It appears that it has been more than a year since I last reported on an Indian or other South Asian restaurant meal in the Twin Cities. And that was a review of lunch at Pizza Karma in Apple Valley—not exactly the kind of thing most people think of when they think of Indian food. What can I say? We don’t go out to eat Indian food in the Twin Cities very much more than we go out to eat Korean food. Given how much I cook at home, it’s just not a priority, even though—as I have noted on many occasions in the past—the Indian food scene in the metro has improved dramatically in the last 5-6 years as more South Indian restaurants have opened to feed the new population of South Indian immigrants in the area. Anyway, let’s address my neglect of my people’s restaurants with a look at a couple of lunches eaten this summer at the place that has topped my previous rankings of Indian/South Asian restaurants in the Twin Cities metro: Godavari.

I first ate a solo lunch en route to an appointment in Eden Prairie and then a few weeks later the whole family stopped in to eat their so-called “grand buffet” on a Sunday. Let’s take them in order.

Weekday Lunch Thali

My previous report on Godavari was also of a weekday lunch. On that occasion I ate their lunch thali (only available on weekdays). I was not very enthused by it but that did not prevent me from eating it again on this weekday visit. In case you’re wondering, they do not have a buffet on weekdays. This is not something I mourn. Thalis give you a mini-buffet experience and will generally feature much fresher food than at any buffet that does not have a constant turnover of diners. Weekday lunch at Godavari does not feature such a constant turnover of diners and so it’s a good thing they go the thali route rather than the buffet. You can choose between a veg thali and a non-veg thali. I believe the one costs $13.99 and the other $14.99 (I paid cash and didn’t get a receipt).

As I said, I was not overly-enthused by my thali last summer. But I quite enjoyed this iteration which was not identical to the previous. That thali had included a rather generic lamb curry and a likewise blah chicken butter masala and none of the other non-veg items on the thali had made much of an impression either. This year’s thali, however, featured an Andhra-style lamb curry, a chicken curry with gongura, a very tasty fish fry, and decent fried chicken—all of which I quite liked. Once again the centerpiece of the thali was a massive portion of chicken biryani which was simultaneously anonymous and tasty enough. Naan, a mixed veg dish, raita and acceptable gulab jamuns (an improvement on last year) rounded out the thali. I would have liked a dal as well but that’s my only complaint. The thali remains a one-shot deal: you don’t get refills. But it really is a lot of food: I struggled to finish it all and I’m not a light eater.

Here’s what it looked like (along with some shots of the restaurant and their a la carte menu for reference). Scroll down for my thoughts on the weekend lunch buffet.

Weekend Grand Buffet

As I noted above, I’m not generally a fan of Indian restaurant buffets in the US. But I was curious to see what Godavari’s weekend buffet looked like, given that they describe it as “grand” on the menu. I expected there might be a fresh dosa station etc. and so talked the family into the drive to Eden Prairie on a Sunday. We arrived to find the restaurant much busier than it had been at my weekday lunch (when mine was one of three occupied tables for an hour). We also found a buffet that was quite large but which stopped well short of what I would call grand. And I’m not saying this only because there was no dosa station (only some sad dosas in the veg section of the buffet). It’s just that while nothing was bad nothing was also anything very far out of the ordinary.

But it is a large spread. One side features salads, chutneys and a decent offering of non-veg dishes: tandoori wings, lemon fish fry (a big hit with our boys), butter chicken, Andhra-style chicken and goat curries and chicken kababs, and both chicken and goat dum biryanis. The veg section was more expansive still (see the slideshow below for the full spread). There was also on a side table a chafing dish full of a distressing-looking chicken alfredo—none of us were brave enough to try it.

Price? $14.99 for 12 and below, $24.99 for adults. Drinks and desserts not on the buffet are extra (these comprise kulfis from a cooler). It was both a decent value for the variety and quality of the food and nothing we need to eat again anytime soon. But if you’re not cooking Indian food of one kind or the other most days at home then you might be more taken with it.

Launch the slideshow to see what the buffet looks like. Scroll down to see what’s coming next.

My next restaurant report will also feature Indian food, and South Indian food at that. However, that will be a review of lunch at a small Indian restaurant not in southern Minnesota but in Northern California; in Menlo Park to be exact. I’ll probably put that up on Thursday.