Palace at the Ben - Indian @ 834 Chestnut Street

Palace at the Ben is a new Indian Restaurant in Center City on Chestnut Street between 8th and 9th st. I came to know of this restaurant from my colleague who in turn learned about it from her husband. I had been looking for an opportunity to try this restaurant ever since she mentioned that to me.

I am highly critical of Indian restaurant as I find them not to be authentic. I have tried several Indian restaurants in and outside Philadelphia and very few have matched my expectations. The problem I have with Indian restaurants is twofold.

First is the lack of authentic taste. The taste is bland with preference for milder spices to cater to larger audience. The problem I have is that it takes away the authentic Indian cuisine dining experience. The food appears to me like fast food; they mostly have a set of sauces and add the requested pre-cooked meat (chicken, lamb or beef) chunks to them based on the order. This causes the meat to be bland and you are left to enjoy the sauce and meat separately. Cooking the meat in the spices is what makes Indian curries and entrees unique. Indian restaurants rarely meet those standards.

Secondly the cost of the items is outrageous. A typical dinner at an Indian restaurant for 2 would easily cost $40 and this not including tips and drinks which is very very high to me. The so called Indian food take out joints are not any inexpensive either. A buffet could be anyway from $8-13 per head, but I hate buffets at Indian restaurants. The quality of food at the buffets is very poor.

Having said that, my experience at the restaurant in discussion was not that disappointing. We had to stay little longer at work last week. Our Team Lead had the company card and left it to us to decide on the food. He mentioned on previous occasions that he had never tried Indian food and would love to. I used this occasion to try this restaurant.

I visited their website and called them to find out if they deliver. To my surprise I found the answer in the negative but the guy on the phone suggested a third party site diningin could be used to make the orders and have it delivered. So I visited the site and found the menu for their restaurant was more elaborate at the diningin site than at their home page and also the cost of the same items was lower at diningin. I am not complaining and nor will I report it to the restaurant to fix this. The site charged about $5.14 as fees for the service (taking the order and delivering food).

We ordered Chicken Haryali, Butter Chicken and Palak Paneer as the entrees for the three of us. We also ordered Onion Kulcha, Aloo Paratha, Garlic Naan and Plain Naan to go along with the curry entrees we ordered. Every curry entree comes with basmati white rice. The paid about $70 for the food and this includes the $5.14 for the delivery service and does not include the tip.

Chicken Haryali was supposed to be a spicy chicken curry in green chilis, coriander. I found it not to be spicy. The curry base was white and appeared to have been made with yogurt. The Butter Chicken is a staple at most Indian restaurants and I found it to be alright. The quality of the chicken could have been better. The Palak Paneer is Indian Milk Cheese cubes cooked in ground Spinach with mild spices in them.

The food was good partly because I was hungry and partly because of the low expectation I had of this restaurant in lieu of my previous disappointments. I liked Palak Paneer the most among the three. The rice that came with entrees was fine. One can hardly go wrong with cooking Basmati rice. The Naan was average at best and nowhere close to the best Naans I had before. I liked the Garlic Naan better than the rest.

Overall I was not disappointed by this experience. Would I go back to it? Yes, I want to try their Biryani. And if I ever go again, I would go for a sit in instead of having the food delivered. Naans are best enjoyed when they are fresh out of the oven, hot and a little crispy. Having them delivered in an aluminum foil makes them moist which in turn makes them soft. This could have clouded my judgment and hence would give them a benefit of doubt by trying them again.