ours included.

1. Hotter means better. Plenty of people order "extra hot" to prove they know what they're doing. Heat is a choice the kitchen makes, not a quality score. Dal makhani is the proof: barely any chili in it, and it still tastes like it took all afternoon. If a dish only works at maximum heat, something else is missing.

2. Curry is one flavor, so there's one best curry. There's nothing to rank. Butter chicken and a goat curry barely have anything in common beyond the label. Different spice blends, different cook times. Arguing over the best curry is like arguing over the best soup.

3. Naan is on the table at every Indian dinner. Not at home, mostly. Home meals lean on roti or rice, because naan needs a tandoor and most home kitchens in India don't have one. In a restaurant it's a great bread. Just not what most families reach for on a Tuesday.

4. Biryani? Isn't that just fried rice with meat? You've probably had a bad one, rice with chicken dropped on top, and assumed that's what it is. A proper one gets layered and cooked slow, rice and meat together, so the flavour has time to go all the way through. Nothing gets stirred in at the end.

5. Surely the vegetarian dishes are the boring ones? Backwards. Vegetarian cooking runs deep in India, and a lot of the best dishes on any menu happen to be meat-free. Vegan and gluten-friendly dishes are on our menu too, so a mixed table doesn't mean anybody settles.

6. Tikka masala has to be centuries old, right? It's widely credited to British-Indian kitchens instead, though people still argue about where exactly. That doesn't make it bad. It's popular for good reason. It just isn't the ancient recipe most people picture.

7. Every Indian restaurant serves the same food. Not close. Cooking in Punjab and cooking in Bengal barely resemble each other, and neither looks like what's done in the south. A kitchen built around one region tastes nothing like one covering several. It's also why "the best Indian food in Calgary" has more than one right answer. Two people can pick different places and both be correct, because they're after different cooking.

8. The highest star rating has the best food. Review sites regularly show a perfect 5.0 built on three reviews. A 4.6 built on nearly 1,700, which is Gate of India's Google rating, says far more: a lot of different people, on a lot of different days, mostly left happy. Read the review count before the score.

9. A buffet can't be the best. Depends how it's run. A tray that's sat under a heat lamp since 11 deserves the complaint. A buffet that gets refilled through service is another thing entirely, and it's the quickest way to taste more of a kitchen's range than one dinner order covers. Ours runs daily, 11 AM to 3 PM.

How do you actually judge the best Indian food in Calgary?

Three checks. Look at the review count, not just the score. Ask what just came out of the kitchen. And order one dish you wouldn't normally pick, because a kitchen that's good at the unfamiliar stuff is usually good at everything else.

Who this isn't for

If you already know you want a specialist, say dosa and idli, a South Indian kitchen will beat any wide menu, ours included. Calgary has several. A broad menu pays off when you're curious about the range and does very little when you aren't.

Test the myths yourself

Reading about Indian food only clears up so much. The rest is easier with a fork. Call (403) 764-4283 or stop by 500 Country Hills Blvd NE, Unit #311, and find out which of these nine you were still carrying.