Chrismaria Family Restaurant ( Indian Restaurant) — Restaurant in New Minas

Went here with my wife and I can honestly say it's one of the worst restaurant experiences I have ever had. I'll try and be detailed without too much in the way of personal feelings. We arrived and were seated promptly. my wife ordered white wine, I ordered water as I was driving. We perused the menu and and a short time later the waitress arrived and too our order. So far, so good. We ordered Chicken Pakora as an appetizer, I ordered Chicken Tikka and my wife ordered Chicken Korma.

During the order process, our waiter (not the same woman who took our drink order), was Very Vague on what was or was not included. Yes, Na'an was included, no it wasn't, Rice was included, no it wasn't. That type of thing. We ended up being unsure what we'd ordered, but decided to just go with it. I will say it's been 15 minutes since we sat down and the wine my wife ordered has yet to arrive, so I asked the waiter who said he'd bring it right out.

5 minutes later, the waitress comes out with the Pakora, still no water or wine, but we've got an appetizer. I asked about the drinks, she promptly ran to the back and brought me a water (just one) and informed us (after 20 minutes) that they do not have the red wine we ordered. I said that's okay, since we ordered white wine. We clarified what we wanted and off the waitress went to get it. 2 minutes later my Chicken Tikka (with salad) came. No Na'an, no Korma, NO WINE, just the Tikka. The chicken was delicious. Fair is fair, it tasted great. But I got half the salad on a hot skillet and the other half in a bowl on the side. Still no Wine.

Now, I am sure you can understand my confusion, but a hot salad? It was wilted, tasted terrible and the dressing (if it's fair to call it that) made it worse. Salad can be cold, salad can be hot, but it can't be both at the same time.

A few minutes after I finished my plate, the korma arrived and it was almost inedible. Asked about the wine fo what seemed like the 50th time. Someone finally brought it 5 minutes later. I have eaten at dozens of different Indian restaurants and there are variations, I get that. This was not just 'different'. It was bad, as in "I don't want to eat it" bad. We've determined that the Korma is bad and sat there for another 3 minutes, which is when the Na'an arrived. And I mean a metric tonne of it. There's no way any two people could eat that much, so what the hell?

Anyway, we ate a bit, wrote the place off as a bad investment and decided to move on, which is when I went to pay. $70 they charged me, adding extra for rice (which we were told was included) and of course the extra Na'an which anyone with eyes could have said was too much for any two people. I was expecting around $50. It's the first (and hopefully last) time I didn't leave a tip at a restaurant. Buyer beware.

EDIT: You'll notice the people monitoring this seem only too happy to respond to 5 star reviews from people who dodged a bullet, but any negative review is simply ignored. Remember that attitude when considering how they treat negative issues in the kitchen. I might have given it a second chance if someone apologized and took responsibility. Instead I'll assume they treat their kitchen like they treat their online reputation and stay...

I would like to give this place a better review, but simply can't give more than 2 stars, and that is a push. The flavours of the food were great. But that is where it stopped. We chose tonight to try Indian Cuisine because it is something I have always wanted to try. It is my 47th Birthday, so being a Monday we didn't figure it would be overly busy. The one girl running around doing everything... She is not enough and should not be doing it all alone. I felt so bad for her. We (my husband and I) arrived and were seated right away at 5:30. Another couple was seated just after us. We were brought menus, then a tiny pitcher of water with glasses... Which we would easily go through in the next 30 minutes before the waitress/counter girl came back. She was apologetic, and we sympathized with her. The other couples order was taken fairly quickly. Ours was not. That was when the phone was ringing off the hook, and the line for order pick up was backing up. We waited 30 minutes before our order was finally taken. (After being seated) By 6:15, we were almost thinking that we may have to leave, but hung in there, she seemed to be doing her best.. at 6:30 on the nose we finally got our food. We ordered Beef and vegetables, Chicken Korma and vegetables with a side of rice. Unfortunately, we were not very impressed. The Beef with Vegetables, (were cold) the Vegetables were tiny remnants of vegetables. The portion was perhaps not what we were used to.. and seemed very very on the small side. For a price tag of 40$ The spoons, were way, way to big to eat with.. but still we just went with it as we were new to the place. I like Table spoons, but these were larger than that. Taste was great though,... for being cold, unfortunately that also made it dried out. The rice, also cold.. the Chicken Korma the only thing that was warm, but perhaps because it was in a sauce, it kept hot enough. Again, the flavour was good. All in all, we liked the food and feel it would be better if it was all hot. The experience was the major problem, and was just not an enjoyable one. You have one person at the desk doing 2 peoples jobs. At one point we felt take-out orders took president over guests in the dining room because lots were ordering on the phone, and lots of orders were going out the door, just not out to the dining room. It felt as if the dining room guests were second thought. The poor woman running around continually had to apologize to everyone for the wait. It isn't something guests want to see. =( TL:DR We basically waited an hour for cold food we consumed in about 10 mins and we in no way rushed eating. Paid 40$ for small portions. Get staff for just phone orders. Get staff for just dining room orders. People should not pay 40$ for cold food and that...

We ordered takeout tonight from Chrismaria Restaurant. They just opened a new location close to us in Kingston, so it seemed like an easy Saturday night meal.

We went to their website to order, clicked on the “Order Online” button, and added items to the menu. Our order contained 2 veggie samosas, Lamb Vindaloo, Green Chicken, and 4 buttered naans. The vindaloo and chicken came with steamed basmati rice. We also added mint chutney for the samosas and some sour pickle. It came to approx. $85 before tax.

We finished placing the order and my husband went to pick it up. He was told there was no order placed. Upon looking into it further, it turned out that the website had directed the order to the New Minas location. At no point during the order process did it ask us to choose a location. My husband had to drive to New Minas to get the order, and when he informed them of the issues with the website they were completely unapologetic.

We’ve eaten a lot of Indian food over the years. This was ok, but nothing to write home about. We asked for our dishes to be made with the higher spice levels. The samosas were pretty good but I’m not sure that what came with them was the mint chutney - it looked more like cranberry sauce and tasted nothing like mint. A 1-ounce container cost $1.99. The naans were extremely thin and chewy - there was no sign of butter. They were priced at $3.99 each. The vindaloo was hot but certainly not what I would call “Very spicy”. The green chicken was absolutely not spicy but it was the most flavourful dish out of everything and we enjoyed it. The portions seemed small for the price.

We’ve tried Chrismaria twice now, first when they opened, and then tonight. The first time was not good, this time was an improvement, but there are much better options in the Annapolis Valley for...