Pakwan Indian restaurant and bar — Restaurant in Colorado Springs

I have been seeing rave reviews about pakwan on the Colorado Springs Foodies FB group for a few weeks, and decided to give it a try this past week. The hostess was there to welcome us promptly, and sat us quickly. We went at 4:30, so it wasn't busy at all. The restaurant is very clean and modern feeling: very welcoming and warm(compared to the chilly day outside)!

Our server came to check on us when we first sat down, asking if we would like drinks from the bar. Neither of us drink, so we told him we would just stick with water. I think I may have seen the server roll his eyes, and we felt like from that point on he had written us off as a "no drinks, low bill, low tip table."

While ordering, we asked about the level of heat in the various dishes to determine whether to go with "hot, medium, or mild," and the server had suggested starting with the medium heat and adding chili sauce to increase the heat, if medium wasn't quite doing it. My husband is a big fan of spicy things, but you just never know how hot something's going to be when you order "hot," so he went with medium to start. He quickly discover that he would, in fact, like a bit more of a kick and asked the server if he could take him up on the offer for some chili sauce. We had nearly finished our meals by this time, because he had not come back to our table regularly. He never came back with the chili sauce, and after 15 minutes of waiting I walked to the bar to request to-go boxes and the check. The hostess brought us to-go boxes and our server stopped by the table to provide a hand held credit card machine to pay for our meal.

The food was excellent, and we will be going back, but we will likely get our food to go. It all tasted very fresh and flavorful, and we had plenty for a second meal the following evening!

I would highly suggest the waitstaff be trained to provide high quality and prompt service to all done in customers though. It's really off-putting to be at the mercy of the server, and not be checked on regularly or provided what you need during your visit. Furthermore, we did end up only leaving him a 10% tip because of the poor service we received. We had a $50 bill and would typically tip $10-15 if excellent service is provided, but because we were seemingly forgotten about, again it was not a busy time, we tipped what we felt was fair for the service provided. The server may believe that we tipped low because we didn't have an exorbitant bill, but it was specifically because we had low quality service. I will never not tip, but how good I tio is directly related to how good the service was. I think this is pretty typical, but please correct me if I am approaching this wrong.

Again, I will be returning, and the food...

First time trying Indian food that doesn't come in an envelope from the grocery store! At first the service was a little slower than other places, and the hostess didn't seem to care that she had a customer at first but I think that's part of the atmosphere. The decor was simple, clean and basic but nice. They took awhile to seat me and a little while longer than many places just to take my order. They were efficient and very polite however as things got going. Food must be made to order because it doesn't come out right away. It finally did arrive hot and smelling amazing.

The food was an explosion of flavor! The spices are nothing like anything else. I ordered the Achari Aloo Tikka, spicy little potatoes cooked in a clay oven served over pickled onions and other spices. I skipped the onions but dove into the new potatoes. Wow! Almost too spicy for me but the flavor demanded I keep eating them and now I see what they talk about with Indian cuisine. The spices kind of evolve into other flavors in your mouth as you're eating. The meal comes with mint chutney and masala gravy which were both just delicious. The rice was unique to me as well, perfectly cooked with saffron in it, so flavorful.

The wait staff were mildly attentive during the meal, not checking back until it was time for me to pay the check. Again, the service wasn't bad, just not stellar but maybe that's a usual pace for such an authentic restaurant.

The only other thing that makes me knock down the five stars to four was as I looked back on the menu, I now see they needed to have brought me a side salad with the meal which I did not get. The entree actually kind of needed it to offset the spice and round it out. The food was incredibly delicious however and I will definitely be back. It was what I'd...

Pakwan is an excellent Indian restaurant with a wonderful selection of entrees, sides, and desserts. Finally a place that has Rasmalai!

With Mo as our waiter, we were well taken care of for our party of 5. He was attentive, prompt, and always helped us with a smile. I would love to have this guy as my waiter in the future.

Each dish was packed full of flavor and spice. My group shared aloo gobi, lamb curry, butter chicken, chicken korma, and saag paneer. With a side of dahi and achar.

The Aloo Gobi was very coarse in size, which is perfect for changing up texture from curries. Medium was a good spice level for this dish, as my group had a mix of spice tolerances.

The butter chicken was creamy, with tender chicken, and probably my second favorite of the dishes on our table.

The saag paneer was our cooling dish, placed at mild. It was good, though it's hard to rate this dish as there is no vibrance to the saag dishes that I have found.

The lamb curry sauce was fantastic and the lamb was tender.

The chicken korma was probably my least favorite dish, but not at the fault of restaurant. It's flavor did not stand out the other dishes in table.

My achar was wonderful! More spice than I'm used to in achar, I loved adding it to dishes that I thought needed more spice. With achar, use only a little for a large amount of found. It's flavor is very powerful.

The Rasmalai reminds me of my times in Japan! A cooling and creamy paneer dish with condensed milk,...