PUNJAB PALACE (INDIAN) ★★★★

920 Rue Jean-Talon Ouest, Montreal, QC H3N 1S6

514-495-4075

punjabpalace.ca

Punjab palace seems to be very popular and I can totally understand why. The service was amazing, everybody was so nice, the food was outstanding and you got to really experience Indian cuisine. Unlike the other Indian restaurants I've been to, this one had a much more wide variety of different kinds of foods and meals. I couldn't wait to try.

MENU

Punjab Palace has a huge variety of different dishes. The menu starts with appetizers, they have Kabbabs, Tikka dishes, vegetarian and meat options, and many different types of samosas. Soups were next,The main courses were separated into how they were prepared such as Tandoori dishes, Kadhai, Kormas, Currys, Vegetarian options and Biryanis. Finally came the rice and bread section as stuff to eat alongside your dishes.

VEGETABLE SAMOSAS

As an appetizer, we decided to get the veggie samosas which were filled with potatoes and seasoning. The samosas were very large and the crust was flaky buttery and crunchy. It seemed to mix very well with the soft texture of the potatoes and filling. The filling had a sort of spicy savory flavor with a sweet undertone, They're being many different spices incorporated into the filling. The potatoes were very soft and creamy. It came with two sauces a thinner, cold yet spicy sauce which I found interesting because you don't often find cold sauces or meals to come with a spicy flavor to them. It kind of reminded me of the cold yet spicy texture of kimchi from Korean cuisine. The second sauce was once again cold but this time instead of very liquidy it was a lot more creamy and had the texture of yogurt.

BUTTER CHICKEN

Butter chicken is the most Americanized part of Indian cuisine and this is something you can find a lot of non-Indian households making, mine included. The only time we switch up our cuisine and make it more directed towards Indian cuisine is when we have butter chicken but after visiting so many restaurants I can't wait to try and make new meals for my family to enjoy. This butter chicken did seem to stand out from the others I've had. It was a lot tougher of a cut of meat, less juicy and less tender than the curry and tikka masala but because of the softness and butteriness of the sauce, it made it okay for the meat to be tough and a little bit dry. It actually added to the textures that you felt throughout having the butter chicken. As well as buttery the sauce was also very sweet which is something I enjoy with butter chicken as it counteracts the rest of the spicy dishes you tend to have at Indian restaurants.

CHICKEN CURRY

Curry was one of the Indian dishes that I had not tried previously and that I was so excited to try. Last time I had "curry "I had a Caribbean version of it when I went to Caribbean Tasty Treats which was amazing so I was so excited to try an Indian version of curry that I've heard so much about. As much as the chicken for the tikka masala was tender, the curry chicken was melt in your mouth juicy and pulled apart so easily I couldn't get enough of it. That was the main part of the dish that got me so intrigued. the sauce was amazing it was spicy and it was liquidy. I really enjoyed it but the tenderness and that juiciness of the chicken was what made it my favorite dish of the night they know how to prepare the chicken very well

TIKKA MASALA

The meat was so tender it pulled apart in your mouth like pulled pork.It was spicy which is to be expected in Indian cuisine as they use many different types of spices you could even see them in the sauce and throughout the meal. The sauce itself was warm and very creamy, a lot thicker than the rest of the sauces which is great with the naan bread. Tikka Masala is a staple in Indian cuisine and I was so happy to experience another way it could be prepared and get to experience different versions of the same dish.

RICE

Rice that is usually paired with such saucy main meals is to be expected to be dry and plain because you're not supposed to eat it by itself. In Indian cuisine specifically, you're supposed to put rice underneath your main meal (chicken curry, butter chicken, etc) and then mix the sauce, the meats, and the rice altogether. It goes very well with the different types of meat and the different sauces. It adds different spiciness and flavors and the rice even soaks up the sauces.

NAAN

Naan bread is one of my favorite parts of Indian cuisine. It's handmade warm soft and has a distinct flavour to it and as much is my family buys it from the store when it's homemade by people who know are they doing oh it's 100 times better. Love to use non-bread as ways to soak up the sauce is left in your dish are much like you would see in Italian cuisine where they use bread to soak up the rest of their meat sauce so rose sauce etc. this is sort of an Indian take on that and I really love the way you get to have so many different flavors to pair with this bread so non-bread will always be amazing to me.

OVERALL

Overall I really enjoyed Punjab palace, it had such a variety of different types of dishes and Indian food I had never even heard of before and allowed me to try something different for once. I loved everything about this place from the food to the service and even the fact that it's stood out among the rest of the Indian restaurants in the neighborhood I would highly recommend checking out this place more than once so you could have many different combinations of meals to try.