Philadelphia Weekly

Okay, I admit it. I'm not an expert in Vietnamese, Polish, Cambodian, German, Indonesian, Malaysian, Filipino, Spanish or Middle Eastern cuisine. Or Argentine, Pakistani, Ethiopian, Brazilian, Basque or Japanese. Do you have any idea how many different types of cuisines there are in China alone? Being a real expert in any of them would require a lifetime of single-minded dedication and a sizable trust fund. Being an expert in all of them is impossible. The best a food writer can do is eat, read, eat, ask questions, eat, eat and eat some more.

The good news is the tenets of excellent food are the same the world over: fresh raw ingredients, judicious use of spices, clever blending of flavors and a talented, intuitive cook who can bring them together with love. You may not know what exactly it is you're eating, but you damn well know whether it's any good.

I found hints of this goodness at Palace at the Ben, the new fine dining Indian restaurant in the Ben Franklin House. But I didn't find consistency.

Palace at the Ben is part of the Palace of Asia group of restaurants, which has three other locations (in New Jersey and Delaware). Philly has seen its share of fine-dining Indian restaurants--Caf� Spice, Karma and An Indian Affair--and the results have been mixed.

Owner Nick Manekshaw has certainly attempted to make Palace at the Ben one of the grandest in scale. Dramatic decor in opulent red and cream, elegant upholstery and white tablecloths suggest Palace is a restaurant with ambition.

Some of the food is as delicious as the atmosphere suggests. Lamb pasanda was as good as it gets with tender chunks of garlic-and-yogurt-marinated meat brilliantly flavored with chilies, tomatoes and aromatic black peppercorns. Scooped up with a glorious puff of warm naan or onion kulcha (an onion-stuffed flatbread), it was excellent.

The soft, moist chunks of chicken in a rice-based biryani were fragrant with ginger and saffron, but topped with tomatoes so mealy and wan I'm amazed the chef wasn't ashamed to let them leave his kitchen in the middle of August.

Hariyali chicken arrived in a sauce as appealingly green as a garden, filled with coriander and green chilies that offered brightness and fiery goodness. I wish I could say the same for the navratan korma, a vegetarian dish that, despite its enticing menu description as "a royal entree," was an unpleasantly heavy combination of coconut-spiked cream sauce and flavorless vegetables that seemed to have come from the same supplier as the tomatoes.

Execution was an issue elsewhere. Panir tikka (homemade cheese) arrived on a sizzling platter but several of the cubes were already burned completely black. The three we managed to rescue made us really sorry the others didn't make it. Fried spinach balls were crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside, with a musty spice note that overwhelmed everything else.

Aloo tikki were like oversized tater tots flavored with peas and coriander, but these potato patties were still bland. Dipping sauces squiggled on the plate were so sweet they belonged on the dessert menu. An appetizer of grilled eggplant doused in yogurt (and more of those mealy tomatoes and cilantro) was mushy and bland.

For dessert, ice cream rolled in toasted cornflakes--a fun concept--was marred by freezer burn and an excess of canned whipped cream. Gulab jamun, the traditional Indian milk sweets that resemble donut holes, were delicious. How could a pastry drenched in sugar syrup and pistachios not be?

The service was attentive, but the pacing of the meal uneven, with long waits between courses. The restaurant in general seems off-kilter. Several items we ordered, from beer to ice cream flavors, weren't available. A hostess chewed gum as she led us on a walk around a mostly empty dining room, unsure where to place us. A dramatic lounge area, obviously built to accommodate a bar crowd, was empty on both visits, not even staffed by a bartender.

That stretch of Chestnut Street is lonely at night, with little foot traffic to encourage passers-by to stop in. If Palace wants to be a dining destination, it's going to have to step everything up a notch and perform like one.

Palace at the Ben
834 Chestnut St. 267.232.9100. www.palace-of-asia.com
Cuisine: Indian.
Hours: Sun.-Thurs., 11am-11pm; Fri.-Sat., 11am-midnight.
Prices: $5.95-$27.95.
Sound advice: Quiet. A little too quiet.
Atmosphere: Contemporary palace.
Service: Attentive.
Food: Impressive to iffy.