DELHI PALACE
37-33 74th Street
Jackson Heights, NY 11372
(718) 507-9571

Resting on the bustling and busy road known as 74th Street in the bustling and busy neighborhood known as Jackson Heights, just mere paces from the Roosevelt Avenue megastation and just mere inches from the popular Jackson Diner, is Delhi Palace. The sign on the window and the words on the card say "Haute Cuisine of India". Well, I know haute and this ain't haute. It's comfort food. Indian comfort food. But it's good Indian comfort food.

Jackson heights is as ethnically diverse a place as you can get, with Halal markets here, sari shops there, and restaurants for all types of Asian, South Asian and Middle Eastern cuisines just about everywhere. I met Mr. Dogz just outside Delhi Palace after a quick jaywalk between the not-yet-stopped bumpers of a Town Car and a delivery van. Inside, the restaurant was quiet with but a few tables occupied. The crowd did not grow by much over the next two hours and I suppose it's their loss. The interior is simple by any standards, but, paper napkins (haute?) aside, not chintzy. A child was having a birthday across the dining room. Suddenly, a play button was pressed and a sitar version of Happy Birthday To You began blasting from speakers throughout the restaurant. Service, by the way, was tepid.

We started our meal off by splitting the Delhi Palace Platter, an assortment of fried vegetable fritters; cauliflower, potato, lentil and potato-curry-pea. It was supposed to come with a mint sauce and tamarind sauce, but did not. The cauliflower one was mediocre, and I could have taken or left the potato. But the lentil was excellent, as was the large potato-curry-pea one you see centered on the plate. For myself, I ordered a bowl of Muligatawny Soup, a spicy chic pea soup. Nine times out of ten it's great, but this was that one. It was too thin and the tiny little shards of rice, pitifully floating at the bottom of the bowl made me feel all lonely for some reason.

Delhi Palace has an expansive menu of chicken, lamb, rice, as well as a large vegetarian menu. In fact, the vegetarian options are so plentiful, that I'm including it in the vegetarian index here on eateryROW. However, since lamb doesn't find its way into either mine or Mr. Dogz's food repertoire all that often, we both ordered lamb entrees. Dogz went for the Gosht Rogan Josh, lamb cubes in a thick, red onion based sauce with cardamom, and I tried the Nilgiri Korma, lamb in coriander, coconut and mint. We were asked if we wanted our meals served mild or spicy and chose spicy. They came mild. Again, the service was, if not inattentive, certainly forgetful. Nevertheless, both dishes, served with rice and a yogurt sauce, were absolutely excellent and we literally wiped the little stainless steel bowls clean with the little Naan we had left. Both were sweet, with Mr. Dogz's being somewhat sweeter. For those of you who aren't coconut people, the coconut in my dish was almost unnoticeable. I do wish it was hot though.

Dogz wasn't hungry for dessert, but I have this second stomach that, no matter how full the regular one I have is, always has a wee bit of extra room for something sugary with a side of caffeine. One boilingly hot Madras Coffee (awesome) and a round of Gulab Jamun,warm milk balls soaking in honey syrup like two sponges. You can't ask for a better way to end a meal.

A soup, a large appetizer, two entrees, one naan, a coffee and a dessert, plus tax and tip totaled $53.