NIRMAL'S

I was looking for a place with good vegetarian options, and this lovely restaurant appeared on my list. I will start with the punch line, and say I highly recommend this Indian restaurant in the Pioneer Square area. We started with cocktails, and I had their riff on a French 75 with the addition of mango. They happily adjusted mine with less mango. It is a lovely cocktail. We shared a plate of hara bara tikki. These were crispy fritters containing spinach, paneer, mint, jalapeno, and cilantro. These were excellent. We had three entrees. The chicken patiala was delicious. The sauce was superb! So good! I ordered the vegetable kofta curry, which were vegetable dumplings in a green curry sauce made with spinach and cashews. It was quite flavorful. The sarson kag saag is apparently a very special dish composed of long cooking mustard greens served surprisingly with a naan made with corn! It has a Northern India dish, with a very unique flavor. This is not your usual Indian restaurant. The menu is composed of selections that represent different regions in India. It makes the menu and the food extremely interesting. The food has not been "Americanized". The owner chatted with us a lot. The service was fantastic. We ended up ordering a dosa, which apparently a common rice/lentil pancake eaten in southern India, and of course gluten free. It was crispy and, interestingly, slightly sour. We had a yummy kulfi ice cream, and chikoo ice cream which is made from a fruit in the sapote family. The owner brought over a small dessert on him that he thought we would enjoy. It was basically like a skinny funnel cake dipped in syrup with a yummy dipping sauce. I think it was gulab juman. So interesting. I recommend this lovely restaurant. You will not be disappointed.

The food maybe good - who knows. It’s just not for me. Paid a lot of money (it’s pricey) and was hoping for gluten free food but tested with Nima sensor and it wasn’t. So disappointed as otherwise it’s a fine dining Indian restaurant. Also disappointed by the fact that they mentioned gluten free precautions are taken but unfortunately food wasn’t. The owner is ‘gluten intolerant’ but clearly that doesn’t work for people with celiac disease. Hopefully our restaurant industry recognizes this soon.