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| - We wanted to go to Thai Noodles for lunch, but they didn't open until 1 pm on Sundays. Being with a hungry bunch, they didn't want to wait (it was 12:26 pm by this time) so we decided to give Haveli a try.
We walked into an appealing dining room that filled with savory aroma. We were seated by the server and told the buffet was $9.95, otherwise we could order off the menu. Considering the price point was cheaper than other Madison buffets, we decided to go with the buffet route.
The spread was considerably less than Kangchen Indian Cuisine, which I had the pleasure of dining the previous weekend. There's a row of three stations connected, hidden behind a wall in the main dining room. The dessert station was with the salad and chutneys. There was one soup available, simply labeled Vegetable soup which was indicated as lentils based, although it was mostly broth with no vegetables that I could catch in my ladle.
The appetizers consisted of vegetable pakora, samosa, regular naan, coconut naan, and aloo tikki. The pakora tasted mostly like vegetable oil as the vegetables had been over-fried and sat in the warmer for too long. The samosa, while alluring to the eye, the turnover was again too oily, and the stuffing of potatoes tasted lackluster. Aloo tikki was better, although also fried, it wasn't soggy and the potatoes and green peas were palpable.
The entrees consisted of; chicken tikka masala, chicken saag, a lamb curry, an eggplant curry, vegetable biryani, chicken tandoori, and a deep battered fish.
The desserts included mango ice cream, gulab jamun (cottage cheese fried balls in sugar syrup), kheer (think tapioca), and gajar halwa (grated carrots in condensed milk).
My favorites were the coconut naan, cucmber and mint chutney, mango chutney, chicken tikka masala, tandoori chicken, eggplant curry, the vegetable biryani, and mango ice cream. I could eat the mango chutney with everything, it was one of the best ones I've ever had. The tandoori chicken was nicely deboned and marinated throughout.
One of our companions kept getting plate-fulls of the lamb curry, it was delicate cubes of lamb meat, but much too game-y for me. The gulab jamun was overly sweet, I understand the core makeup of the dessert is being soaked in sugar syrup but it was too overpoweringly sugary.
As pointed out before, majority of the curries are uniformly similar in taste. There was very little difference from the creamy tikka masala to the saag, all universally undeviating from the yogurt and tomato base. The different spices in the curries should be apparent, but here they were indistinguishable with no dissimilarities in the curries other than the vegetables.
I'd rate the food 4 stars for the price.
So why the low rating?
As I was trying to capture the buffet station, a server abruptly told me "no photos". I was a little taken aback, to which he continued, "no photos of the buffet, if you want photos, take photo of the menu". I inquired why this was an issue, and he replied in broken English that, there are items on the buffet that is not on the menu (?). I suggested maybe a sign would be helpful in serving as a gentle reminder for other people (*ahem* @Matt W), to which he said, "no sign, we tell people no photos".
There you have it, I figured since the food is 4 stars as in "yay, I'm a fan!" but the awkward exchange above is a deservingly 1 star "eeks! methinks not!", which averages out to 2.5 stars, and since we can't do 1/2 ratings, I'll round down to 2.
So I'm not sure if it's a cultural thing, or if there's a secret underground society where the items at the buffet has a deeper, hidden meaning, that could divulge classified information pertaining to each Indian Restaurant, but there are so many options when it comes to Indian food in the Madison and greater area, I won't be returning due to the cringe-worthy dialogue.
Waunaking...you've been warned! ;oP
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