PANAHAR

She says:
It seems as though everyone in Atlanta either loves or hates Panahar. Reviews on CitySearch range from calling the Bangladeshi restaurant “homey” and “one of the best restaurants in Atlanta” to warning: “If you or your parents are from the Indian subcontinent or ANYWHERE in South Asia (or just know authentic when you taste it) DO NOT GO HERE!!!” Similarly, reports on the service either tout it as incredibly attentive or excruciatingly slow.

First conclusion: the service is excruciatingly slow. We arrived on a Saturday evening around 8:00, assuming that a restaurant in a Buford Highway strip mall wouldn’t have a problem finding seats for two. Guess we assumed wrong. The owner chided us for not making reservations. But he also said he could seat us in 15 minutes. After 30 long minutes we were finally seated. (During this time we came to our second conclusion, that the irate CitySearch reviewer’s warning had in fact been heeded: there was no one of South Asian descent anywhere near this place.)

But Panahar’s service is also incredibly attentive. Almost to a flaw. The owner, Mirza, is a tad on the overbearing side, and, acting as host, waiter, and your new best friend, is hard to avoid. When I asked what type of sauce had come with our appetizer, he elaborately described exactly how the sauce was made, detailing each of the 10 or so ingredients. Later on, as we paid our bill, he presented us with a coupon and proceeded to explain no fewer than 6 times that it could be used unlimited times. This type of service can go either way – it’ll either make you feel right at home or slightly violated.

He says:
Personally, I’m offput by Mirza’s enthusiasm. The first time I ate at Panahar was a slow Wednesday evening when he hovered over our table, insisting we order mango lassi and lauding the deliciousness of his chicken curries. I find this strange since curries are where Panahar stumbles the most; all the ones I’ve tried are goopy and generic. On that first visit Mirza also insisted that we order the cheese naan (a truly horrendous suggestion by the way – slices of American cheese baked onto naan? WTF?!), and afterwards he stood over our table for a good 45 seconds grinning like a fool while we sampled it.

Fortunately I find Mirza handles certain dishes better than he does personal space. On Saturday we started with an appetizer plate of pakoras, chicken shingaara, and vegetable shingaara (shingaaras are similar to samosas). The chicken shingaara lacked real flavor, but the vegetable one had a tasty potato, pea, and herb stuffing with an outer shell fried to a pleasant crisp.

For the main course I ordered the chicken tikka, which comes sizzling on a cast iron pan with a generous helping of onions. Indian restaurants often over-grill their breast meat, leaving them dry and tough, but Panahar got it just right. The meat is seasoned as well as one can hope for, neither too mild nor too hot.

She says:
I was happy to see one of my favorite Indian dishes on the menu, Matar Paneer, which I had been craving for weeks. Although I’ve had better versions, I’ve also had far worse. The sauce was creamy and pleasantly seasoned, though it was a little heavy on the peas and light on the cheese.

We say:
Panahar’s food is nothing mind blowing, but since options for South Asian food are limited in Atlanta (and since we have a coupon we can use unlimited times), we might go back. After making reservations, of course.

She says:



He says:
Because of Mirza …



Panahar
3377 Buford Hwy. Suite 1060, Atlanta, GA 30329
http://www.panahar.com