Panahar

Last night, we went to Panahar (www.panahar.com) which advertises itself as a Bangledeshi and Indian restaurant on Buford Highway with A+G for dinner. They were serving a special Thanksgiving menu (A receives the emails) which was set menu, fixed price, to get a selection of dishes, along with complimentary beer and champagne.

Josh and I only ever go to Panahar with A and it's always when they are doing a special menu. Yesterday, it was packed. The restaurant was full when we got there and we waited briefly as they set up a table for us despite the fact that we had reservations. Each time I looked up, there was a crowd waiting by the door.

Dinner was really delicious.

We started off with some spinach pakora, enough for two each. They were perfectly seasoned with maybe a hint of curry, crispity crunchy on the outside, hot and yum on the inside. They came with two sauces - mint and tamarind. Both were good, but the tamarind was better.

Next came a basmati rice soup which we squeezed some lime into. It was much lighter than I expected and the lime added a nice brightness to the flavor.

Moving on to mains, the owner came over to say hi to A (he goes there all the time) and to ask about a preference for the menu. With turkey as the anchor of the meal (this being Thanksgiving and all), he wanted to know that of chicken, shrimp, and lamb, which we would want to remove. Well, honestly, I would have preferred to skip the turkey! But A mentioned he is a vegetarian (and Josh and I do tend towards vegetarian foods at most Indian places) and so the owner decided to tailor the menu more towards vegetables, which was fine by us.

So came out some onion naan (a massive lot of it) and a plate of vegetable biryani. Tasty. The main dishes that came out were:

Lamb curry: Pieces of lamb in a brown sauce. This was good and I enjoyed it when I ate it, but in reflection, it didn't stand out too much. The pieces of lamb were a little toothsome (ha, it's funny to use that word!) and I did get a couple bits of gristle in my lamb.

Turkey tikki masala: Well really, this tasted like chicken. It was tender and the tikki masala was good.

Daal: I wish I could tell you more about this dish, but it was served with chunks of some squash which was very nice.

Broccoli paneer: It might be one of the best things ever. Put broccoli in a creamy sauce and add cheese. Personally, I wanted to describe this as a tasty broccoli cheese soup, but thought my eating companions might get mad. Very good.

The complimentary beer was Kingfisher. It did continue to renew itself. G got champagne and that was much harder to refill, despite a couple requests. She mentioned it was tasty. The second (and last) glass that arrived was so cold that it had icy champagne on top.

Dessert was a coconut cake whose extreme sweetness was balanced by a generous amount of coconut in the cake. G described it as "the middle of a mounds bar".

A delicious meal and good company. This must have been the best meal we have had there, though I remember enjoying all of our meals there, because this one left me saying, we really should go there more often. Of course, it feels kind of far out there so it's easy to forget, but it's probably no further than we would drive to get to say, the westside.

We'll be back.