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| - Service: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Food: 4 stars
Price: 5 stars (easily under $10/person)
Atmosphere: 3.5 stars (4+ if you don't mind constant Bollywood music videos)
India Garden is one of my favorite restaurants in Pittsburgh. I really like the huge variety of dishes, which includes many vegetarian dishes. I'm not sure how vegan they are: they taste like they're cooked with ghee (clarified butter). There's this one dish made with spinach and mustard greens which looks like a dip, and is absolutely delicious. They're pretty good about making it as spicy or as mild as you would like.
Their buffets (lunch buffet during the week and dinner buffet on Sunday) usually have a pretty large selection. When I've gone, there has always been rice, naan, three or four vegetable dishes, pakoras, three or four meat dishes, a salad bar, and some deserts.
The prices are quite reasonable, if you do happen to pay full price. But there are regularly coupons in the City Paper, they offer half-price meals from 4-6pm and from 10pm to midnight, and a student ID will get you a 15% discount. It's not the Ritz, but it's good, hearty, large portions of slightly greasy food at a great price.
A NOTE ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE: Every time I have been to India Garden, there have been at least three VERY LARGE flat-panel TVs playing Bollywood music videos. I have only found one table in the whole place that doesn't leave you facing at least one of these TVs. I never watch TV, so I find the constant brightly colored moving images very distracting. It is a compliment to their food that I keep going despite the fact that the TVs interfere with my dinner conversations. Thankfully, they usually keep the sound off, and just play some more mellow Indian music on the stereo.
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