The Spice Lounge Indian Cuisine — Restaurant in Sydney

We had dinner at The Spice Lounge on Easter Monday, the venue wasn't that busy at all but the ambience could've been so much better if the Hindi/ Bollywood songs were at a lower volume.

We were very excited to try the exquisite food items from the menu and this being our first time going to the restaurant but once we entered the restaurant, we saw one of the staffs touching the tip of the fork and knives which meets the food, as they were setting the table. We found it a bit gross to see that just upon entering the restaurant but then we cleaned our set of cutleries by ourselves for extra hygiene assurance.

Once we were seated on our table there was no whatsoever greeting or communication between us and the floor staffs, but rather a staff banged a bottle of water on our table without a word and left. It all didn't matter because we wanted to try the food and we ordered Chicken dum biryaani, Keema Naan, Mango and Rose lassi, Lamb cutlets, Butter chicken and Vegetable Korma.

The Mango and Rose lassi were quite thick and creamy with delightful texture and taste. Truly refreshing and we enjoyed it a lot. The Lamb cutlets came sizzling to our table and it was one of the best indian dish that I've had with beautiful mixture of the spices and the way it was cooked and plated was quite satisfactory. But when it was served on the table by the wait staff, it felt as if the food was thrown into the table without the name or a word about the dish. That felt kinda low.

I'm sorry spice lounge team and the chef but the Chicken Dum Biryaani was very dry and didn't have much taste to it. Would not recommend to anyone if it's similar next time as well. The butter chicken was very average and the portion was quite small and had no sides with it according to its price. And finally the Vegetable Korma was quite normal too, I think a thing or two could be tweaked in all three of these dishes.

No offense or disrespect to any of the staff, the chef or to the venue but our expectations went quite high when we had the Lamb Cutlets and I do feel that Spice Lounge can do much better in terms of taste of some other food items and the overall service.

A tip to the waitstaffs would be that, please touch the table once or twice during the service which will make the guests feel more comfortable and better throughout their whole time there and do the right thing while setting up the table and handling plates and cutleries.

Thank you for the dinner...

An Indian local in Pyrmont has been long overdue and we popped in last evening (yes, we're four ethnic Indian folk ). Sadly the place was almost empty - just us and two other tables in a huge space that buzzed as Made in Italy. Then the music....there's so much more to Indian music than the drawl that was being piped. The place didn't smell of an Indian restaurant and there wasn't any tacky art on the walls - two big ticks. Very welcoming staff and manager too.

Once we had the corked glass of wine changed and requested colder Kingfisher beer, Surinder (the manager) assisted with our choice of food - he suggested the goat instead of the lamb (it was very good) and our choices were naan ( good), Lamb cutlets (good), Seekh Kebab (would've been excellent with another two minutes on the grill), Vegetable Koote (average), Chicken Kadahi (a bit above average), saffron rice (disastrous). The food wasn't oily and were generous portions.

In summary, we quite liked the meal we had and would go back simply to ensure that this restaurant survives. Then again, theres plenty of work that Surinder and his masters need to do to make this place tick - it needs more bums on seats, it needs to translate its cool atmosphere to cool ( and not just conventional) Indian food. It needs to throw out its current selection of music. It needs some smart street food. It needs to sell its bar area as a different experience to its table dining. And it needs a couple of great pork dishes too !! Ask...

After reading the online reviews, we decided to try this restaurant for birthday dinner. Unfortunately, our first experience was terrible.

The taste of the palak pathak chat was awful, indicating that it was not freshly made (it should have been made in the morning or afternoon). Additionally, the grilled fish we ordered was undercooked and had raw spices. Furthermore, each fish fillet had different colors, never seen before.

The Goan fish curry was below average; however, I was happy with it compared to the starters we had. The naan bread was okay, and you can't go wrong with rice. However, the service was really, really bad. When we visited the restaurant yesterday, it was super empty, which should have been a sign for us. Despite that, I still went ahead, but it turned out to be my mistake.

When I asked about the discount through the Fork app for the booked table, the lady at the billing counter informed me that the Fork discount is only applicable on the second visit. Once I questioned that there were no such terms mentioned in the email from Fork, she quickly agreed to accept the discount. It seems she was merely testing if customers would fall for her greedy tactics and try to avoid the offer.

Overall, I would strongly advise avoiding this restaurant at all costs, as there are plenty of other nice Indian restaurants in...