India Village Ancaster — Restaurant in Hamilton

Summary: unfortunately, too much hype: pappardum undercooked, naan too dry and too many masalas in the curry. All the currys tasted the same. We wont go back.

Detailed review: My punjabi wife and I were very excited to finally find a good indian restaurant in Hamilton. However, we were disappointed. Without trying to be too negative I feel the need to write a detailed review. First the positives: the staff was friendly, but we found the frequency of checking in too high. The ambiance was nice and clean and it didnt smell overly like indian food in the sitting area. The gulab jamun was excellent, soft and spongy, hot and the right amount of syrup with correct sweetness levels. Negatives, even though we understand the difficulty for restaurant owners during covid, we felt having to wait for over 1 hour is too long. This is really not the way to prioritize your take out customers over sit-ins. The meal started off with a pappardum that was severely undercooked. We could taste the dough, the sauces provided with it were mediocre in taste and there was no mint sauce. The sauces could not cover the bad taste of the pappardum. Then for the main dishes: we made the mistake to order 2 Karahi dishes (bindhi and paneer) but to our surprise also our third dish tasted similar (chicken curry) The base curry seemed the same, had too much tomato taste and too many massala's, not creating differentiated taste. The three dishes basically tasted the same just with varying spiciness. The chicken curry was ok, but after taking it home, it was only enjoyable as a chicken curry role. The other dishes we threw away after reheating at home and trying again. Our fourth dish was the bangan masala. It tasted just like garlic and there was very little smokiness, which you expect with a good bangan masala. The naan was very dry and too crispy, a good naan is soft and almost gooey (not undercooked) from the inside while somewhat crisp on the outside. As said before the gulab jamun was excellent, I would order that any time. The pricing was reasonable, no complaints. When we were eating we realized there were few ppl with indian decent in the restaurant, which is normally a good proxy for quality.

Overall conclusion: we were disappointed with the food quality. Unfortunately our search for a good indian restaurant continues. Nothing until now compares with restaurants in the GTA like Kwality or Majure. Let me know if anybody has a...

Absolutely best Indian food I have had for some time. Being from the UK, all we have is Indian food, and this place was the best by far.

Feed Back: There was an electrical fault flickering the lights. given the effort on the decore, I thought this was just normal ware and tare and probs out of their control.

Service: To be frank, the service was not the best, and considering it was $50 + per head with 3 other customers in the whole resteraunt, there was no real other possible explanation. Objectively, the owner was very attentive and compensated and engaged us beyond the traditional "How's your food." This I really appreciated. I did not feel the server deserved a tip.

Seating: the boths were nice and to be frank we where offered a larger table. the issue with the booths where they were not fixed to the floor, and so my 8 year old managed to move the whole booth while climbing out to the toilet. disrupting the table behind us. equally, there was a little foot room underneath, but I have size 12, so unless you're a giant, then you should be fine.

Pickle tray: this was poor and considering the rest of the food it was a supprise. In the UK, it is customary as a paid appetizer with many different selections. here was just mango chutney and, frankly, the cheap kind equally the pompadoms are not the best.

I am happy to pay for a good selection please concider adding this as a menu item and giving it the same excellence as the rest...

My fiancée and I tried this place before we even built our home in the area and it was our favourite Indian we’ve had in a while. We finally moved in and wanted to celebrate by eating at our favourite restaurant in Ancaster. We showed up 15 minutes after they were supposed to be open and waited at the front door to be let in… It was a snow storm outside and we thought we could quickly go inside. The young lady working that day looked both of us in the eye and had a literal staring contest for the better part of a minute. She then came to the door and told us that they were still preparing the restaurant. We asked if we could sit inside until ready and the answer was a “no”. We were appalled by the lack of customer service and haven’t been back until tonight…. (6 months later).

We showed up tonight (Saturday April 19th) at 8:20pm (they are closing at 9). We walked in and saw 7-8 open tables and were told that they wouldn’t sit us as we didn’t have reservations. That’s it, the last straw… We won’t be giving you our business. The complete lack of customer service is disgusting. This was the same girl that 6 months ago that told us to wait in the snow while she was preparing an empty restaurant 20 minutes after they were supposed to be open. The owner of this establishment needs to read the definition of “customer service” to their...