Restaurant Salaam

Overall score: 7/10

Athens score: 8.7/10

As an Ohio University student, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to write about Athens food. For a small (ish) college in rural Appalachia, we have an excellent array of quality restaurants. I shouldn’t be this surprised knowing that the best restaurants around get their ingredients from farms less than 10 miles away. Many of the restaurants use locally sourced and grown produce in their dishes.

The quality of the ingredients was shown in my dish at Restaurant Salaam. I ordered the coconut chicken curry. Unfortunately, the curry was mediocre. I should preface that I have a very high standard for curry. I grew up in a household where curry was made on a regular basis and Indian food was a favorite of everyone in the household. Indian curry is a lot spicier, a lot richer and simply has a lot more spices than many American-style curries. The coconut chicken curry was underspiced, bland, creamy, and the chicken was nothing special. A good curry will knock your socks off with flavor; unfortunately, there was none of that.

The saving grace of the dish was the freshness of the ingredients. Like I said at the beginning, Athens has access to some amazing fresh produce and I have a feeling Restaurant Salaam utilizes that. It simply tasted fresh. The curry tasted like ingredients that were locally sourced rather than packaged up and shipped across the country before use.

Many curries will have rice with cardamom, fennel, or other Asian spices but there was none at Restaurant Salaam. Of course, there was cilantro but not enough to truly flavor the dish. The rice was one of the better parts of the dish. Clearly, the rice has been washed… that is a must. Always. It was also cooked to perfection. It was soft and fluffy like rice should be.

I also tried the tortellini with pesto. This dish had a lot more flavor. The vegetables were charred and it allowed the rest of the flavors to blossom. Combined with the pesto on the tortellini it was a great combination. The actual tortellini was lacking a little. The vegetables and pesto tasted fresh, but the tortellini did not. It might be too much to ask to make tortellini by hand, but I truly believe it would have been a spectacular dish. With so many fresh, farm to table aspects of the dish I thought the main star of the meal would be better.

The best part of the meal was the Hummus. For an appetizer, I had warm pita and hummus. The Hummus tasted homemade and the warm pita was absolutely delicious. The fact that this was so good and the start to my meal may be the reason the main dishes were slightly disappointing.

I was hoping for better, given Restaurant Salaam had won many awards in the community. In this small community and for the price of the dishes I was slightly disappointed. However, it is one of the better meals in Athens and there are so many good aspects of the restaurant. The fresh ingredients, warm pita, charred vegetables and the pesto are all things that the establishment does well.

Once again, I am super picky when it comes to curries. I think switching freshness for flavor is not something I want in a curry. I want both. If I can’t get both, I think flavor is more important when it comes to curry. Take my critique with a grain of salt, because if you come to Athens and are looking for a place to eat, Restaurant Salaam is a good choice. This will hopefully set your expectations at a more reasonable level.

I scored the restaurant in two categories, “Athens score” and “Overall score”. Within Athens, my college town, I believe this restaurant has many wonderful qualities that share the values of the local community. However, for those coming from out of town, it’s important to remember it may not stack up the same against restaurants around the world.