Review: Padmanabham

Padmanabham is a new, an all-day South Indian vegetarian restaurant that has recently opened up at Janpath and serves traditional, flavorful food with influences from Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The restaurant has an expansive space and the ambience is non-fussy, warm and welcoming, with Mandala and Kalamkari artwork on the walls and a majestic Balaji statue. They offer a rotating menu of vegetarian meals called ‘Bhojanam’ (unlimited thali) from the states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerela and Karnataka, that come atop large, green banana leaves. Apart from that, they have a very interesting a la carte menu as well.As soon as we placed our orders, we were served a glass each of tomato rasam along with papad. The rasam had a nice balance of sourness and spice, and also had chunky tomatoes in it, which was a nice touch.

We went with the a la carte menu and started with a couple of beverages. Panakkam was a jaggery and tamarind cooler, and was really refreshing with its minty taste. They also have a Filter Cold Coffee which we’d never tasted before. This consisted of filter coffee decoction blended with milk and ice cream, and tasted amazing.

Next, we ordered the Ghee Podi Idli which consisted of three fluffy pieces of idli smeared with a mixture of delicious podi and ghee. The idli were some of the softest we’ve had and the dish was served with sambar and three types of chutneys. All chutneys had great consistency and flavor to them.

The Keerai Vadai consisted of crispy fried masala vada with spinach, tomato and coriander chutney. The vada was made with soaked and roughly ground split chickpeas and mixed with fennel seeds, onion, ginger and curry leaves, and tasted great.

The Cheese Paniyaram was a fantastic dish made with a fermented batter of rice and lentils which was flavored with onion, green chili, ginger, curry leaves and coriander, stuffed with cheese and rolled into balls. The balls had a nice color on the outside, were really fluffy, light and airy on the inside with the gooey, melted cheese oozing out. The fermentation of the batter gives this dish a lovely subtle sour note.

Next, we went with a couple of dosas- Mysore Dosai and Onion Rava Dosai both of which were really well made.We ended the meal with a nice selection of their desserts- Kesari Bhaat, Bandaru Halwa, Pineapple Halwa, Sweet Pongal and Payasam. All the desserts were really flavorsome and just adequately sweet. The payasam was light and the milk had been cooked well so it had released its natural sweetness. The bandaru halwa had a unique texture and flavor, and the pineapple halwa, with the sweet-sour note of pineapple and chunks of the fresh fruit was perhaps our favorite dessert of the lot.Overall, the food was great, the service was fast, and the prices were very reasonable, making this a must-visit place!