October, 1999

New Madras Palace
101 Lexington Avenue (between 27th and 28th Streets)
Phone: 212-889-3477
Hours: 11-10:30 daily; wheelchair accessible (although the bathroom is down a flight of stairs)
Credit cards welcome

The block between 27th and 28th Streets on Lexington Avenue—the epicenter of Manhattan’s Little India—keeps getting greener and greener. It could be that the trees are displaying a few more leaves, or the weeds taking a late summer hold, but from my perspective it is due to the sprouting of vegetarian restaurants. The venerable Madras Mahal has been joined by the very pleasant Pongal, nearly next door on the west side of the street (a development which may have led to Madras Mahal sprucing up its notoriously functional interior), and now, across the street, New Madras Palace.

This new restaurant also suffers from a decor deficit—inside and outside—but that could be just growing pains. There is enough to make up for the unadorned white and mirrored walls and functional canopy, at least for now: a welcoming and relaxed ambiance, a courteous staff, and some really great food. And that all comes with a silver lining. All the dishes at New Madras Palace are prepared dairy free, with milk or yogurt only added if requested. Curries, dhosas (the thin, crepe-like wrap made from lentil flower) and utthappam (another non-wheat pancake) are all cooked with soy oil.

Curry, it might seem to some, defines Indian food and in some places it may. But Indian cuisine comprises a wide range of styles, flavors, and emphases—not surprising in a country with nearly 20 different major languages and highly diverse cultural traditions and practices. Just about all the staff at New Madras Palace come from Madras, a thriving city on the southeast coast of India, known for its dance and dance institutes, and an innovative garbage collection system. It is also known for its food, and at New Madras Palace, the emphasis is on dosai, utthappam and iddly (steamed lentil and rice flour cakes, usually drenched in a lentil-based vegetable gravy). But the restaurant also represents other traditions in Indian cooking; the menu has nearly 20 curry dishes, lots of bread choices (chapatis come draped over each other to form a star), and appetizers from all over India.

What’s good? Well, nearly everything, so watch out for overeating (I speak from experience). In fact, the food at New Madras Palace even looks good. There’s almost a glow to it, and the dishes that are meant to look beige are a pleasing beige, as if lit from within. The mixed vegetable utthappam ($5.95) is delicious—soft, chewy, and the onions, peas, and tomatoes cooked into it like a pizza taste incredibly fresh. It comes with a really good coconut chutney (you can even taste the coconut at the end of a bite) and sambar, a spiced lentil bean sauce spiked with vegetables. Dosai ($5.45 to $8.95 for the works—spicy and with fresh cilantro) come rolled and lightly browned, filled with subtly spiced potatoes and onions. They are surprisingly un-greasy and among the best I have had in New York.

The vegetable and legume curries at New Madras Palace are also very good, a somewhat surprising feat for a South Indian restaurant, where non-dosai, iddly or utthappam dishes often seem perfunctory. Here they scintillate. Some of the standouts: gobi masala ($7.95), cauliflower cooked with tomato, onions, and spices, that is incredibly creamy and sweet. This caused me to wonder whether dairy or even sugar had been added, and to ask. The secret, I found out, is in the onions. They are cooked to a sweet near-paste that doesn’t overwhelm the other flavors. Although I normally merely tolerate cauliflower (eating it because it’s good for me) at New Madras Palace, I relished it. Also good was the beingan burtha ($7.95, baked eggplant), in which the eggplant was chewy and pungent, and the onions did their glistening, sweetening thing. Eating the curries left hardly any room for the white rice flavored with just a few peas that accompanied them, and the level of spice (moderate) didn’t require gorging on rice to keep the tastes balanced.

Not everything at New Madras Palace is without its kinks. A samosa appetizer ($3.45, two fried, cone-shaped turnovers filled with spiced potato and peas) was too greasy for me on the outside. But the inside vegetables sustained the freshness that seems to pervade New Madras Palace’s cooking. Toasted pappadum ($1.50 for two), mildly spiced lentil wafers, were a bit soggy.

I always pass on the very sweet, and normally dairy-intensive Indian desserts, but for those who like to indulge, New Madras Palace has a full retinue in which they let the dairy and sweetener fly: gulub jamun ($2.95, cheese balls in a sweet syrup), gajar halwa ($2.95, shredded carrots with condensed milk in syrup), and more. Instead, I enjoyed New Madras Palace’s masala chai, without milk ($1.00). Served in sweet, pink rose-adorned cups and saucers, like a 1950s afternoon party, the tea inside is very good and lacks the bitterness that often remains when the milk is left out. Masala coffee ($1.00) is also offered, along with fresh mango juice and a variety of lassi (yogurt, rosewater, and honey) drinks ($2.45 to $2.95).

One thing New Madras Palace does suffer from is a slightly too Indian bathroom—limited room, toilet paper, and light, but that, too can be corrected. The restaurant offers "business luncheon specials" weekdays from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., an affordable three courses at $6.25, and combination dinners ($12.95) where the South Indian tradition of thali, eating a number of small dishes from a special tin plate (think a pizza pan but somewhat smaller), comes on strong.

I’m not sure about its Y2K readiness, but in many ways, New Madras Palace is fit for the new millennium: affordable, accessible, unpretentious, generally vegan, and backed by a low-key, modern Indian music soundtrack. Now, if only the walls could get some flavor.

Mia MacDonald is a writer and animal and environmental activist. She has spent time in South India and loves nearly all Indian vegetarian food.

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