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| - Takeaway has never been so complicated. Alas.
On a cold near-winter's night I rang up Ambiyan, having heard good things about it. The very-youthful-sounding girl on the line wasn't sure about the things I was ordering, and I had to repeat each item. Her voice wasn't confident she knew the menu. Oh dear. Equally disappointing, the lass didn't have a price ready once I'd placed my order; upon asking, she went to check & *poof* I was inadvertently hung up on. Thank goodness I'd provided my number -she did ring me back, let me know the price, and confirm the order.
Twenty minutes later, I went in to Ambiyan to pick up my food. My order was smartly packed in a flat-bottomed paper bag with a handle. The food was in sturdy, reuseable, biodegradeable containers. Very posh, very practical. Alas, it wasn't so easy to just pay and walk off with my nice bag full of heavenly-scented Indian goodies.
A server -the same I assumed who asnwered the phone -didn't note I was paying with interac (despite my confirming over the phone that they took it & telling her when I handed over the card) -and she kept returning to me saying, "It's expired." Ummm. Try again. Soon it was discovered their interac line was down (?!). It took a full 20 minutes to resolve.
During this time I was not offered anything, nor was any apology given.
It was a bustling Friday night, true, but surely servers at a professional establishment should be able to handle the traffic volume? I counted at least four servers, plus the bartender, on that night. And the restaurant wasn't full. This makes me wonder if Ambiyan's staff isn't quite as experienced as they need to be. The bartender thankfully got the wireless technology in order, but not before saying "It's been doing this all day." Really? They why leave it to fix on a busy Friday night? It was kind of shocking, and reflects badly, I think, on the restaurant. That's a shame. Their food is quite good.
When I finally did get to the contents of my nice posh bag, everything was near-cold, of course. But after a quick heat-up, it was the perfect thing to fend off the late-November chills. Dhal Makhani was rich, gingery, and had a nice texture with creamy lentils and veg. Saag Paneer, one of my all-time favorite food dishes, was considerably more runny (and spicy!) than I'm used to it being, but it had a good spicy-spinach taste and generous chunks of tender paneer. Eggplant Bharta was chalk-full of veggie chunks and had a nice ginger-garlic zing to it. Kudos to the kitchen for very nice (if safe) spicing.
The naan seemed rushed -it was not fully cooked but puffed up very nicely with five minutes or so in the oven on high.
Ambiyan's food is good, not great for the price, but solid, and certainly a nice introduction for those not used to eating Indian. I would caution Ambiyan to those who a/ use interac; and b/ phone their orders in; c/ have a really low tolerance for incompetent service. A bit of training, a bit more professionalism, perhaps a slightly more experienced (and educated) wait staff... and a less timid hand in the kitchen would all work in Ambiyan's favor.
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