As usual, I really liked having dinner there. Although every meal I’ve had at Indian Table has had some things that stand out, none have had dishes that aren’t at least good. This meal was true to that form. Probably the most substantial food served (& there was a lot of food served) were individual large thick (maybe an inch thick & 5 inches long) fish fillets. An entree unto itself at other times; here, just one of many mains served. Neatly done, non greasy, meaty fish & my least favorite dish. Maybe it needed a kick, maybe I’m just with Ziggy on liking meat dishes better in general… I don’t know (I liked the head on shrimp and the fish curry well enough). All I know is that everything else was both tasty & different enough from the usual fare for me to appreciate having gone to a RW dinner… something I basically never do anymore except at Indian Table.
As usual we were treated very well, without any negative feedback from our changing our group size from 10 to 12, then to 9 & finally to 8. And the $45pp RW fixed price was, in my opinion, a steal for what we received. All in, with drinks (I have no idea what others had - my wife and I each had 2 glasses of wine), tax & a 30% tip (they added 20% to the bill – we added another $100), we wound up with $100pp. I’m guessing that some drinks were comp’ed or that some of us didn’t drink (sorry); otherwise the math just doesn’t work. And, although we missed Dave Cook, Saregama, the vinouspleasures & small_h, it was a nicely sized group of now familiar HO’s and great to see Ziggy again & to meet Doug & Toni.
Those of you who have already reported have done a fantastic job! Although, yet again, I feel like I didn’t get to talk with everyone (e.g. got to meet and talk with Toni; not so much with Doug, so looking forward to a next time!). Agree about the fried fish; only thing I really didn’t like. And also agree about that dessert, crazy good–kind of like rice pudding but with noodles, and I’m not usually a rice pudding fan, so that doesn’t really describe it. It had pistachios and coconut (roses?), not sure what else.
I loved the first appetizer: some kind of rice pancake with curry sauce. I’m a curry fan. The chicken as well as the goat curries were also my favorites, along with a bean dish (that also does not describe it, as the vegetables were not identifiable to me at all). I also really liked the fish curry dish.
Overall, it was just so fun to see/meet everyone. I look forward to next time.
Think coconut. The dessert “noodles” were strands of fresh coconut, the bean dish had chunks of dried coconut meat and the rice pancake app (the personal size dosa) had a light coconut sambal (Saregama - is that the right word?) inside with some lentil (daal?) “sauce” on the plate. The fish “curry” had coconut as well. The meat dishes didn’t. The fish fillet coulda used it (or something).
Chutney? (I had to look up what pancakes you folks were referring to – looks like it was Amboli, similar to dosa/uttapam.)
It’s interesting that folks weren’t that excited about the seafood, given that it’s what the region is famous for.
That said, my absolute favorite Malvani dish (even at a seafood specialty place) is the chicken sukka / sukke that was also on your menu 
Sorry to have missed the evening, but look forward to another one soon.
Sorry to be so late posting the pictures I promised - think I got most of the dishes except for the meat curries and fried fish lumps. We thought this was a really tasty dinner and convivial company as always! It was great to meet @Ziggy @FlemSnopes and Toni as well.
On to the dinner, we were served three appetizers, starting with Amboli which was a very delicate dosa type presentation where the rice component with the urad dal in the crepe batter was made from poha, dried pressed rice. I said this was really delicate delightful texture, and was served with a good sambhar with drumsticks, and filled with coconut chutney. Classic veg south indian tastes and i loved it.
This was followed by shrimp marinated and grilled in a really delicious spice paste. I ate it shell and all, and hope this gets on the regular menu. Others commented it was overcooked 
but ours was fine.
We also were served very delicate, crispy and tasty tiny goat mutton cutlets, excellent, with dab of green coriander chutney
We then were served our individual thalis, and side bowls of rice. Standouts to me were hand-pounded peanut chutney, delicious and the pink savory and creamy solkadi, a cooler which included coconut milk, dried kokum, spices and cilantro but the rice based roti and poppadums were also very good. I think though we could have used a lesson on how to best combine and use these items as part of our meal.
We were then given our main courses, two fish dishes, goat in red chile and coconut paste, a malvani chicken dish prepared with dry coconut kopra. Both the goat and the chicken, not pictured, were excellent, but JIm and I didn’t think they stood out as particular, distinctive. The king mackerelfilets, fried in a thick semolina crust, were very dry and rather bland. They screamed for noticeable seasoning and some sort of moist chutney or sauce to dip them in. We tried to eat them with the chopped onion salad provided with the thali, but it was also dry/bland so it did not go far to help with this one flop. On the other hand, we both really liked the mild coconut creamy green curry of pomfret with its slices of coconut meat and floating curry leaves and kokum souring bits. Very savory, and I enjoyed retasting my leftovers today.
We were served one veg dish, cluster beans (gawar or guar) which had a typical tastyseasoning blend including mustard seeds, turmeric and more coconut products. Im still enjoying the remains, very slowly since my stomach was continuing to feel the effects of the meal well into Saturday; i have found out that the cluster beans are the source of guar gum, a common thickener, and very high in fiber, so that they should be eaten less enthusiastically than I did!
Our final treat was shirvale, rice noodles soaked in a rich creamy lovely coconut cream with coconut ice cream, cardamom, cinnamon and rose petals sprinkled over which was a definite success.
Wow, you are amazing. Thanks so much for taking note of all of the details, remembering everything and posting the pictures! I’m enjoying the meal all over again! Thanks, @JenKalb!
And, yes, Jen is correct (as usual), as were you. Rice noodles in the dessert, along with coconut strands.
Great pictures.
have a wonderful trip!! Have some pasta genovese for me in Naples and do check out the market near between Via Toledo and the Montesanto train station (I think its called Pignasecca) There is a shop on Via Toledo and othr places too that sell big taralli, rings of lard pastry with nuts and other good things in them that were really addictive. Katie Parla’s advice on her website is good for Naples.
you were right about lots and LOTs of coconut.
Great work Jen.
I really liked the flavor of the little goat cutlet. Maybe the best thing I tasted all night, along with the shirvale. And fully agree on the crepe.
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Wow, I’m glad I waited to post until Jen had posted.
I also took some photos, but their quality is embarrassingly inferior to the beautiful and detailed photos that Jen took. And I was puzzling through the special Restaurant Week Malvan menu trying to piece together some rough idea of what we had, but I didn’t realize Jen has a photographic memory and encyclopedic food knowledge. Thank very much to Jen for the tremendous recounting of our meal.
Thanks to everyone too for making Toni and me feel so welcome. We had a really good time meeting everyone.
On to the food. There were a couple of things that were merely good or very good, but overall this was one of the best Indian meals I’ve ever had. Toni too.
The highlights for me were the amboli (the opening dosa), the shrimp (which I started by sucking the heads Louisiana style; Toni said hers was overcooked and stuck to the shell, but no such problems for me), the mutton goat cutlet, and the shirvale dessert (even without the coconut ice cream, which I skipped due to lactose intolerance).
Everything else was excellent and (to me) pretty distinctive, with two minor exceptions.
The chicken curry was very good, but not that different from many other curries I’ve had before and some of the white meat chicken was a touch dry. (Toni disagrees with this and says she thought her chicken was fantastic and not at all overcooked.)
And, like others have said, the fish filet with the crunchy coating was essentially unseasoned and bland. In studying the RW menu, it looks like this was part of the “Masachi” thali, which consists of “coastal spice marinated fish filet, coated w/ semolina, side of green fish curry & sun-dried small shrimp ‘suke kolambi’ salad.” This isn’t entirely clear, but the way it’s worded makes me wonder if maybe we were supposed to dip the fish into the green pomfret curry? That sure would have added interest to it.
As for the value, I think we were treated extraordinarily generously. In reading the RW menu, customers were allowed to choose ONE of the four thalis – the fish filet, the chicken masala with kopra, the goat curry, OR the gawar beans dish. They gave each one of us ALL FOUR of these, which is pretty amazing. Even with your nice tip, we got a real bargain for a memorable meal.
If y’all eat this well in NYC all the time, we might think about moving (except that the Nats don’t play here).
And, this sign at Indian Table seemed unfair to me. But, I am naturally clumsy and so perhaps unduly sensitive.
That’s a CYA sign. Lots of places post them, to guard against being accused of serving (you guessed it!) minors or intoxicated people. Which is illegal.
I know (I was a lawyer so I know about CYA).
I wasn’t actually offended, but I did think it was funny.
That’s rava (semolina) fried fish, pretty distinctive to the region (and usually delicious). The difference is that the treatment is normally applied to thin steaks (or deboned Bombay duck), not fat chunks — which means you get a nice portion of crust with every bite (think fried chicken). Not eaten with a sauce — it is the deep fried element on the plate.
On a typical one of these thalis, there is a deep fried component, a dry-ish masala component (sukka = dry), and a thin curry (rassa / curry). Plus a vegetable, a legume, pickle, salad / kachumbar. To accompany, a bread component (chapati / puri / vade / etc) and always a generous portion of rice.
The fried bit is meant to last through the meal, sukka usually eaten with the bread first (along with the vegetarian dishes), and the curry with the rice at the end.
Re overcooked, the expected cook time (and resulting texture) of proteins in south asian cooking is pretty different than in the west. Part of it is that chicken and meat are still often free range and tough, and take a long time to tenderize. Part of it is that spices take time to meld and turn into what they’re supposed to be, and the meat is cooked together with them so flavors penetrate. But part of it is also that it’s what’s normal / expected.
That said, the fish for the Parsi dinner we had there was also disappointing, both in spicing and in being overcooked / dry for some people vs others, so maybe they are just off on fish preps they aren’t used to.
@FlemSnopes I’m surprised the chicken tasted similar to things you’ve eaten before, because there are distinctive spices and methods (stone flower, poppy seeds, sometimes tirphal / Sichuan peppercorn, 3 forms of coconut — dried whole, powdered / desiccated, and fresh, occasionally even milk, and so on). Curious if @SteveR or others who have eaten the Xacuti that’s now on the regular menu, which we had (with mushrooms) for our Goan RW meal there together found the Malvani chicken similar as they overlap significantly in spices and prep.
It’s interesting that the chicken had distinctive spices and methods, yet I found it similar to other Indian dishes. I can think of some possible reasons.
One is that by that late in the meal, I was really enjoying the conversation, so perhaps without knowing it, I just wasn’t concentrating on the food as much (though I thought I was).
Another is that a lot of what I was eating was VERY different from other Indian food that I’ve had, so perhaps the difference in the taste profile for the chicken was relatively less distinctive than the other dishes, so it didn’t stand out.
A third is that I have eaten a pretty wide range of foods from various Indian regions, but I can’t distinguish the various regions in the same way that I can with, say, Chinese food. In the DC area, the high end places tend to mix and match regions too, and I can’t always follow the regional variations. We also rarely cook Indian at home.
But who knows is the real answer.
Oh, yes, forgot…the short-grained rice they served (special?) was also delicious!
