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| - We have tried Ambar India's lunch buffet a couple of times and the dinner buffet once. Both are similar. And, overall, the food isn't bad per se but it's not in the same league as Indian restaurants in Chicago. In fact, Bombay Indian Grill on First Street, Champaign had better ambiance and a superior buffet selection at about the same price but it closed down, leaving Ambar the only Indian buffet in town.
Food's hit or miss here. Chicken pakora starter isn't always part of the spread but it tastes good. Tikka masala's perfectly fine but the tough and almost flavorless tandoori chicken's nothing to write home about. Ditto for lamb curry, which was essentially chewy meat in a generic brown sauce.
Naan bread's always lukewarm. However, the bhatura bread they had as part of a rather nice Mother's Day buffet spread a couple of years ago, although very calorific, wasn't bad at all. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for some of the other rotating items. "Hara bhara kabob" was drenched in a disturbing green food color--and, on top of that, had little flavor to speak of. Chilli chicken was inexcusably bad.
Plain rice's alright. Other rice dishes usually are not. Their chicken biryani might as well have been called generic yellow rice, lacking as it did the complex spices and rich flavors of a quintessential Indian dish that any Indian restaurant worth its salt should know how to make!
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