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| - There's another review here which describes Saffron's interior as being more like a banquet hall than an Indian restaurant and I have to concur completely. When we arrived at around 8PM on a Saturday the large rectangular building was empty with the exception of two other pairs of customers at the round tables in the main part of the room. Down one side there are four half-booths, although only two of these appear to be available for customers, with one having a computer set up upon it and the other, outfitted with a pair of mismatched, padded office chairs appears to be used as a hangout for the proprietor's children when they aren't helping out with the restaurant.
After being instructed by a small child to "just sit anywhere" we took one of the open booths and another child brought us our menus. The covers looked slightly grubby, like they could have used a wipe down and I noticed a large stain on the side of the booth next door to ours - it looked like someone had spilled a large glass of coke over the side of the table at one point and that it had been allowed to set before washing. Chairs and tables were covered with plastic to ward off such spillages and the plastic on top of our table felt like it could have been a little cleaner also, as could the salt and pepper shakers which felt a little grimy when we moved them.
The restaurant is a bit odd and has a little raised section in the corner opposite the door and the 1970s disco ball in the middle of the room. The disco ball was just a mystery and I expected to see the four children from The Chronicles of Narnia file in and take their places in the four throne-like armchairs upon the curious dais at any moment. It was an unusual atmosphere.
After a few minutes our host arrived with a jug of room temperature water with shrink wrap covering the top. He had collected this from one of the central tables which was home to a collection of such jugs. He seemed very friendly, however, and quickly accepted our restaurant.com certificate and enthusiastically took our order. In order to meet the $35 requirement we ordered Chicken Tikka Masala, Malai Kofta, Shahi Paneer, and a selection of Naan (two garlic, one sesame).
Our host then presented us with some pappadums and the usual chutneys of tamarind and mint. The mint chutney had a nice kick to it and although the tamarind had an uncharacteristically odd "ketchupy taste" it mellowed into a pleasant aftertaste so it all worked out. We were cheerfully informed that we could ask for more pappadums if we liked and as the host departed I commented to my wife about how the friendliness and enthusiasm was enough to make me overlook some of the oddities of the place in my upcoming Yelp review.
Despite the fact that there were very few others in the restaurant we didn't see any staff again for the forty or so minutes it took for our food to arrive. I wasn't bothered at all by the longer than average wait time and the food more than made up for it anyway. My Chicken Tikka Masala was a little milder than I am used to, however the very nutty and savoury Shahi Paneer was a perfect accompaniment. I found my garlic naan to be tasty without being amazing, but my wife found her sesame naan to be a little overcooked on the bottom. The Malai Kofta was somewhat different to other incarnations of this dish that I've experienced. The sauce tasted more like a onion/butter sauce than creamy, but was tasty, however the kofta themselves were dark, somewhat sharp in flavour and fell to pieces at the merest touch of an eating utensil. Overall though, the food was excellent and we couldn't wait to return and I expected to award the restaurant four stars with a disclaimer about the slightly odd vibe to the place and maybe a friendly suggestion that they wipe up a bit in my review.
This is where things took a turn for the worse. A medium sized party had entered the restaurant and placed their orders just as I was enjoying the last bites of sauce-dipped naan and they also appeared to have a couple of take-out customers. Our host asked me how everything was to our enthusiastic responses and disappeared into the kitchen.
I got my credit card out and politely sat at the table waiting to deal with my bill. Twenty minutes later we were still waiting. Ten minutes later I asked a child if they could ask someone to help us with our bill. Twenty minutes passed and a surly woman came out, but it was to deal with a takeout customer. The child still clutched our bill and restaurant.com certificate. Finally, after about an hour of waiting we were finally dealt with and could get out of there, lamenting that we could have driven across town to our home TWICE in the time we waited to pay for our meal.
The food here is great, but being made to wait a full hour (no exaggeration) to pay, including 30 minutes after you TELL THEM you want to pay is just unacceptable, especially when there were at least three adult staff members and custom was slow.
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