An abomination.
Yes, even by the bad-ass standards of Indian restaurants in the U.S., King of Tandoor on Callowhill Road in Philadelphia is a leprous sore, a pustulating herpes boil sullying the fair reputation of our magnificent Indian cuisine.
But for folks visiting from India and staying at the nearby Sheraton Hotel (on Race St & 17th St), we’d never have stumbled upon this shit-hole oops King of Tandoor.
Since a lot of Indian restaurants on the East Coast serve a bastardized, spice-less version of Indian cuisine to shamelessly pander to effete American palates, at the time of our order we gently requested that the food be Indian-style spicy.
Mon dieu, with that request we fell into the shaitan’s hands.
Satan’s apprentice in the King of Tandoor kitchen, nay, Satan himself took our request as a generous invitation to inflict his most gruesome torture on poor us.
Horror Show
What came out of the kitchen was insanely hot, chili-drenched food with chili powder disproportionate to all the other ingredients and completely ruining our dining experience.
Ah, the sadistic monsters at King of Tandoor.
No sir, no.
A few days earlier, we’d made a similar request (i.e. Indian-style spicy) at the Palace at the Ben on Chestnut St in Philadelphia and, Inshallah, the folks there delivered the goods even if the service at the Palace is now a little sloppy compared to our prior visits.
Vegetarian food or non-vegetarian fare, it was all the same to these ugly King of Tandoor fiends. Merely, an opportunity to practice their vicious, vile arts on hapless diners.
The watery Chana Shaag (yeah, Shaag is how these bozos spell it) was a nasty piece of work with a surfeit of red chili powder. Virtually inedible, its only saving grace was that the serving size was small.
Mixed Vegetable Curry should more appropriately have been labeled Red Chili Powder Curry given its horrid taste, enough chili powder for an army and lack of enough salt and other spices. A horrid mess, if you ask us.
Chicken Achari was a total disaster. Just boiled chicken thrown into a watery gravy of red chili powder.
Hell, even the Vegetable Biryani was a calamity given the liberal sprinkling of red chili powder on top of the rice.
The Raita we’d ordered to go with our Vegetable Biryani was no better. You see, it had no flavor because it came to our table without the seasoning that adds the magic to this Indian yogurt dish. Just some cut onion pieces flung into the yogurt.
Garlic Naan was low on garlic but mercifully, at least, soft.
By now, we concluded that the King of Tandoor chef was a complete novice better suited to cleaning the cages of wild boars at the nearby Philadelphia Zoo. Continue reading »
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