Royal Darbar Restaurant which is located at Wisma Motor, 339, Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman Kuala Lumpur has recently started to serve authentic North Indian Cuisine.
The ambience at the restaurant is one that offers you a touch of dining with the Maharaja with its motif decoration depicting the glory of the palace with painting and motives that highlight the Indian Palace ambience staying true to the name of the restaurant.
When you open the menu; you can see that Royal Darbar menu offers a very comprehensive menu, offering traditional, popular and contemporary Indian, Punjabi dishes with a sumptuous variety of vegetarian and non-vegetables dishes that suit one's palate.
Royal Darbar Restaurant KL - Affordable North Indian Fine Dining
The chef at Royal Darbar are mostly from India and are trained with experiences of cooking these dishes. Each of the dishes is cooked with a strong aroma of spices and fresh ingredient while complying to the traditional umami and flavours of the dish.
Currently, the Royal Darbar Restaurant is offering a real value for money all you can eat lunch buffet at only RM24.99+ (normal price RM35.00) which we came to taste.
The Lunch buffet offers 4 vegetarian and 4 non-vegetarian dishes on a daily rotating menu. For the day, the buffet dishes that we tasted were the Malai Tikka which is chicken marinated in cashew based tandoori masala grilled in the tandoor.
Next is the Chicken Rara; a boneless chicken cooked in a rich tomato & onion gravy mixed with minced chicken.
Fish Molee, a Kerala style fish curry cooked in coconut milk based gravy.
For Vegetarian dishes, we were served the Dal Makhni whole black lentils simmered in low fire until tender & tempered with onion, ginger, garlic & tomato.
Bhindi Masala - tender okra sauteed with onions, herbs & coriander leaves.
Paneer Tikka Masala where cubes of tandoori paneer tikka tossed in tomato based gravy with onions & capsicum deliciously flavoured with spices & herbs.
Kadhai Paneer is made out of cubes of homemade cottage cheese cooked with onions, pepper, ginger, garlic & Indian spices
while the Biryani Rice is a princely Mughlai speciality of fragrant basmati rice flavoured with saffron, raisins & cashew nuts.
Buttered Naan - whole wheat flour bread favoured with butter & freshly baked in the clay tandoor oven. The buffet also comes with a serving of Buttered Naan and a complimentary drink.
with Rasam and Raita to complement the other dishes.
Each day, there will be one dessert on offer; ours was the Kheer For Dessert which is a rice pudding made by boiling rice, broken wheat, vermicelli with milk & sugar; flavoured with cardamom, raisins, saffron, cashews, pistachios or almonds
Although our stomach is almost filled, we were really tempted to taste a few of the dishes that look tempting. After a little deliberation, we decided to order the Tandoori Chicken (RM25.00) which really did not disappoint us. The marination was perfect and the Chef has grilled it to the right char. that retains the succulence of the chicken.
It was so good that we had to order a Buttered Naan to goes with it. The Naan served at Royal Darbar is one that is very thin and it is best paired with the Tandoori.
Another dish from the menu that we are tempted to order was the Chicken Varuval (RM25.00) which is one of a few Southern Indian dishes that is offered at Royal Darbar. When it arrives on our table, we were taken aback as it was not the familiar Chicken Varuval that is a much drier version that we are so accustomed to. Nevertheless, with the gravy style and a strong hint of onion and coriander, it was nice to finish up with the Buttered Naan,
As a fan of Mango, I could not resist ordering the Mango Kulfi (RM10.00) a homemade Alphonso Mango ice cream which has a sweet, rich creamy mango taste.
As for me, I have a sweet spot for Mango Lassi (RM10.00) and needless to say an order of my favourite Indian drink that will comfort my palate cannot be missed out.
Overall, we find the food quality served at Royal Darbar Restaurant was good, are reasonably priced and offers a wide variety of North Indian dishes. There is also a banquet facility for you to host private events or wedding dinners that is available at the restaurant. You can check out the Royal Darbar facebook Page for some of their promotion.