As a newbie in Indian cuisine, but absolutely delighted with it lately, i decided to test the next restaurant that Vienna has to offer. Even quite a well rated one! And for the first time so far i was deeply disappointed! My review is probably highly dependent on my personal taste, as the quality of things is not as bad there as i might sound now... But if anyone has got similar expectations, it might be helpful to read on. First of all, if i order a mixed platter, then i've got used to getting separate little portions of different heavenly curries on it, making it a divine experience for the taste buds as you take a bite of this or that one in turns. Here, you receive one big plate of half rice, half various goulash-looking meat in the goulash-looking sauce on it. If they wanted to appeal to the local taste, then i guess that is where all the good reviews come from! They refer to this "goulash" as a mix of curries. It is not a mix of curries but a mix of meats in one curry. The most curry thing about it is that it is incredibly hot. That might be authentic but unfortunately the wrong thing to choose to keep most authentic. There was no possible way to taste anything else of the usual rich spices, but chilli. I gave up after a few bites. And I even asked for some vegetables in advance, so that the meat is not too dominant... Obviously i meant a vegetable curry... I received a few pieces of deep fried melanzani on top of my "goulash". So i guess they can't be bothered to cook all the different recipes of curries or anything like a simple paneer palak or alu gobi or just some dal really, to achieve variety. Btw this was the officially less spicy platter. The menu is almost impossible to read (the font!), and i have learned that if a restaurant has a menu with two zillion dishes always differing in one or half a word only from each other, then that is obviously also what they will serve. After taking the mixed platter and hoping that i would taste variety, i can only imagine that they cook a few sorts of meat in one big pot, and fish the right pieces of meat out, depending on what someone orders. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but the price was kind of harsh too, for the effort above described.
In the end, i will try to make it sound better though by saying that: the service was pleasant, the interior is really ok even quite romantic and not kitschy, the rice was prepared with care and had some saffron and other things in it if that's what you want (raisins i can do without though). However, I always wonder how come that almost any Indian restaurant with decent seating possibility immediately happens to be rather expensive as a rule. But then again, maybe this one is just not up to my taste. read more