Palki
Where:
56 Lilian Ngoyi Road, Windermere
Open:
Daily 11.30am-3pm, 6pm-10pm
Call:
031 329 1026
Palki, the Indian restaurant that has been such a part of the Berea scene for 22 years, moved to Morning-
side a few months ago. You’ll find them in a renovated old house
at the bottom of Windermere Road, just up from where Bean Bag Bohemia used to be.
The restaurant is painted a simple white with some attempt at decor - a tree with blossoms - painted on a couple of walls.
There’s a large long room at the back which would do well for a large function. It’s also very bright. But it’s neat and tidy and what it lacks in atmosphere it certainly makes up for in the kitchen. And the quality of the food has not changed.
When in Palki, it’s simply imperative to have the potato dosa (R76). It’s a massive, super-thin and crisp rice pancake that fills the whole table. Inside is an excellent potato curry and it’s served with a dish of masala and a coconut chutney.
My friend was impressed. He wanted them to bag it up and sell it instead of chips.
Palki’s menu is enormous and takes in the north and south of India. An entire page is devoted to vegetarian dishes and another to bread. So there’s little chance one could eat one’s way through it.
Seafood options include fish or prawn breyani, or Madras style. There’s masala fried fish and fish tikka masala, and prawn kadai. There’s two ways with crab - chilli (Singaporean) or chettinad (spicy, rich flavoured Tamil Nadu) style. There’s even a fish and prawn platter with two side items, dal makhani, butter naan, pulao rice and chips.
I really enjoyed the prawns butter masala (R150). The prawns were perfectly cooked and the portion generous, and the sauce, thick rich and although mild, tasty. It was basically cooking prawns in your more traditional butter chicken gravy. We quickly mopped it up with some good garlic naan bread.
Besides the conventional lamb options of rogan josh, vindaloo and madras, there’s lamb karama (chops), a kadai, a minced lamb curry and a dry fry. My friend settled for the lamb saagwala with spinach (R121) which was another tasty and generous portion. It was more than we could eat and he said it tasted even better the next day for lunch.
Chicken tikka here is always good, and I often order it as a starter snack, but there are also options with ginger, chilli or coconut gravy, besides the conventional butter or vindaloo. There’s even a Madras
egg masala which sounds interesting.
Vegetarians are well catered for with an extensive range of potato, veg, paneer, rice or noodle dishes. And there are a couple of interesting dal options too. I would like to try the mushroom and pea masala or the Hyderabad brinjal curry
Desserts include the likes of Bombay crush, sweet or salt lassi (yoghurt drink), sooji, kulfi ice cream, and gulab jamun (R34) which were sweet but delicious.
Food:
3 ½
Service:
3
Ambience:
2 ½