Pakwan Indian Cuisine — Restaurant in Savannah

My wife and I decided to eat here for our anniversary and we had an amazing experience. Just for context, my wife is from the UK and knows a good bit about curries as that is a really big thing over there. We had the paneer pakora for our appetizer, the flavor and texture was outstanding even without the sauces that came with it which were also very good. We had asked our waitress, Sky, if she could take our photo and she quickly returned with some roses and took some pictures for us. She had said she had talked with the chef as well and they wanted to treat us to the garlic naan! That came out with our main course- you could tell it was made fresh in-house not only from the texture and how thin it was but he had made it in a heart shape! This one was undeniably the best naan I’ve ever had and rivals the best that my wife has had. Our curries both came with basmati rice included, and was plenty of food.. The fact that it was thin was good because it wasn’t over filling and created a better texture in my opinion. Now the curries…. Wow! The chicken tikka masala was so rich and creamy and the flavor was spot on. The spice level was on point (Sky has also asked us how spicy we would like everything on a scale of 1 to 5, we both chose 3) it wasn’t too much spice but it was enough and very well balanced. Then there was the Lamb Rogan Josh…. It was my first time having this particular curry, the flavors were deep and savory, but allowed the flavor of the lamb to come through nicely. My wife said after she tried it that it was without question the best lamb Rogan Josh she’s ever had! As the dinner was about to come to an end, Sky came to check on us and let us know she had one last surprise! She had a desert for us, I believe it’s called Gulab jamun… when she brought them out my wife was definitely excited because she remembered these from her childhood. She was worried they might be too sweet, but they weren’t, they were the perfect amount of sweetness to finish off our dinner, the texture was very good and the sauce was delightful. All in all we wanted to share our experience with whoever may come across this and say that this was the single best dining experience either of us have had to date! Sky went above and beyond to make our night special and the chef did as well, we will definitely be back and have to say if I had one complaint, it would only be that we didn’t know about this...

I'll admit this was a take out order, and I've never eaten in the restaurant, so I can't judge the atmosphere or in person service. However, what I can judge is the food.

The lamb korma was some of the most watery and tasteless korma I've eaten in my life. Well, it was mostly tasteless because I bit into something that tasted musky and bitter and reminded me of the time a fly landed in my soup without me noticing. The portion is absolutely tiny compared to the price (which for online orders was $20 for 3 small pieces of meat). The rice was plain white rice and tasted stale. The half cup tiny portion is way too small as they didn't even fill the small to go container completely. I've eaten a lot of Indian food, and at most restaurants that charge this much, they'll at least have Basmati rice.

What greatly upset me, though, is my partner's food, the navaratan korma. The description on the online ordering platform said it was fresh seasonal vegetables and paneer korma. The vegetables tasted bland and even had the mouth feel of tinned veggies. There was no paneer in the portion served. The korma sauce in this dish tasted like butter (not ghee) melted in tinned vegetable juice. It was frankly the most disappointing part of the meal and definitely not worth the money.

What they don't tell you about online orders is that the $2.75 drink they offer is a small can of soda so if that tells you anything about how they inflate their prices for a product that is not worth it... there you go. Additionally, the garlic naan was tasteless and felt stale. Our mango lassis tasted less like the delicious yogurt drink we love and more like a cheap child's 'gogurt' mixture. The vegetable samosas were the least disappointing aspect of the meal, but even still, it tasted like they were fried in old oil.

I would have taken pictures, but I genuinely wasn't planning to write this review. I was going to write it off as a "date night gone wrong" with a restaurant we now know not to order from. However, I am now stuck in my bathroom with some of the most painful food poisoning I can remember having. I'd blame it on the spiciness of the food, but there was none in any of our dishes despite our request. I would give our experience with this restaurant a 0 star rating if I could. Hopefully it was simply an off night for them, but I am not ordering...

The date of this review is 06/20/2024, just in case they fix any of things I mention below.

This used to be my favorite Indian restaurant. I used to recommend it to everyone. I got a Togo order yesterday for the whole office. Today my sister, parents, and I went and dined in. As of today, I’m no longer a fan. The food still tastes okay, but it’s not the same. It’s nothing special and definitely not worth the prices.

We get in the restaurant and we’re seated immediately. We’re the only ones there. While we’re waiting for him to come back to take our drink order, a female comes in and he seats her and then leaves and goes back and takes her drink order and brings her drink back. We order our food with our drinks and she still got her food first.

My dad needed to clean his hands and the hand sanitizer by the door was out.

Both my dad and I used the bathrooms. Both the men’s and the women’s smelled like feces. There’s a weird brown water puddle in the women’s bathroom and there’s no paper towels.

The prices have increased drastically. The in restaurant portions have decreased, no free refills on rice, no free refills on ANY drinks, and the drink prices are $2.50 for Coca Cola products.

My dad asked for the madras coffee. After bringing out 3 out of 4 of our drinks, we asked about my dad’s coffee. The waiter said it’ll come out with the meal. Then after bringing out all our food he says there’s no more coffee. So my dad had water.

The kulcha is very expensive at $7.00 each. We paid $28 just for bread to go with each of our meals.

If you ask for mild spice but don’t want the food to be sweet, they make it spicy. You have to pick between sweet or too spicy for people that don’t eat spicy food. They used to have some savory dishes but now most things are sweet apparently.

My dad got mild spice and his food was too spicy. My sister got medium spice and hers wasn’t spicy enough for her.

Then we get the receipt and they added 20% gratuity for our party of 4. And no there were no signs stating they did that. So gratuity was $22! And they added a 3.95% fee for not using cash.

But they did give us free rice pudding for dessert which we had...