Queen's a regal force for Indian cuisine

JAKARTA (JP): Queen's was a mainstay of Indian cuisine when restaurants offering dishes from the subcontinent were few and far between in Jakarta.

That was in the early 1990s, when the restaurant occupied a tall, narrow building on Jl. Veteran and was twinned appropriately with King's, the latter serving up food from northern India. It was good, hearty, tasty fare, served in a no- frills atmosphere of steel-backed chairs and formica tables. Diners got good food for what they paid, which was not that much.

Queen's Tandoor has now moved to the heart of Jakarta, on Jl. Thamrin's border with Jl. Sudirman, with such prestigious neighbors as the President Hotel, the Grand Hyatt and Plaza Indonesia. Its more upmarket and accessible address today is in the basement of Permata Plaza, adjacent to the President Hotel; the quest for this diner was to find out if taste was lost in the move.

There is a lot more to the decor today, with various pieces of wooden furniture, no less than two televisions sets (more on them later) and even an Indian film video library at the entrance.

Memory fails me on whether the Queen's of old offered Chinese fare in addition to its Indian staples. Today, it most definitely does, with a separate menu for Chinese cuisine. We decided to stick to Indian choices because that was how Epicurus remembered the restaurant from its Veteran address.

We started with pappadum masala, a frisbee-sized thin pancake smothered with chopped raw onions and fresh tomatoes, plus a liberal sprinkling of curry powder. As both diners love onions and spices, it was a hit even though it was a bit oily, grease forming little rivulets among the mass of vegetables. Our order of one pappadum (Rp 15,500) proved correct; it was too large to finish in one go, and we continued to nibble on it throughout the meal.

The main course items were a vegetable tomato omelet (Rp 12,500); mutton palak, consisting of chunks of meat in a thick spinach sauce (Rp 30,500); mankali dhal, the thick, heavily spiced stew of black lentils in a creamy sauce (Rp 21,500); and chicken vindaloo (Rp 24,500).

The latter item left this diner confused. The chunks of chicken and potatoes were in a tangy red sauce, although Epicurus remembered it from at least one other restaurant as a much hotter proposition with a distinctly dark sauce.

But it was a question, not a gripe, and the chicken, although not what Epicurus had in mind, was undeniably good. The other dishes also were delicious, particularly the mutton, and thankfully the lentils were not overcooked.

The pappadum (which we eventually finished) and the main courses (which we could not) were more than enough to fill us up for the relatively inexpensive price of Rp 176,000, which also included two coffees, an apple juice and two mineral waters. It was a good meal, not quite as Epicurus remembered it, but then much has changed over the last five or six years since the last visit.

What was a noticeable difference from before was the continual presence of the staff, who made themselves busy by standing a couple of meters from the table and keeping a watchful eye on the matters before them. Epicurus initially joked about needing a restraining order for them and that they were suffering from separation anxiety, but their hovering soon became an irritation. Part of the problem may have been that it was a slow Sunday lunchtime, but there were other tables to take care of, too.

It was not much better when they could tear themselves away from being at our service to watch the box, or rather boxes. The two televisions at opposite ends of the room offered competing programming, with the army of waiters setting up two temporary camps to offer allegiance to their favorites. Alas, they were soon back before our very eyes, ready to sweep away an offending dish before returning to sentry duty. It is a hard situation to deal with, and one is not about to bark "skidaddle, all of you" if a return trip to the restaurant is in the offing.

The Queen's experience in a nutshell? It was good food on a royal scale, but we would have preferred a little more "imperious" service.

--Epicurus