By Miles Archer Pictures by Joey Stewart
A new Indian restaurant has opened on Forest Lane, and the couple behind it may be familiar to longtime Dallas diners. Golden Leaf Bar & Grill recently opened at 8989 Forest Lane, near Forest and Abrams, from Sumathi and Ramesh Sundaram, the husband-and-wife team who opened the original Shivas Bar & Grill on Lower Greenville in 2014.
At Shivas, Sumathi was the chef and ran the kitchen while Ramesh handled the front of the house. Before coming to Dallas, the couple operated two restaurants in Lexington, Kentucky, Bombay Bar & Grill and Banana Leaf. They also spent about a decade living in Singapore before making their way to Dallas.
Golden Leaf is a full-service restaurant with a large dining room, outdoor seating and a full bar. The menu is big, moving from familiar dishes like butter chicken, tikka masala and saag to South Indian specialties, dosas, Hyderabad biryanis and Indo-Chinese dishes. Vegetarians have plenty to work with, including palak paneer, malai kofta, eggplant peanut curry, aloo gobi and several dals.
Dig a little deeper into the menu and things get more interesting. Starters include crab cutlet, lamb pepper fry, shrimp Manchurian and crispy chicken lollipops, while the tandoor turns out whole pomfret and prawns along with chicken and kebabs. There’s also a mix-and-match section where you can choose a preparation such as saag, Chettinad varuval, Malabar, vindaloo or rogan josh, then choose the protein, with options that go well beyond chicken and lamb to include salmon, prawns, goat and scallops. And then there are the Chef’s Specials: lobster and prawn butter masala, grilled lamb chops, mango seafood and, somewhat unexpectedly on an Indian menu, a grilled ribeye with garlic and potatoes.
For diners who remember Shivas when it first arrived on Greenville Avenue, Golden Leaf brings back a familiar Dallas restaurant team. It also adds Indian food and a full bar to the already varied collection of restaurants around Forest and Abrams.
Golden Leaf Bar & Grill
8989 Forest Lane, Suite 136
Dallas, Texas
