Citizens' Committee to Study Mid-Priced Restaurants on the Upper West Side

Rating:  

To be honest, I don’t remember a whole lot about Silk Road Palace but I sure do want to go back there.  On the whole a great asset to the community, I say.

one word summary: thin

we decided on tanpura after walking some twenty blocks and deciding that the kosher moroccan place we were kinda heading for was either not midpriced enough or possibly too midpriced. maybe we should have done some more walking. or maybe the crowd at the neighboring japanese place and lack-of-crowd at tanpura should have been a tip-off.

the lassi was the first item brought out and was tasty. the green chutney was good and the tamarind sauce was okay, but watery. after that, things kinda fell downhill quickly. the naan tasted more like a store-bought pita than naan. the samosas were alien to samosas — i think we finally decided that the crust was a cheap pastry crust and the filling was out of a can. if i had eaten one of the samosas blindfolded, i would not know it was a samosa. the less said about the other appetizer the better.

for an entree, i did dhal and vegetable vindaloo. at this point, i decided to try the dhal first, as the vindaloo looked sub-par and i was really hoping i could find something redeeming at the restaurant. no such luck. the dhal was bland at best. the vindaloo was even worse, the vegetables also tasting “fresh” from the can or freezer, and the spice, while present, wasn’t acceptable. i momentarily regretted not getting the vegetable kurma, but one taste made me reverse that decision.

after a substantial wait for the check, i left the table with most of my entrees uneaten. while i regret the waste of food, i don’t regret the decision. despite what menupages has to say, i can’t possibly recommend this venue.

Given the CCSMPRUWS’s inability to act in the absence of my guidance, I have take the liberty of defining our study area and proposing an additional six research projects, as noted on linked-to map. For the purpose of simplicity, the study area has been generously defined to include all of Manhattan that is west of Central Park and between 57th Street and 110th Street, despite possible objections from purists who would exclude Lincoln Square, which is bounded by 72ndto the north, or Manhattan Valley, which is bounded by 96th Street in the south and Broadway to the west.

A suitable restaurant should be defined as one that:

• Is located within the study area (as defined above)
• Has an average entree price that is equal to or less than $16
• Either provides of accepts alcohol
• Can accommodate the CCSMPRUWS in comfort

Exceptions are of course permissible and encouraged, pending the approval of the CCSMPRUWS.

A task force of the Committee convened on the evening of Thursday, 20 December.  Mr. Benthall took down, and is in possession of, the meeting’s minutes; I shall not presume to write without his notes about the restaurant we studied, but rest assured that the full Committee and our loyal readers will shortly be informed of the task force’s findings.

Last week’s meeting had a slightly different purpose from our first meeting, where Committee members Benthall, Penate, and myself met specifically to study Silk Road Palace.  Instead, this time, a group of five (Committee members Benthall, Lence, Hammel, David and myself) met up at the Fairway on Broadway and 74th and set out to find a mid-priced restaurant to study.  Though the task force members were tired, ravenous and notoriously incapable of making simple decisions like where to eat, we assumed that it would be a simple task to quickly find a suitable eatery: after all, the neighbourhood is teeming with mid-priced restaurants.  Surely, we reasoned, we would find ourselves seated somewhere within ten minutes, happily ensconcing ourselves away from the overwhelming grime of the Upper West Side’s filthy streets.

Not so, friends; not so.  Heavy with hunger, the task force trundled nearly twenty blocks up Broadway, turned east to Columbus Ave, south several blocks and finally back west to Amsterdam before finding a single restaurant that we unanimously agreed fit the Committee’s stated areas of concern.

Needless to say, this raises alarming questions for the Committee.  Where are the Upper West Side’s fabled hordes of mid-priced restaurants?  Perhaps our informal criteria are too strict or altogether misguided?  In the coming weeks I believe the Committee should hold extensive discussions to hammer out the precise qualifications for a restaurant’s inclusion in our scope, to allow for a more scientific approach to our studies and, hopefully, prevent a repetition of last Thursday’s troubling incident.

Rating:

Summary: Free wine and OK Chinese food.

Insider’s Tip: Franzia will seek revenge if abused.

No sign of Alec Baldwin­

The essence of the Silk Road Palace is the contradiction between its claim to be a traditional Chinese restaurant, complete with simple decor and unflappable manager, and its generous and continuous offerings of gutter wine. Before you are even seated a glass is filled from a plastic pitcher and handed to you. Perhaps a stranger who waits near you harrumphes that the wine is not very alcoholic, but it hardly matters in such company as the CCSMPRUWS Investigative Task Force, who made sure that nobody shirked their duties in sampling the beverage of choice at Silk Road Palace, for the sake of an informed review. The manager, a soothing man, shrewdly cooed to one of us who was enthusiastically encouraging another, “Don’t force him, please. We don’t want anybody drunk.” Shortly thereafter, someone refilled our carafe.

The food–decent and unremarkable–is a forgettable accessory to the rest of the Silk Road Palanc experience, which this reviewer would highly recommend.