Disclaimer: The restaurant asked me to come and try their food, so everything was complimentary, but I did tip.
Palki Indian Restaurant’s manager asked me to come in to try out their food. Normally, I don’t get this kind of direct email from the restaurants, it’s usually through various PR companies representing them, but this one caught my attention more simply because of one reason.
It was Indian food.
When was the last time you’ve ever seen me post about Indian food? I think I only have one post, and it was about Vij’s. It’s not to say that I don’t like Indian food, I just don’t know much about it and therefore am not too comfortable with it. However, I took this opportunity to catch up with Kelsi and also have some (hopefully) good food!
Palki Indian Restaurant on Commercial Drive actually occupies what used to be Lime Japanese Restaurant. Darn, that was on my wishlist. The black brick exterior is pretty bland and isn’t very welcoming, but they have plans to do some renovations for this 2012 year. This is Palki’s 2nd location, the original location in North Vancouver was opened 12 years ago by Bhupinder Mroke.
Walking in, the interior is not what I was expecting at all. Nice modern look with black walls and purple accents, it was very spacious inside, enough room for a nice corner mural and water fountain display.
Oh wait, you think that’s it? There’s a second floor with a cozy corner booth, lazy couch style seating and a full bar. Talk about fancy fance!
We were basically given free rein of the menu, so James ordered a Mango Lassi ($3).
While I ordered a Sweet Lassi ($3) [made with mint leaves] in anticipation of the heat that would soon hit my taste buds.
Kelsi and I both wanted pakoras, but I also wanted some samosa’s. Not wanting a full on order of each, we just got the Palki’s Mixed Platter ($11), which came with Vegetable Samosa, Chicken Pakora and Vegetable Pakora. It comes with two dipping sauces, Cilantro Mint and Sweet Tamarind.
The dough/pastry of the samosa actually looks really different than the ones I’ve made and bought before. Kelsi thought so too, and we just chalked it up to the fact that everyone makes it slightly different anyways. See how the skin cracks in the one on the left? The vegetable pakoras were really clumpy and doughy, but the chicken pakora’s were excellent IMO.
The impromptu chowdown at
Pizzeria Barbarella occurred before this, and so since I wasn’t about to turn down pizza, I bumped the time for Palki down a bit and brought James along. We ordered three mains, which normally I think would not have been enough, but since we had already had numerous slices of pizza.. this seemed to be a fair amount.
On the recommendation of Sharath, we had the Chicken Jalfrazie - Boneless chicken tossed with onions and green peppers in a sauce ($10.95). Some of the butter chicken sauce is used in this, but it is just used as a base as this became more like a curry with strong flavours of ginger.
The 2nd main we ordered was Saag Paneer - Pureed spinach and paneer cooked with freshly ground spices $10.95. While Kelsi is used to a more chunky puree with bits of spinach and cauliflower, this was almost more of a thick soup like consistency. Again, home style versus restaurant may be different?
I wanted another vegetable dish, and Sharath suggest the Tandoori Vegetable’s - Assorted vegetables marinated with authentic Indian spices and grilled in the Tandoor $15.95. This was interesting! At first glance the orange stuff looks like cheese, and it actually did taste like cheese, but it was yogurt with tumeric. When baked, of course the yogurt would take on a taste/texture similar to that of cheese. This I really liked, along with the Jalfrazie.
We were given some Regular Naan and this Onion and Cilantro Naan - Indian style onion and cilantro $3.00.
Overall, it was quite a good meal, from what little knowledge I have of Indian cuisine, and not just because the meal was complimentary. My only complaint was we didn’t have enough space in our stomachs to eat more.. but that’s what repeat visits are for, and I will do just that!
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