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| - We came here on the recommendation of Chow Bella, Phoenix New Times food blog. The review had raved about their menu and some of the classic Punjabi fare on the menu.
We walked in and there was a buffet on for lunch. I usually don't do buffets, but we wanted to try the food, so we decided to stay.
It was a really weird experience. There were five or six open tables (probably 12-15 tables in the whole dining room), but the one waiter seemed really slammed. It took him 10 minutes to get our water, and longer to get our naan (which we didn't even know was coming). Additionally, continuing with the apparent crush the kitchen was experiencing, the buffet was out of food at noon. For instance, there were only two, cold samosas when we arrived. My wife got the last piece of butter chicken. You had to fish in the soupy, runny sauces in most of the curries for any of the contents. They were out of rice.
We worked on our plates for 20-30 minutes or so. During that time, they brought out two bowls of pakoras. They also took away the tray of butter chicken, but never restocked it. Everything we ate was cold (except for the few hot pakoras we managed to get). Eventually one of the customers cornered the waiter and they brought out some hot samosas, because there was literally no warm food out.
Overall, the food was okay. My wife said that the single bite of butter chicken that she was lucky to get was tasty. I thought the aloo gobi and the peas with paneer were okay, but I make better at home (also, the aloo gobi had very little cauliflower and the peas were canned). Do I feel like I got my $8 worth? Yeah, I suppose (I wasn't hungry afterwards; I also wasn't happy, however). But paying $8 for all-you-can-eat Indian food should probably give all of us pause. Given that the food had been sitting for a while, and was probably not particularly good quality to begin with, I honestly spent most of the following afternoon thinking "I'm really glad I didn't get food poisoning at lunch," which is probably the best thing I can say about New India Bazaar.
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