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| - Okay, it almost seems a shame to burst the bubble of the positive reviews of this place, but I just have to.
I'm not an Indian food expert, but I am a serious enthusiast and I've eaten at dozens of Indian places on three continents, not to mention my family being from the vicinity of that area of the world and therefore having grown up on curry and rice and all things spice.
We went here for lunch yesterday (Sunday), thanks to a Yelp/Aloqa recommendation after we'd had a romp at Estrella Mountain Park and were starving. The place was almost deserted at 1pm, with only one other table occupied - fair enough. We went for the buffet. And I have to say, it was simply "okay". The buffet didn't have a particularly wide variety of stuff - several items were cheap regulars such as the saag and the dhal - spinach and lentils for the uninitiated. They did have aloo zucchini, never seen that before - tasted okay, about as good as I'd have been able to make it (and that's actually not a compliment). No lamb dishes - disappointing, but unfortunately this is also rare.
Flavorwise, I found it boring and unspectacular. Saag is saag, tandoori chicken is tandoori chicken, except their chicken was very light on the tandoori smoke flavour. None of the food left the slight zing on my tongue that it should have. Rice was okay, but then you typically can't go wrong with cooking basmati (although another reviewer's mileage apparently differed on this count). We had our almost-3-year-old along and he did have a little rice, chicken and beef - it was his first real curry and thus a pretty substantial milestone for us. Then the wife went to get a little kheer and a gulab jamun ball. The kheer was watery but tasted okay - compared unfavourably to the sabudaana kheer at India Palace. The jamun ball was almost completely solid - you had to press real hard with a fork to cut it, normally they're nice and soft and soaked. However, another one I got was normal - so it was just the luck of the draw there. Beef curry was nice, although the first piece I ate was mainly fat - whatever, you get that and I don't mind it. The fried pakoras can normally be cut through with a fork. These you had to saw through with a knife - not great, chewy to the point of almost being crunchy. No samosas in the buffet. The naan was unusual. I've had a LOT of naan before and this stuff was the uncommon kind, not thick and pita-ey but instead a little more like a roti. It tasted very fresh - we had plain and also garlic - and the wife really liked it. Kid did too. I personally prefer the other sort of naan - softer and a little more substance to it, but this one had merit regardless. However, it took at least fifteen minutes after our food was served before the naan arrived.
All up, middle of the road as far as I'm concerned, although the wife quite liked it. Note that this is for the buffet only - we did not have a-la-carte and perhaps the to-order cooked food may have tasted better. I've had better buffets - the best one in Phoenix west of the 17 IMO is India Palace - a wider variety, a lot busier (as a result, I'm sure) and more flavourful food. Admittedly, I haven't tried any other Indian places south of Bell but west of the 17 except for Sutra. Bell appears to have most of them?
I would normally have given this place a flat three stars, but I'm going to give it an extra half and round up for a few reasons. Firstly, the waiter was real nice and very attentive - up to the standard of a typical US chain place, rather than the silent wanderers with the Easter Island statue facial expressions at other buffets who do no more than refill your water and clear your dirty dishes every fifteen minutes or so. He was asking us how we were doing, offered refills of my wife's iced tea at appropriate times etc. Spot on. Next, there's a buffet discount where all kids under 10 are $5 - however, we noticed that they appropriately knocked the price down to $3.50 for us, unbidden and I guess for the simple reason that he was set up in a high chair and obviously only ate 1/4 of a breakfast bowl worth of food in total. Third, the place had nice decor (although I was a bit concerned there were no tablecloths, with my kid banging his plastic sippy cup and spilling sh1t all over the tabletop) and thankfully they didn't have sh1tapple wudda-wudda-waa-waa pretentious bhangra muzak playing in a cheap attempt at making you feel like you're actually in India.
I'd eat here again, but only if I'm in the area and DYING for Indian food. It simply didn't measure up, either buffet-wise or flavour-wise. For first-timers, I can see how they would have enjoyed the experience - clean seating area, Americanized flavours and a good waiter. My experience, however, has been burned in over almost four decades and I've kicked the tyres of more cuisines from this area of the world than I can recount, especially Indian. Three and a half, rounded up to four, Seacrest out.
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