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| - There are a few places that I like for Indian food and all of them are in the GTA West. This isn't one of them!! Thanks to my co-workers, they've immersed me in the ins and outs of Indian food. I love the richness of the curries and the spices they use in authentic cooking. The Host is somewhat authentic but it really does cater towards the North American palette. If you're looking for flavourful dishes, this is not your place. The dishes are milder here, a lot of the tomato based dishes taste the same, and they primarily taste of onion and cumin only.
The restaurant is pretty old but they've kept in pretty good condition... it's possibly because it doesn't have a lot of traffic. It's one of the more expensive options in Mississauga for Indian food. I think it believes it is the 'upscale' dining experience. The decor is rasteful and it does have several private room for you to use. It is clean... that I will give it full credit for! My co-workers have dragged me to a few Indian places where I was afraid to sit down.
The service was pretty abyssmal. We had a group of 10 people here and the room was only 20% full. It took nearly 10 minutes to get our waters and this is when we reminded them twice as well. Perhaps we looked young but the staff wouldn't even look in our direction half the time. We had to flag them down (airport landing style) to order. Between all of us, we must have ordered 12 things to share. Butter chicken, tikka masala, murgh labradar, shahi murgh, fish curry, shrimp coconut curry, chicken tandoori, chana masala, and saag paneer. (I know that isn't 12 things but I can't remember what else we ordered :P). We also ordered lots of naan. For a while, we just sat talking happily but after 30 minutes of no staff or dishes showing up at our table, we wondered what was going on. We asked them if the dishes will come out soon and they said 'yes yes' soon. Another 15 minutes passed by and we asked them again! We got the
'yes yes' response. After 50 minutes, a friend got up and went to the manager to ask them what was going on... unapologetically, he just told us that we would get our food soon.
After an hour, the dishes started to arrive. We were starved at this point. We all dug into the jasmine rice and started to pile on the curries. A few people wanted to wait for the naan so they didn't start eating yet. I was too hungry to wait so I tried the seafood first since I love it... normally. The shrimp was over done... rubbery and tough. It was not good at all. I'm not sure how much coconut milk they put into this curry because it was watery instead of rich. I then tried the saag paneer. It was decent but relatively unflavourful to other places I've been to. It was a touch too oily perhaps. The fish curry was ok. As I made my way through the chicken curries, I noticed that a few of the chicken pieces were a bit tough as if they had the connective tissue in them. I wasn't the only one who noticed it at my table. Though the waiter claim to use chicken breast, it was more like chicken leg with connective tissue in it. The tikka masala and butter chicken sauce was really really similar... the only difference was the amount of ghee they put in the butter chicken. You can feel the oily coating on your tongue as you ate the butter chicken. It was too much. I like butter chicken for the flavour and richness but this was like they just dumped fat in.
About those naan ... they showed up 15 minutes. Waaaay too late but oddly enough, they were the only saving grace of the entire meal. They were large, well charred in some spots, and with the right amount of butter on it to give it flavour without being oily. I wish whoever prepared the naan also cooked the rest of the meal. The naan raises this review up from 1 star to 2.
If you want a good Indian meal in an environment where you're not afraid to sit down and have good service, head to Avani instead. It's just 10 minutes north. Tandoori Flame in Brampton isn't a bad buffet either. Just head anywhere else but here for 'upscale' Indian food.
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