If you’re a Madisonian who’s been waiting for a moment of South Indian sun, put on your sunglasses. Now we have a former Madisonian you may have heard of, Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s about to run for president, and an Indian restaurant you may have missed, Rajniserving South Indian cuisine rarely seen in Madison.
Rajni, in the former Happy Wok on Commerce Drive, unfortunately doesn’t have much access for pedestrians or locals. If there’s one thing that keeps me coming back to this parking lot, it’s the reliability of the kitchen’s heat scale. Spice lovers, your experience may vary depending on how “hot” you think “hot” is, but consistency on the Scoville scale is not something you can take for granted, and Rajni is a master at it.
Rajni will grab your attention with a menu filled with unique and uncommon Indian dishes in Madison. This menu is so deeply South Indian that you’ll have to work tough to find familiar North Indian dishes.
Skip Rajni’s naan, which is gaunt, flat and superficial. The garlic version has a lot of hot raw garlic, probably too much. If you want carbs, clear some space at the table, order a dosa and prepare for a veritable surfboard of gaunt, cushioned pancake with perfectly crisp edges to arrive. Purists might say the masala dosa filled with hot potatoes is as jazzy as a dosa should be, but the delightfully named “dosa corner” on the menu offers cheese, ghee, egg, lamb — anything under the sun can be rolled into these South Indian delicacies, and I say you should order from the heart.
Parotta, a relative of the more familiar paratha but with a different base flour, is also worth your time. It’s basic but frilly and straightforward to pull apart, like a shaggy scallion pancake without the scallions. I found only one other parotta on the Madison menu.
Idli also makes an appearance at Rajni; I chose the milagai podi idli with the gunpowder spice mix. Here, the idlis are quartered and tossed in the spice mix, giving the cushioned rice cakes a slightly crispy coating with plenty of tangy flavour. It’s a great snack to share.
Punugulu is an unusual appetizer, advertised as a street food specialty, made with fermented rice, a common South Indian dish. It had a dull hint of fermented funk, but was mostly just a fried morsel. I preferred the brilliant red paneer 65, a meatless version of the popular chicken 65 that replaces cubes of Indian cheese for all of us fried curd fans. Medium spiciness was enough, but I might try it with a higher spiciness, just for fun.
Biryani is a popular menu item at American Indian restaurants, but Rajni’s special chicken biryani features petite pieces of flour-dusted, fried chicken and a squeeze of lemon, crucial to full enjoyment. There’s also a hard-boiled egg, which could have been a tad more tender. The Malabar shrimp curry came out more tomato-y than coconut-y, as recipes usually describe, but the shrimp were plentiful and tender.
The Andhra chicken curry brought out all the flavors of the beloved south Indian chilies, from grassy flesh to hot seeds. The uppu kari lamb was unlike any Indian dish I’d ever eaten, full of roasted spices and pointed, almost bitter notes; time-honored lamb might have held up better to such an aggressive sauce.
As for the more well-known dish, chicken tikka masala is, admittedly, more intense in flavour than many others I’ve had, with both the savoury and sweet notes cranked up to the max.
The chicken karaikudi chettinad was familiar enough from my north Indian experiences, wealthy but not creamy, and pleasantly hot. For those avoiding meat, the ennai katharikai kozhambu with eggplant has all the smoky depth of an Italian caponata in another hot, coconut-infused sauce. You won’t go hungry.
If you’re like me, you’ll start a meal with plans to try one of a handful of intriguing desserts, then run out of steam as the solemn arranging of boxes of leftovers starts to weigh you down. One day, I’ll find a way to make the hard choice and skip the dosa. Maybe.
Rajni Indian Cuisine
429 Commerce Drive
608-821-3362
rajnimadison.com
11:30 AM – 2:30 PM and 5:00 PM – 9:30 PM from Monday to Thursday, 11:30 AM – 2:30 PM and 5:00 PM – 10:00 PM on Fri, 11:30 AM – 10:00 PM on Sat, 11:30 AM – 9:30 PM on Sun.
5-20 dollars
