Cambridge Foodies

With the urge for curry in my stomach and a yearning that made me completely ignore the bloated old guy that came to his door while me and Nemo were talking and waiting for Sy we descended on the Panahar restaurant.

It being a Sunday the restaurant was empty aside from us 4 which gave me extra time to take in the surroundings and look at the decorations the owners had decided to put up. It was a fairly modern looking restaurant with not a lot of extras aside from a couple of paintings on the wall. These paintings looked like they had a more oriental feel to them and made the place feel more like a Chinese restaurant than an Indian one. In fact aside from the name and the Indian staff there wasn’t much in this place that gave it a feeling of an Indian restaurant. The music was a nice touch but it wasn’t quite enough to save it. The first impression that i had, and i’m sure you are having, is that the food was going to be less than impressive. I (Like France’s impression that they actually matter) was thankfully wrong. My option for this trip was a Vegetable Kashmiri with Mushroom rice and Peshwari Naan. Now with the last restaurant i reviewed the dishes were a lot less spicy than advertised and the portions were rubbish, with panahar however i was pleasantly surprised. When the waiters brought out our food i was first impressed by the portions we received, the rice was piled high on the platters and the curry and naan bread were fairly large portions as well. The Kashmiri itself was very close to the heat that was advertised, though less than expected for a fairly hot curry dish. The sauce was very well made and the content of vegetables and basic ingredients complemented the curry excellently. The rice was also of note as instead of the expected mushroom pieces there were whole mushrooms that were fried in with the rice which was a nice extra to the curry. The Naan was also quite good with a nice thickness and taste to it. Now i have dealt with the food i feel it is time to give mention of the staff. Unlike the previous restaurant they were more professional and they got our order right first time without the need to endlessly repeat it. And my personal favourite thing was that the owner/manager didn’t spend his time touching me! Its always nice to have a meal without being molested by the waiting staff… To finish off i think i should give a mention to the after dinner mint which was an actual after 8 chocolate and not the cheaper brand, always a nice bonus. Overall then i would give this restaurant a rating of three and a half beards out of 5, better than the last one i reviewed but still lacking badly in certain areas, decor and to a certain extent the waiting staffs detatchment stopped this restaurant from scoring higher on the facial hair scale.

Hope you enjoyed this review..