Malgudi Garden

Reviews 4

RO

Roger X

Ive tried nearly all Indian restaurants in and around Dallas and Plano, and this is the first Indian restaurant, period, that offered unique dishes with a superb taste profile.This restaurant is purely vegetarian with a number of vegan dishes. You can see in majority of my historical reviews of other restaurants that Im a tough critic. Im an American of Indian descent, so Im well aware of the general American and Indian taste. For Desis that are absolutely looking for a typical Indian menu and lower-end pricing, this place may not meet that criteria. The prices are above average, but the unique concepts and flavorful recipes make for a wonderful experience that is worth it in my opinion. I took my family around 5:30pm on a Sunday, so it was not overly crowded. Service was friendly and helpful. Specifically, Arjun was our waiter, and he was patient and professional in explaining the selections. The ambience was in between upscale and family - nice and comfortable. They provided us with complementary garlic naan triangles to start. I ordered Dal Shorba (lentil soup), spinach/onion millet pakodas, and fried chilli paneer as appetizers. The portions were generous and the flavor profile of each of the dishes was excellent, especially the fried chilli paneer. These are dishes that I am sure will suit all backgrounds and cultures. For the main course, we ordered Paneer tikka masala, paneer spinach, cheese pizza (indian style), gunpowder dosa, rice, naan and chapattis. All were excellent. For kids, I would recommend requesting to remove the veggies in the Paneer tikka masala (just the sauce and paneer are tasty enough). I would recommend requesting not to add extra lentil powder on the gunpowder dosa. The gunpowder by itself was tasty enough. The spinach dish was perfect as is with excellent spice level. Rice was very soft. All chutneys provided with appetizers and main dishes were excellent. I would recommend to request the pizza to be cooked thoroughly as ours was a bit doughy on the top, but still tasted great. Just so you know that Im not in anyway biased in my review, I will openly state that the desserts did not suit my taste, and Im not sure it would suit general Americans taste either. Most of the desserts we tried were traditional South Indian desserts that I was not familiar with. I hope they consider adding the organic cheesecake and possibly some light halwa without any syrup, or other light and flaky desserts that are not deep fried or too syrupy. Otherwise, the experience was unique and pleasurable to finally have a great tasting Indian restaurant.

CA

Carlos Martinez

Malgudi Garden This review is for their buffet spread on a Thursday night. The place was packed to the gills due to graduation parties. They stopped serving Ala-carte due to the crowd which was a bummer for some of our party who are not avid buffet fans. Buffet was all vegetarian, $14 and had a nice variety. They had 2 fried appetizers (cutlets were nice), 3 vegetable entrees (1 paneer, 2 cauliflower), 2 rice preparations (Pulav and plain) and 2 desserts (gulab jamun was awesome). They also had dal makhni which was great. It was good to see so many vegetarian options for a change. They also had sides like salad, soup, papad, onions, and mango lassi all of which were average. The entrees tasted really well. Mango Lassi served in Indian places like these is really an abomination of the recipe; full of artificial flavor and yogurt - lassi is not just watered yogurt, its a light frothy drink made by shaking yogurt with water and flavored with real fruit. Instead its a heavy smoothie that is served. Anyways... the highlight of the buffet was the live roomali station and Gulab Jamun for me. Roomali was nice, fresh and fluffy and served quickly. Masala chai included in the buffet was a very nice touch. There was no live dosa station or any unique entrees like bhindi or any original recipes like Avial or Undhiyo. Ambiance was average, didnt scream Indian, looks like they picked up another restaurant and left it as -is. Typical Indian places have a combination of real plates and paper plates/ styrofoam cups - I dont know why they do that. Overall, enjoyed the meal - but just like any other buffet - was quantity over quality.

DE

Del K

Nice place with good ambience. This is a speciality south indian restaurant that has some uncommon south flavors along with popular ones in the menu which is exciting. I was warned by someone their quality is inconsistent and never to order northern indian food because they dont taste good. I took a chance and ordered tomato soup and they brought me spicy hot Rasam with chunks of tomatoes, curry leaves, and sputtered with mustard seeds and called it tomato soup. No bread or papad to go with it. I went there during non-peak hours. The customer service was super slow. We had to call the waiter several times for water, napkin, plates and cutleries because no one noticed it was missing or not served. For some reason most south indian restaurants I have been to assume kids dont need plates, not all little kids at the table anyway. What do they eat on otherwise? Ordered masala dosa which was very good. Cauliflower fritters were good as well. Some other dishes we ordered had to be cancelled because they could not make it at that time so we left. This place has great potential. They will have brush up on waiter responses from the time they seat a customer, staff must make sure beforehand what items cannot be made at that time of the day, and for god sake it doesnt cost much to give some papad with chutney for snack while the customer waits and fill those damn water glasses on time or leave a jug of water on the table. If they work on consistent quality and good customer service this place has great potential. I hope one day I can go back and see the improvements so that I can give them 5 star.

SE

seanarpu

I came to this place on a Saturday night. I am yet to pay the bill and am writing the review already..now this kinda spontaneity can be sparked by extreme performances. Good or bad. sadly this was bad... I called earlier to book a table for 6, still had to wait 20 minutes to get seated. Now, the manager said I am waiting for a six seater to empty sir...so I was OK with it. But he didnt give me a six seater!! He have me a 4 seater...so we had to sit separate...talk about a bad start.. Then the food, its grossly overpriced. I ordered kashmir aloo dum and naan. There were two pieces of potatoes, and those babies were not babies at all. All they had was a bland white gravy..no pinapples, nothing. Cost? 15$. My roommates had mini tiffin which had pongal, vadai, idli and a mini dosai. The idli was rock hard, and when my friend asked the waiter for sambar, it took two waiters and 5 minutes for them to arrive. Then we ordered a coffee and a tea 5$ and 4$ respectively. So, we expected really fragrant and good stuff, but sadly they were just ordinary. Now, I expected a concept vegan restaurant, but well other than the name, there was nothing innovative about it. Why is it that we forget all professionalism? If you are charging me 15$ for a Alu dum, I expect good food, quality service or at least either of the two...when my friend asked, this is not a six seater, he just said, for that u have to wait another hour...you could have just told us, we cannot give u a table for 6 before 10 pm, and I would not have bothered to go down there at all.