New Balaka Restaurant

Lovely and quite upscale restaurant. Hit this place up for the lunch special: 5.95 for an appetizer, a main course of a curry, and coffee/​ice cream for dessert. The quality of the food met my expectations; they also gave a lot of food. Apparently they don’t give much ice cream so I went for the coffee finish.
It’s no London’s East End, but you are a long ways from London if you haven’t noticed.

When all the locals, including shopkeepers, caddies and hotel staff recommend the Balaka when you ask «so, where do the locals go for really great food?», you know you have to go!
This was, hands down, the best meal I ate in Scotland. For any of you skeptics who believe the UK is doomed to have gross food (and you’re pretty much right), this place will change your mind.
Everything was incredibly fresh, really delicious and the menu very unique — no marginal, generic poser-​Indian-​Pakistani fare like what we get in the U.S. The servers were delighted to explain and recommend their favorite dishes and clearly took a lot of pride in how awesome their food is. The white tablecloth service was top-​notch. Oddly, the dining room was very empty for an early dinner, but the customers coming in for take away was nonstop the whole time.
Score!

The Balaka is an amazing restaurant and was always my favourite when I lived in St Andrews. I would go there just for the peschwari naan bread which is second to none. The staff are very attentive and on one occasion the owner of the restaurant took our table on a tour of the herb garden. They grow all their own fresh herbs at the back. On another occasion it was someone’s birthday and they gave us all complementary drinks and a free dessert. A brilliant restaurant — you will not be disappointed!

Had a delightful curry dinner, though the entrée was not as spicy as I’d hoped. The staff are friendly and the service was good.

The Balaka has always had a good name for itself, so I was really looking forward to dining there. The service was very good when my partner and I went (we rocked in quite late one evening following a day in Edinburgh), the staff happy to answer the questions we had. I wasn’t feeling too experimental (too hungry!) so I opted for the chicken korma. There was nothing wrong with it essentially, but the chicken was a little overcooked and obviously not of amazing quality. I get a little sad that the indian restaurants I have been to seem to believe that curries that are easy on the heat should taste of nothing at all. There are so many flavours and spices that won’t result in my mouth going on fire that I am always disappointed I can never find a really tasty mild curry. Am I asking too much? (I make my own and it doesn’t burn my mouth and it still has lots and lots of taste to it!). However, it is 100% worth going to the Balaka purely for the naan bread! I know, how silly of me, but really, it was hands down the best peshwari naan I’ve ever had. My partner and I couldn’t chomp our way through as much as they gave us, I should have asked to take the rest home for a snack later on! Two main courses with rice and naan and two soft drinks came to about £40 for us. There are cheaper places to get (in my opinion) better curries, but it was still an enjoyable visit.