Café Maharani

It's been a while since I've been out to eat Indian food, so a couple of nights ago, I invited a friend out to dinner.  Café Maharani is one of the few South Indian restaurants here in Honolulu, so that's where I decided to go. 

When we arrive, about 7:15 pm, there is only one table left in the entire place!  After we are seated, more people start to arrive and are told that the wait for a table will be about 30 minutes!

The place is a bit dark with only some ambient lighting to set the mood.  There are a couple of television monitors around playing scenes from Indian movies that are quite entertaining!  After reviewing the menu, we decide to order the following:

vegetable samosas (US$3.99).

These are crispy fried pastry cones filled with cooked, curried vegetables.  They are served with mint sauce and a spicy chutney.  I tried both sauces and I think this tastes best with the spicy chutney.

chicken biryani (US$11.99).

This is really delicious!  Normally the chicken would not be cooked together with the rice, but served separately.  The rice was very flavorful and the balance of flavors was excellent!

eggplant tikka masala (US$8.99).

This dish is made by first deep frying slices of eggplant, then adding it to a sauce made with tomato, onions and other spices.  The last time I had this dish, the slices of eggplant were still very crispy when the dish arrived at our table.  Tonight, the eggplant seemed a bit "mushy" and over-cooked.  It lacked the crispiness that I enjoyed.  I was a bit disappointed.

Now usually when I go to Indian restaurants, I like to have some of their bread.  Previously, I had the paratha (OK), the naan (not so good), and the chapati (better than the naan).  This time, they offered dhosa as a special so I ordered one piece (US$1.99).

Dhosa is a type of thin pancake that is made of fermented rice and Urad lentils and then fried until crispy.  This one was topped with chopped cilantro, which I found a bit unusual.  The dhosa was a bit thicker than what I was used to, and not as crispy as I was used to either.  Sad to say, another disappointment.

Normally, the food is much better than it was tonight.  Perhaps it was because it was very busy (we had to wait more than 30 minutes after ordering for our food to arrive).  We'll just have to wait and see on our next visit.

Café Maharani
2509 South King Street
Telephone:  808.951.7447

Comments

[Reid]

Hi Stephany Jones,

Thanks for visiting my blog. Hope you enjoyed your visit.

[Jannel]

I think you should redo a review of Maharani. It's been a long time and since the owneer and the chef has been changed there is a big difference in there. They have tandoori ovens, so the restaurant has fresh nanns ( almost 10 different nanns) kababs, tikkas. The nann picture I see in the restaurant review, it doesn't look anything like the nann I had it there. so please take some time and follow up with the new information, so that people will have some idea.
Mahalo

[John Cummings]

This is one HELL of a frustrating restaurant. I tried very hard to like it, because I love Indian (OK, so it's Bangladeshi/Pakistani, it's close enough) food and it's near my house, but I don't think I'll ever go back. I often tried to overlook a lot of things: a rat that almost ran over my wife's foot, a filthy kitchen and back room, food sitting in an unscreened area, greasy preparation, lame-ass waiters, but I enjoyed the pungent spiciness of the food. Tonight, finally, I hit the wall.

The last time I was here, they said that they had run out of RICE, and then a few minutes later, a large table of Southeast Asians came in—and got--RICE. They seemingly always run out of something, which is OK, but tonight they ran out of chicken, after I had ordered the combo plate. They just absolutely refused to give me anything but the combo plate after that, even after I had several times told them that I only wanted the vegetable curry. Guess what showed up? TWO vegetable curries, voila, a combo plate! I sent one back, but the bill still had the original, non-existent chicken curry (combo) on the bill. Even after a fight with the manager/owner, who graciously offered to pad my bill to bring it to the combo price by charging me for the bread, rice, etc (so I wouldn't feel bad about getting screwed I suppose), I just freak'n threw the amount, plus a 20% tip, on the kitchen floor, and stomped out. I figure, if they'll screw you so unfairly and blatantly on something like that, I just don't trust them screwing with my food.

Anyway, there's been a lot of uncomfortable stuff happen here: I even had a waitress once ask if I could leave her cash, because she said the owner wouldn't pay her a gratuity until the charge cleared--something virtually unheard of in the restaurant business. I don't go out to eat to be bummed.

I wish we had better/different Indian restaurants here, but the only one I've found is the India Cafe, and I've eaten there a few too many times. Hey, at least the owner is sweet, and the help looks happy.

April 22, 2007

[Kabir]

Here you go one more bad reviews about Cafe Maharani coming from India Cafe's owner. Every singl reviews he writes, he talks about seeing some roaches, bad service, bad service, bad service, what else dirty kitchen, ummm oh he uses different names but always going there with his wife and have the sane problem, lol and by the way this time he saw a big rat!!! Thats very funny hahahahaha. One more thing at the end of the reviews he never forget to mantion India Cafe (his own restaurant) and how good the food is and how happy he is there. One sugges for you India cafe, work on the food insted writing bad reviews about a restaurant where people working really hard otherwise it will come back to you. People will know when they will eat at Cafe Maharani and at your restaurant. I also noticed the same guy writing same kindda reviews about Bombay Indian restaurant and asking the customer to go India cafe. Anyway, Cafe Maharani and Bombay both are wayyyyyyyyyyyy better than India Cafe. Stop writing bad reviews about other restaurant please, ,let the customet have their own expriences.

thank you

[ram gopal]

excellent curries with tandoori fresh nanns. I never seen so many different kindda naan at any other Indian restaurant before. I don't remember the name of the naan I had it there but it was stuffed with mixed dried fruits. It tasted like heaven to me. The table next to me ordered a huge size of naan ( Kabli naan). Next time I am going to order the mughlai naan there.

Thank you maharani

[anik]

I love the lamb dish here. Very good flavour. Goa shrimp was good. I was very impressed with the tandoori apatizer platter. Chesse mushrooms naan was awsome. Create your own naan is a very good idea.