February 25, 2011

Taj Palace

So after passing this Indian restaurant numerous of times and having the scent of curry go up our noses every time, we finally got around to going! So let's get to the food...
(side note: the pictures didn't come out so great due to the very dim lighting in the restaurant)

DISH Garlic Naan; leavened bread lightly sprinkled with fresh garlic - $2.95
DANKNESS FACTOR 8/10
COMMENTS
     So cheap and such a good appetizer. Tasted like garlic bread but much better because of the different type of bread they used. It was seasoned perfectly, it was nice and warm, and its spices were just great. I loved the texture; it was light and thin but packed with so much flavor. It was like lightly oiled, garlic-ed up, spiced up pita bread. 
     They had a really nice doughy texture that added to the nice oily garlicness of the bread. It came with 4 pieces so we had 2 pieces each and didn't have to fuss over the last piece like usual. I thought it was a good appetizer.

DISH Lamb curry; lamb cooked in a mildly spiced gravy - $9.95
DANKNESS FACTOR 7.5/10
COMMENTS
     The curry was delicious, as expected. We had a hard time choosing between the chicken and lamb curry, but I personally wanted to try to lamb because I don't have it often and it's different. The curry was tasty, with many spices infused in it; it wasn't so spicy which I liked. I wasn't the biggest fan of the slight cilantro taste, but it was very minimal so it didn't bother me much. The lamb was very tender and cooked pretty much to perfection; I wished they added more pieces of lamb though.
     The lamb was nice and tender, but the curry wasn't very spicy at all and was more sweet than anything. I wasn't really sure how to eat it because it is very soup like and they gave us plates to eat it. I haven't had lamb in a really long time so that was a nice change. A little skimpy on the portion, but it was a good.

DISH Chicken Biriyani; basmatic rice cooked with chicken - $10.95
DANKNESS FACTOR 8/10
COMMENTS
     I really appreciated the portion that they gave us. We ended up dominating it all, but still wished for more. The rice had a mild curry taste to it, and it was just packed with flavor. The chicken pieces tasted and felt like they were slow cooked for hours; it was cooked so tenderly and each bite was just a burst of curry, Indian flavor. 
     This dish is right up my alley; rice and chicken. The chicken was cooked perfectly and was probably cooked for several hours to get the juicyness of it. Very easy to eat and I wish I was able to eat this plate to myself, but I guess i'll just do that next time. 

DISH rice pudding - $no idea
DANKNESS FACTOR 5.5/10
COMMENTS
     So we asked our server what their desserts were, and she replied in a very quiet, hard to understand voice with rice pudding and cheeseballs. We decided to keep it safe and go with rice pudding, though I kind of wished we tried the cheeseballs now. The rice pudding, which I thought would be like tapioca, had a subtle taste to it. Actually, it really had very minimal taste at all. I mean, it was sweet and sugary and all, but just didn't have a strong pudding taste which I was looking for. 
     I asked the lady what desserts they had, and when she was naming them off, I couldn't really understand her because of her accent, but I was able to pick up rice pudding so I ordered it. It was more of a traditional rice pudding I guess because it wasn't very sweet and had a strange underlying flavor that I couldn't put my finger on. But overall I think I would have preferred to end my meal without this. It left a bad taste in my mouth and kind of upset my stomach. Would not order again. 

     So our waitress comes back with our check and brought this with it, to which Brian asked, "What's this?!" She told us, once again in a very soft tone, that it was candy; it must be some sort of Indian candy. Brian went to try it, but I wasn't really feeling it. He said it was hard and crunchy and that it was just basically sugar. Ehh, not for me.
     So this came with the check after we started to eat the rice pudding. So I asked the lady what it was and she mumbled something and all i could pick up was candy. By no means was this candy. It felt like I was going to chip a tooth and it left a gross taste in your mouth afterward...so I didn't eat too many. If you know what this is, please let us know. A very odd way to end a meal.

As you can imagine, if we smelled the curry from outside the restaurant, then it must have been extremely potent inside. So when we walked out of the restaurant, we reaked of curry, which I guess is slightly good and bad.

Taj Palace
795 E Foothill Blvd.
San Luis Obispo, CA 93410
6.5/10

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