Benares
“It's definitely a hidden gem on one of the streets of TriBeCa (or at least I think it's hidden).”
“The lunch special is $12.95 and includes generous portions of a starter, entree and dessert along with lentils, naan and rice.”
“The "prix fix" lunch was outstanding and the service was fast and professional.”
Benares
Takes Reservations: Yes
Delivery: Yes
Take-out: Yes
Accepts Credit Cards: Yes
Good for Kids: Yes
Good for Groups: Yes
Waiter Service: Yes
Caters: Yes
Price range.
$$ Price range $11-30
8 reviews
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Yelpers, you didn't lead us astray! I found this place in a pinch for a quick meal before we had to dash to a friend's place, and this place truly wowed. If only this place was around the corner from my home, I'd be here every week. And it's quite affordable with very generous portions, friendly and attentive service, in a nicely decorated space.
For around $25 before tax and tip, my husband I shared the saag paneer lunch special with palak chaat, and a peshwari chickpea dish, with garlic naan and rice. The palak chaat was light, yet perfectly balanced between tamarind and mint, with chickpeas and crispy crackers. Then, we received a bowl of brightly colored orange, green, and yellow almost shrimp cracker-like fritters to dip with the mint and tamarind sauces. The saag paneer was flavorful without being oily — the paneer, among the best I've had in North America. The peshwari chickpeas were the rockstar of lunch — just incredibly deep flavors, a perfect blend of spices, clearly simmered for a long period of time and cooked with such love and care, even a different texture, more luscious than a typical chana masala. The rice was perfectly cooked — not too dry, not overly cooked. The naan was a tad cold when it came out, but really crispy and not at all oily. This was such a treat! We'll definitely be back.
Benares is an Indian restaurant in Tribeca. I came here for a work dinner with 20 people. You should definitely call in advance for large groups. They were nice and had a space for our group with one week's notice. Someone called me a day before to confirm and was very nice when I said we might be late for our reservation.
The space is nice and has high ceilings. Enough elbow room and separation from other groups of diners. The noise level is pretty quiet – I could hear everyone near me talk.
There was confusion on how we would order food. Appetizers started coming out all over the table, and the servers said that they would serve it family-style and just choose entrees for the table (instead of each person ordering an entree). I was fine with that, but they did not tell us which entrees they would choose. However, the ones they chose were great. They asked if anyone was vegetarian and made sure there were enough vegetarian options.
The food was delicious and present quite nicely. The bill came out to be around $50 per person. The average price per person is definitely less expensive if you come with smaller groups.
It was a great choice for my work dinner and I'm glad I chose Benares!
Service is very abrupt. Shahi paneer from here is the most bland Indian dish I've ever had. Lassi is watery and tastes like chemical. But paratha is done well, and my friend who had the andhra chicken curry enjoyed it. Free crackers, chutneys and rice are some nice touches.
Yes, this place is really great. I came here to dinner with my sister (intl food connoisseur) and we were both very pleased.
Hostess:
She was very odd and didn't talk much – seemed to just want to seat me as fast as she could and get back to her post
Food:
We got 3 appetizers and ended up going home with leftovers
Kakori Kebab – ground lamb kebab which was relatively spicy. it came with some sort of yogurt sauce which was ON POINT. Really tasty. there were 4 pieces about 4 inches in length each
Paneer Tikka – cheese and yogurt which melted in your mouth. Especially with some naan it was amazing. They were squares about 2inches x 2 inches. it came with 4 pieces
Koli Erachi – pieces of chicken with delicious sauce on it and pieces of naan around it.
My descriptions do not do it justice – the food was filled with flavor with just the right amount of spicy-ness. I have leftovers for lunch today which is taking a lot of energy to not break into now.
Drinks:
Happy hour on weekdays until 7pm (half off all drinks). I had the Mango Martini which was very good and my sister had the Kingfisher beer – which was also tasty
Service:
The service was great! Our waiter always kept our water glasses filled and the food came out pretty quickly. It seemed like he had a lot of tables but never neglected any of them.
There is a bar in the front which has no more than 8 chairs with a TV as well. The place is small so I suggest making a reservation or going in early. We went around 6 and the place was pretty open but most of the tables were reserved and filled up about 30 minutes later.
Benaras Restaurant is located in Tribeca close to 9/11 memorial and wall street.
We were here for lunch and we ordered from the pirx fix menu.
The food was awesome all around. The service was a little slow, but decent.
Each table had fritters and chutneys (sweet and spicy) for us to munch on while we waited for food.
The Malai kabab was great Chicken Vindaloo was spicy and tasty.
Each meal comes with Naan, basmati rice and dal which is great. Dessert did not have options to choose from. On this day, the dessert was rice pudding which was pretty good.
Overall, our best lunch in NYC.
This review is for delivery only. It started off well with tasty samosas, but that was the highlight. The lamb saag was very watery and bland, but there was plenty of large chunks of meat. The peswarhi naan was pink (!) inside, not at all what I expected. Overall a miss and I'll stick with delivery from Ruchi.
3-3.5 stars. Pros: GREAT lunch specials ($16.95 prix fixe with an appetizer, main course AND naan). The portion is also HUGE: you can definitely feed two with one lunch special. Cons: There's just something off about the food. I tried the fish amritsari appetizer-essentially spiced with that is deep-fried with some batter covering the fish and it was way too sour/salty. The lamb vindaloo was very flavorful but extremely spicy in a way that was too dominating rather than savory. Finally, the naan was average-a little too chewy and lacked a bit of flavor.
I'm a little disappointed given all of the positive reviews. Maybe I just didn't order the right things, but in general just felt that everything was either overdone or underdone in some way.
Lunch specials are great … we ordered the andhra chicken, goat curry, paneer makhani and they all were fantastic. Will definitely go ahead and recommend to colleagues. Also at a decent price range – not quite cheap but 13$ for lunch…