At the Table: Indian food at Durbar.
Before you look at the menu, you’ll have to look at Durbar’s dining room and drink it all in. It’s a flight of fancy, a confection, a dozen things to gape at all at once.
It’s easy to survey it all from the modern leather chairs on casters; just spin this way and that. Over here, a cluster of parasols in every color (or maybe just the most vivid ones). Over there, a modern chandelier dripping crystals from the center of an inverted dome crafted from fabric panels. Just beyond, a curvy niche that calls to mind Indian architecture.
The Indian fusion restaurant in the Park East Hotel, which owner Rick Walia opened in April, is named for the elaborate courts in India where royalty would meet and, you have to admit, the décor lives up to the name.
Let’s remember why we’re here, though, and that’s dinner.
Durbar has a set of entrées ($18 to $34) where it ventures into fusion, serving dishes like seafood in curry over pasta, or luxe twin lobster tails or scallops with Israeli couscous; the entrées that are pasta-less generally include rice, bread and an iceberg-and-tomato salad that could use more interest.
Durbar also tries something I haven’t seen at an Indian restaurant before: sushi rolls, like the Fire Roll ($11), with tempura salmon and Sriracha and wasabi mayonnaise. They’re fine, as at so many sushi restaurants in Milwaukee, but they’re not the main reason you’d drive across town to visit.
That would be the traditional Indian appetizers and dinners.
Tucked in the appetizers are some fusion plates, too, like ultra-creamy hummus ($8), served with naan instead of pita and drizzled with mango sauce for Indian touches.
But there are many more classics, such as juicy reshmi chicken kebab ($12) and chicken 65 ($9), the chunks deepfried and served in a “dry” gravy — a thick sauce that’s spicy and savory.
(Most of the dishes are served mild by default, but the kitchen will make dishes as spicy as you can bear, if you like.)
Pakora appetizers are in the thinnest of chickpea-flour batters; the pakora paneer ($8) puts mint between two thin layers of house-made soft cheese before it’s fried. More and more, savory uses for mint really seem to be the best uses.
And pickled mushrooms ($7), baked in the tandoor and served with lemon, peppers and onions, made a simple but completely flavorful appetizer. The chaat — street-style snacks — pack in a lot of flavor, too; dahi aloo papdi ($6) layers potato on crisp papdi with tamarind and yogurt, an always compelling combination of sweet and tangy, soft and crisp.
Rice dishes, like chicken biryani ($15) topped with hardcooked eggs and goat rice ($19), with a bit of cashew and golden raisins garnishing the seasoned rice and meat on the bone, are served with raita; the yogurtcucumber sauce cools any sting from spices.
The traditional dinners provide the usual broad survey of Indian dishes, though it’s not often you’ll find lobster tail as an option, as in lobster masala ($19); it turns out the creamy sauce plays well with lobster. A
number of dishes feature tender chunks of lamb, like palak saag, lamb in rich spinach sauce ($14).
Some of Durbar’s tastiest dishes were dedicated to vegetables, like the baingan bharta ($12, baked and mashed eggplant with an undercurrent of ginger) and matter mushroom curry ($13, mushrooms and peas in an aromatic sauce).
Dinner really does call for bread. Besides the classic flatbreads like naan with the sheen of butter ($3), puffy fried poori ($3) and paratha flavored with mint ($4), the menu holds stuffed breads — ones diners likely have seen before, like onion kulcha ($4), but also masala kulcha ($4) that’s stuffed with potato, onion, bell pepper, spices and paneer, or chicken kulcha ($4), bread stuffed with seasoned ground chicken. One or two of those filled breads would make a great lunch to go, for not much money.
Dessert wasn’t always offered — and thus forgotten by me, too — but Durbar serves an especially luscious milk sauce scented with cardamom that drenches the cheese patties for its rasmalai ($8).
Service at Durbar largely was very good and always friendly; if servers consistently offered dessert and wrapped leftovers for guests, it would be golden.