Palast der Winde - Indian restaurant

Sorry I thought one of the things that made the first one better than the second was the amount of lamb, oh and the sauce.

Would you care to elaborate on this?

yeah, you probably got all my meat, Kza

@Topsy
Did you end up going to CN?

No no, don't get me wrong. I'm sure it's a great nite and I get all that stuff, I'm just usually hungover for some reason on Wednesdays and when I see over 30 people have signed up I think, ah well, maybe next week. ;0)

I'm not saying it's too big for conversational purposes at all, just that excessively large groups put me off personally; for both food/service quality and being able to spend enough time chatting to the folk I really want to meet. It seems big enough lately to be able to happen twice a week and still have plenty of takers at each one. Meh, I'll make it to a night soon, regardless. I am hungry for an Indian.

*secretly still checks sign up list numbers*

@Rus
not last night, no - i was off sick
Kza and I are on about the first ever biryani night now, that was yonks ago - over a year ago

Arshoo's available.


Well my attitude is that for such an event, where you know that a decent number will show up, and a registration form is provided, if you can't be arsed to bother signing up then you don't deserve a seat. Sure there may well be space available and like last night, people who've signed up may not show but those will generally be the exceptions. The original post implied, "what about the poor people who just show up, will they go away hungry?". Pity about them.

Topsy, I seem to recall you saying the first biryani night was good?

I think Crawlie's idea of informing the restaurant at least a day before coupled with closing the reservation list a day before is not a bad one.
It has several advantages:
- The restaurant has the time to make sure they have enough staff, and if its a larger crowd than they are used to, they can make sure they have enough of everything.
- I would guess that closing the list at least one day prior to C night ( ), will also make the list somewhat shorter, cutting off all the "last minute" people (which will make the group a bit smaller, but that is not a disadvantage any more), and will make people plan a bit more regarding C nights.

Don't you agree?

That's my starters taken care of then.

Should we eat Arshoo?

@showem
it was great, cos it was the first ever big curry night that I went to, and I met lots of great TTers for the first time.
I seem to remember that was the first time I met Kza, actually, come to think of it...
But, yeah, the biryani itself was not the highlight of the evening for me.

@MB just nibble or a few bites I can handle, for more Marshbot will have to go for the main course .

its a load of bull what all have been going on about advance booking etc etc, any decent restraunt should be able to handle 40 covers!! the problem is ONLY if you want to order at once AND have all served together! but like yesterday we all ordered at different times, in fact where i sat 5 had already eaten before a majority of the people arrived.
so the rant on not being able to handle, warning them of 40 people coming BULL, the only reason we should book is to ensure all can seat. we just have to get used to ordering at different times and being served at different times, the rest should sort itself out.

weren't you the person who said about 3 pages ago that the poor restaurant normally only gets 10 people midweek, so no wonder they couldn't cope with 40?

i don't see why you can't warn the restaurant on the Monday that a big crowd will be turning up (say, around 30) and that you will give them definite numbers Wednesday at 5pm

yes i did topsy, but i never said it was a decent restraunt

BTW, if you google Palast der Winde you get this. So I've just added my comment to the review page, seems only fair to inform others.

I had ordered a vindaloo, one of the hottest indian dishes. But instead , it turned out to be very very sweet, even after telling him to make it really hot. I ended up eating the rice with a hot sauce, rather than Vindaloo. This just reflects on the quality of the cooks the place had. Also the rice was pretty ordinary too. Even if we had given them 2 days notice, nothing would have changed. The food still would have been as bad.

Staff, what staff, there was just one guy, and he was obviously untrained in these kind of situations.

So no then? Given that others have actually given this restaurant a pretty good review, wouldn't it be fair to the restaurant themselves and future patrons to mention something about how disappointed everyone was?

Exactly what most restaurants do on days they KNOW they will be rammed - EG valentines day, mothers day etc.

Must be a bloody nightmare for the chefs here though - English people have a peculiar expectation with curries. The famous chicken tikka masala aside, vindaloo, madras, onion bhaji - all expected to be on the menu, and probably completely unknown to 95% of indians.

I am totally with Topsy. There's nothing wrong in informing the restaurant on Monday about the approximate number of people they should expect. Some restaurants are fairly empty the entire week and informing them prior to our visit would just make them prepared.

no body said it was wrong to book in advance, but how many times have we decided Just in Time about the restaraunt. its what can be termed a "Nice to have" concept dunno if TT can follow it the year round and i still stand by what i said, any decent restraunt should be able to handle 40 covers a night, IF as i have said we DONT expect to order and receive the food all at once for everybody.

Arshoo, this is not India. Restaurants here don't expect so many people at a time!! I know its many a times when we decide just in time, but we need to be a little more organised. If we don't want them to give us stale food then we must inform them in advance.

I think that if a restaurant cannot make decent tasting food, they should not be open, simple as that. The reason was that at that restaurant, everydish was overly priced. I mean, go to Goa or Rama, for that matter, both places have similarly priced foods, but the curries there are rich in flavor and quality. I mean, the food here was worse even than the Shere Punjab Indian Restaurant on Munchener Freiheit. So, if a restaurant gets many customers, they should be equipped to serve them. If they have the tables, they should have the service, simple. Also, remember Deeba about 5 weeks ago I think. The food was excellent. It was made the way you asked. And for a small restaurant like that, they have 4 chefs who work on a very small table. Everything they use is fresh. Now that was a restaurant. (Someone last night told me about that).

There is nothing to be organised about. They are a restaurant, if they cannot get with the program, then, well, sorry. You dont ask a restaurant not to give stale food, you kinda expect that. At least that's what I thought.

@vishalarora

I do agree that Shere Punjab doesn't really count as a restaurant because of its interior but the food definitely is good.

No really, you got lucky, because Rahul and I were there and we both had a case of bad guts, if you know what I mean.

I told you about that. Deeba is great: owner is very nice, waiters are very nice (speak also a bit Italian), toilets are clean, tablecloth and cloth napkins are clean, flowers on tables are real and fresh, the FOOD is unforgettable!!!
(I am not getting money for this post, just my opinion )

Yeah, Deeba is fabulous, but they are ALWAYS full, you are very lucky if you can get an evening table in there any day of the week without a reservation.
But they are an exception, surely? Most restaurants will come off second best if you compare them with Deeba, IMHO.

Pity I missed Palast der Winde. I've got no resteraunts left to really hate, and refuse flat blank to go there.

Had lunch at the Surahi, and told them we were all very impressed with the service recently. Deeba is also really good.

I agree, Deeba is great. Never been to Surahi. Another restaurant to miss is Sangeet in Odeonsplatz. I was there a while ago with 6 friends. We all had drinks beforehand there, and then when the food came, they ripped us off. We had a Chicken Tikka Masala dish with two pieces of chicken and about 8 potato pieces. I mean, only the Chicken Vindaloo should have that in theory. THen, after all the food and some champagne later, the bill was overly inflated. We paid quietly and have never gone back. But if a small group goes for just the food, then it was ok.

What I wanted to say was...

...nope, sorry... gotta dash back to the toilet.

Sin get WLAN. You can be online and on-the-bog at the same time.

This is serious man. Johnny Cash wrote a song about my predicament. That fuckin' curry place was awful. Didn't you start to worry when you saw the state of the gents?

Sin I thought you used the ladies' last night

Sin always uses the Ladies. Apparently

No, I was in the ladies on account of the girls sayin, "You'll never believe the pic in the ladies!". I thought, 'I'm game' and strolled in to have a butcher's. I goes in with two girls who haven't seen it and ask them what do they see. They go on and on and on about the detail, the colours, the sky, the weird tree, but neither of them noticed what I noticed within 10 nanoseconds... that the chick had a dick.

i prefer takeaway

did anybody get a piccie of this chick with a dick, then?

Tops me old love. I may be perverted, but I'm not a bleedin' freak.

Ask roots, he likes chicks with dicks.

Palast der Winde is crap, an Indian restaurant with a German name? It has to be crap.
Ok, I have never been there but when you all say it was crap, then I believe it was.

I'm not saying I like chicks with dicks, Sin.
I just like looking at the pictures, innit?

I mentioned how bad my meal was. The waiter said I should have said something before and he would have sent it back. Of course he's right, but I was too hungry!!!

I got the impression that the waiter was also doing some of the cooking. He was out of sight for about 20 minutes more than once.


Oh, I did notice in 9 nanoseconds. I was just trying to stay in the bathroom with you for a bit longer than that