Another average Indian joint
Posted on 09 / 21 / 2011The first thing to note here is that the address on HC is wrong and will lead you to the non-veg branch. The veg branch is half a block down the same street at number 25.
Whilst this place wasn't terrible, we weren't huge fans either. Why an Indian restaurant would feel compelled to use mock meats in their cooking, I have no idea. We ordered a dosa, a thali, a spinach curry, a vege curry and some random mock fish dish that they tricked us into buying (we thought it was a part of the thali).
The dosa was quite soggy and the sauces/chutneys had very little flavour. The thali was average too, nothing special or memorable there. The veges in the vege curry were all deep fried - eek! didn't touch that one. The spinach curry was pretty regular and the mock fish curry looked like a fish and when poked didn't move - in fact i tried cutting it with my spoon and it was very hard. My partner decided to keep away.. I tasted the curry-like sauce and it was ok, but not being able to identify what the fish thing was I decided to steer clear too (it looked like a whole dead fish, so not a real turn on).
The next day we both had reason to believe that the ingredients here were either not entirely fresh or that hygiene standards were slightly below par.
We have since realised that in Penang, the non-veg indian places seem to be preferable in terms of quality, so while we prefer to stick with the veg joints, we are making some exceptions here. Try Passions of Kerala in the New World Mall for banana leaf cuisine, or even Sri Ananda Bahwan in Tanjung Bungah (across from the Paradise Sandy Beach Hotel) - no idea if this is the same ownership as the one being reviewed presently but the food and ambience were much better there.
Pros: pure veg, cheapCons: mock meat, questionable freshness/hygiene, not all that tasty