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| - I came here with two friends last night for dinner after Bhangra in the Burgh (a Punjabi dance competition). I'd been wanting to try this place for awhile, given the positive reviews, and this presented the perfect opportunity to do so. We weren't able to try the buffet, since it was a Sat. night, so we all decided to get different versions of the thali and share dishes, which gave us a good sampling of the offerings.
Based on this sampling, I (and both of my friends) felt that the quality of the dishes was somewhat uneven. I ordered the non-veg thali, one friend ordered the curries and grill thali, and the other ordered the vegetarian thali. The chicken tandoori was pretty good, but rather small in quantity, and the chicken tikka masala was mediocre and kind of oily (I've had much better quality versions of this dish elsewhere). I didn't try the lamb curry, since I don't eat lamb, but my friends tried it and said it was decent. The same could be said for the garlic naan (hard to mess that up). The rice pudding was quite bland--I could hardly taste the seasoning that's customarily included with this dish. My friend who ordered the curries and grill thali found the goat curry that comes with it inedible. He hadn't eaten goat before, so he tried one piece and found that it consisted of a bone with very little meat, and then tried another, which was gristly, and then another, which was tough--at that point, he gave up. He found the other dishes okay to decent. The same applies to my friend who ordered the vegetarian thali. We ordered spice levels of 3-4, and found them significantly hotter than we'd like. Good thing the yogurt-cucumber sauce was included, and we ordered lassi...
I think our experience can be best summed up in the words of my one friend: "I've had better Indian food" [down the street]. Given the high ratings, I was expecting to enjoy my meal more, and for the food quality to be more consistent across the board. Having said that, I understand that this place is primarily known for their buffet, which I'll have to return to try (I'll update if/when I do). The aspect of our experience that we enjoyed the most was watching the Bollywood-esque Hindi music videos, and noticing that the lights were synchronized to the music. 3.5 stars.
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