Samseong curry restaurant, Set B hot on solid fuel: India The Durbar

A long-overdue weekend outing in Seoul. What's for dinner tonight!? Indian curry, decided!

• India The Durbar Samseong Station Branch
• 📍 서울 강남구 삼성로84길 15 B1층
• ✔️ 9-minute walk from Samseong Station Exit 4
• ⏰ Mon – Sun 11:00 – 23:00
• ✔️ Last order 22:30
• 🚗 No parking on site
• ✔️ Use nearby public parking lot

What is India The Durbar, the Indian curry restaurant near Samseong Station?

I think my very first Indian curry experience, ages and ages ago, was at Everest in Dongmyo — and even Everest has branches popping up everywhere these days, and Indian curry specialty restaurants in general have gotten a lot more common. India The Durbar seems to be one of them?!

The interior has that unmistakable India feel right from the entrance. Just like Everest, this place is actually run by real Indian people.

Quite a lot of tables. With so many offices nearby, it looked like it could handle group parties too, and since I visited on a weekend, it was relatively quiet.

India The Durbar menu: solo sets make eating alone easy

The menu!! India The Durbar has two-person set menus, of course, but also a one-person set, so it looked pretty doable for solo dining too.

And seriously, the menu is huge. From appetizers, salads, soups, to several kinds of tandoori, and above all a ton of curry options. Broadly split into vegetable curry / chicken curry / lamb curry / shrimp curry, and each category alone seems to have 8-9 kinds. Drinks and alcohol options are pretty varied too. Seems like a group with different tastes could all go together and each be happy 🤣🤣

Out of the huge menu, our choice was the India The Durbar Set B, made up of green salad, boneless tandoori chicken, 2 curries (we picked palak paneer / butter chicken makhani), naan, rice, and 2 glasses of lassi.

Set B course, from tangerine-dressing green salad to lassi

The green salad came out first. The dressing was tangerine sauce! There were even a few pieces of canned tangerine in it — it's been ages since I had such a sweet salad (✿◡‿◡)

A somehow Korean-feeling side dish haha. That onion dish that looked like kimchi was genuinely delicious.

Tandoori chicken! This chicken had no bones, boneless, which made it even easier to eat.

You could squeeze lemon juice over it and eat it plain, or dip it in the sauce that came with it, or dip it in the curry — whatever suited my own taste!

And this is the lassi! Lassi is apparently made by mixing dahi, Indian-style yogurt, with water and spices, salt, pepper etc. and whipping it into froth — it tasted a bit like a drinking yogurt.

Palak paneer vs butter chicken makhani: how do they taste?

Today's mains, the curries!!! Palak paneer, a spinach curry made with spinach and Indian-style cheese, and butter chicken makhani, a chicken curry flavored with fresh tomatoes, cream, and spices.

They served up a really big naan, piping hot too.

The chicken curry was super thick, with big chunks of chicken packed inside. Its aroma was deep and its flavor was heavy too. A truly rich, intense curry taste.

In contrast, the palak paneer was the milder curry. It had several cube-shaped pieces of cheese in it too. The curries are kept warm continuously by solid fuel, so we got to eat them piping hot all the way to the end of the meal.

Dipped the spinach curry and the chicken curry into naan, poured them over rice. The curries were so good we ordered extra naan and scraped the bowls completely clean.

Parking near India The Durbar: free at the public lot on weekends

India The Durbar Samseong Station Branch has no parking of its own, so we used the nearby public parking lot instead — it opens for free outside operating hours, so since we visited on the weekend, it was free for us. Felt like I stumbled onto a nice parking hack lol.

After the meal we took a look around Hyundai Department Store across the street too, and it was a really, really satisfying meal! A great spot for solo dining near Samseong Station and Coex, and also a solid, affordable pick for a date or lunch — an Indian curry restaurant approved!