Lotus Fine Indian Cuisine - Charleswood — Restaurant in Calgary

I was hoping for better, we love Indian and were excited to give this new spot in our neighborhood a try. After ordering from here on Saturday night, I would say they are just "alright"

When we placed our order, for pickup, I was told 35 minutes - however, once we arrived it had changed to an hour. Pricewise, we have a few favs that we order from on the regular, and before the 10% discount for pick up orders, Lotus is a higher price point.

The portions were fairly average, we ordered Samosas (both beef and veg), butter chicken, beef vindaloo, coconut rice and garlic naan. Samosas were tasty, spiced nicely, packaging was mixed up though - had to break them open to see what kind it was first. Butter Chicken, which we always order as an indicator because everyone offers it, was almost overly sweet, more so than any other flavor, comparable really to a store bought sauce - edible but nothing special. The Beef Vindaloo was very stingy in the beef portion, only 4 chunks of meat, a few piece of potato and EXTREMELY spicy. We LOVE spice, this was just a lot of the heat with minimal flavor - it was also incredibly salty. Wasn't asked when I ordered about a spice level, menu doesn't really indicate the actual level - it made us sweat and our lips burn, my least favorite and not worth the price tag. The rice was typical, lots of it, great flavor, nice accompaniment to the curries. The naan was delicious, huge pieces and very tender. Overall, we would be willing to try them again, perhaps a few different items, I would get the samosas again for sure, but Lotus didn't earn our loyalty or encourage us to ditch our other favs outside of...

Having heard a lot about this place, and good reviews for food, decided to drop in with family. The place is very nicely decorated and lives up to its expectations of a fine dine. The service and the food though were not what I was expecting. There was only one server, who was looking after everything. He could have been more cordial or communicative, as with fine dine places. Food , though it came out on time, was a little off the mark. The Veg kababs looked a little oily, the mutter paneer was low on salt, the goat biryani was tasting more of a spice (garam masala) than the actual flavor of dum. The veg noodles looked just clumpy, though they tasted good. The Murgh Lababdar was good, but portions were small. I had ordered a large quantity for only 3 people, as we wanted to taste everything and get some to be packed up. Here is where I felt a little more attention could have been paid as well. The vegetarian and non vegetarian dishes were packed together. It did not matter in our case, but my wife is a strict vegetarian, and she would not be able eat the cross contaminated dishes at home. A little more attention would have been a nice thing on this. Will try it out again soon to see if this was a one off incident or if it is a...

I've ordered a few times. The biryani is absolutely packed to the brim with food and have decent amounts of meat. Would recommend. Their Afghani Malai kabob is very good. The chicken was juicy and so flavorful. Lamb seekh kebab wasn't as good, could have used more spices. Naans were delicious and the portion was good. Currys could use a little bit more pieces of meat (at least, the goat curry), but very flavorful. Overall spice level was mild, maybe bordering medium, which is probably fine for most people as I never saw an option to adjust spice level when I ordered take outs/delivery. Overall, would highly recommend their biryanis and the Afghani Malai kabob.

Edit: I've since ordered a few more times. Would recommend the lamb bhuna. Very flavorful and it was at the perfect spiciness level for me (probably be anywhere from a mild to medium depending on who you ask). Meat portion was much better compared to my past orders with curries. Plenty of bell peppers in there too and we even saw some Kashmiri chili peppers in the gravy. Excellent bhuna! Their biryani's also continued to be served with very hearty portions,...