Posted by Max Naylor on Monday, July 12, 2010
From the outside, Shalimar looks quaint and cosy. Centrally-located on the corner of Austurstræti and Ingólfstorg, the restaurant has plenty of passing traffic. Unfortunately, Shalimar fundamentally fails to effectively capitalise on this traffic. You’ll see why.
I visited the restaurant with a group of friends, and we arrived at about 7pm on a Friday night. When we arrived, the place must have been about half full. We were asked to wait for a few minutes whilst they got a table ready for us, which only seated four of us five. Restaurants in Reykjavík are generally small, so we improvised and tacked a chair onto the end of the table.
It was apparent that the waitress took an immediate disliking to this arrangement, who was both rude and far from knowledgeable about any of the restaurant’s dishes. Having repeated the name of my curry several times, I resorted to pointing to the menu after giving her the number of the dish proved to not be enough. Sufficiently embarrassed after having the waitress snigger at some of our choices, the waiting began. We sat, baffled by the restaurant’s strange architectural mix of faux-Tudor, Indian and American diner styles.
I ordered poppadoms, which are a staple of Indian restaurants and are quite nice to nibble on whilst waiting for your main course. At every Indian restaurant I’ve ever eaten in, I’ve been given complimentary poppadoms upon being sat at the table. Despite paying a few hundred krónur for two poppadoms and a spoonful of sauce, they weren’t bad. What was extremely bad was the hour and a half wait for them to arrive at our table.
In the booth opposite ours, a group of four, who arrived before we did, received their starter of onion bhaji about two minutes before we received our poppadoms. The complete inability of the restaurant staff to deliver food to the table within a reasonable timeframe was simply shocking. We considered walking out, but just as we were about to leave, the waitress came to our table. She was holding a dish at proceeded to say “did you order something that looks like this?” (in English, she spoke no Icelandic). At this point, we were shocked, but once again hopeful that our food would arrive.
Once my korma arrived, I have to say that it wasn’t bad, although by no means above average. The curry was filled with whole cashew nuts, which could have done with a bit of chopping down. I have no aversion to spicy food and expect it in an Indian restaurant, but the curry I had was too spicy for a korma. It was fairly moorish though, and the portion was such that I was sufficiently satiated afterwards. The accompanying naan bread was mysteriously served in two stages; perhaps there weren’t enough plates in the kitchen.
When we went to the counter to pay, we were asked if the food we were served was to our satisfaction. After listing off our complaints, we were offered a 20% discount. Unfortunately this seemed all too commonplace, as she was prepared to give me the discount without me having to say much. I was kind of expecting to have to put up more of a fight. After the 20% off, the bill came down to a fairly reasonable price, being pricey to start with.
This was my second visit to Shalimar. I first visited in January this year, and I must say I had a far better experience. I hope the experience we had last Friday was not a typical one, and that we were unlucky this time rather than lucky the first time.
Shalimar also offers a take-away option, although we don’t know how long the restaurant makes these customers wait. Perhaps a restaurant that doesn’t have the ability to serve the customers that are actually in the building shouldn’t burden itself with the take-away option. Who knows, if they turned over their covers faster and got more bums on seats, they might actually make some more money.
Image: Kaveri & Sameer
Labels: Reviews
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