AKA Abraham Bacoln

I went tonight with Jay and Matthew to Cookeville’s first Indian restaurant. I believe its name is India Palace, but that doesn’t really matter because, well, it’s the only one. You can’t get it confused with the other Indian restaurant, now can you?

Here’s the tl;dr version: my food was awesome. Jay’s food was awesome. Matthew’s was a little dry. The service was slow. You should still go there anyway because by God this place needs to stay in business. We’re doing fine keeping a Thai joint and a sushi joint around – we must not lose this one.

Well, unless they start to suck. Then it’s okay.

So for you Cookevillans [sic] that don’t know, it’s on 10th street between Washington and the end of Jefferson. That’s right, the old Burger Chef building that has been a series of failures ever since. What was it last, The Crazy Donkey? I hadn’t been inside that building in probably a decade if not longer.

Aaaaaaaaaaanyway let’s see. We went in, got seated, ordered Indian beer, then it took a minute for the beers to be delivered, and they forgot the bottle opener. By the time they got back Matthew and I had taken care of the situation. We tried to tell them that we’re the kind of guys that carry serious hardware but they were out of earshot.

I’m going to stop here for a second and say that at any point in this story you can put in the sentence, “and then it took a minute for [x] to happen.” This place has only been open a day or two now – I don’t mind the service being slow so I’m not going to be mean about it. The food cooking and delivery actually wasn’t slow, considering it’s all made to order. Just everything else.

Jay got the chicken curry, which I did not try, but he and Matthew said was great. Matthew got the chicken tikka masala which he said was a bit dry. I got the lamb vindaloo which the menu said was spicy. My first and only religious experience that was brought about by spicy food was from lamb vindaloo in New Orleans, and I was hoping to have a repeat. Alas, it wasn’t hot enough to get my endorphins going, but it was certainly hot. You can ask them – I had a little trouble speaking for a while there. Man. Nothing like lamb vindaloo.

If I’m not mistaken they had three Indian beers: Kingfisher, Taj Mahal, and one other, the name of which I forget. The menu was extensive, and it’ll take me a while to sample everything I want. The rice was of course tasty Basmati, the naan was great, and that’s all I can talk about, really, as I didn’t have room for dessert.

So go. Go go go. Go soon. Give ’em a try. Get the vindaloo if you want to hurt yourself.

But go! Go give ’em some business. If it fails for lack of diners I’ll blame you personally.

I’m there.

Comment by Trey July 3, 2008 @ 11:32 pm

Reply

Wow, it’s about freaking time Cookeville had an Indian restaurant! I will definitely go the next time I’m in town–Indian food is my favorite.

As a side note, Biffle showed himself not to be an honest-to-god Cookevillian, because he didn’t know what I meant when I said, “It’s in the old Burger Chef building.” Alas.

Comment by Alison July 4, 2008 @ 9:49 am

Reply