Namaste Bistro Saskatoon - An East Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in Saskatoon

Wow! Amazing late night spot - the sign on the door says open until midnight and 2am every night!

We are in town from AB for a baseball tourney and our game didn’t finish until 1030pm. We thought we were gonna be SOL for a decent dinner with a minor in tow. We were just about to give up and grab McD when we saw the open sign here and poked our heads in to be pleasantly surprised that they were indeed open!

The food was PHENOMENAL. Not as spicy as we are used to for Indian food but phenomenal never the less. Prices are decent here and portions are HUGE.

FYI no beef here which is fine but just a heads up in case you were craving a beef vindaloo.

Our order:

Garlic naan - staple and yummy as expected Coco naan - naan folded over with coconut inside and honey butter on top - SAY WHAT?!? Different and oh so good! though they brought them out in the same basket so coconut got all over the garlic naan which my kiddo wasn’t thrilled about

Chicken vindaloo - Great sauce but a medium here is more like a traditional Indian mild.

Vegetable korma - yummy and again a great portion. My favourite kormas are the more white / cream based kormas but this still hit the spot.

Honey sesame cauliflower - SO FREAKING good. The breading/coating was super thin and e cauliflower cooked to perfection. The sauce was a touch sweet, a touch tangy - Kiddo devoured it!

Saffron rice was a nice portion and just what we hoped for.

The Chilli paneer was my least favourite - just a bit too gooey and overly sweet for my tastes.

Overall the food was fantastic.

So negatives you ask… there must be some?

Minor ones but yes, the food came out painstakingly slow despite no other tables waiting on food. The rice and naan came after everything else. We were starving and ended up eating some vindaloo and curry straight from the serving bowls with spoons while waiting another 5 minutes for naan and rice.

Getting boxes at the end took 2 requests and 10 minutes. Also, we had to box it up ourselves. There was also a wait to get seated and again to get menus and order despite there being only one other table with people who were finishing up when we arrived.

Food 5/5 (I’d order everything again except the chilli paneer)

Service 3/5 (Slow and we had to get up from the table to find staff to request things)

Atmosphere 5/5 (clean, bright, colorful)

Price/Value/Quality (5/5)

Overall 4/5! Would definitely recommend Namaste Bistro for a late night bite! By the time we were leaving around midnight other patrons had arrived and were placing orders as well.

The restaurant itself was clean, bright, colorful, and had a variety of tables. Looking at pictures and reviews this am, I am already wanting to go back and try more dishes like the...

I am really sorry for this 1 star, check the reason below:

We were very hopeful that it will be a better restaurant as Saskatoon really need a good Indian restaurant however we are so disappointed with the food we had at this place.

We ordered:

1. Papri Chat (7.99) - It was shockingly lowest quantity I have ever seen, it was too dry and lacked Yogurt and Sauces.

2. Chilli Paneer (13.99) - While ordering we asked the owner, is this the same Authentic Indian Chinese dish, he said Yes its the best , when we got this dish, the quantity was very impressive but that's it! It was one of the worst Chilli Paneer I ever had. The only thing it had was Orange Color and Salt, also, instead of Green Onions, it was topped with Cilantro, this says a lot of how inexperienced the chef is, when the Owner came to do a check in about the food, we were very honest that the Chilli paneer was not up to the mark.

At this point we were very doubtful to order other food however as we wanted to give a chance, we ordered:

3. Dal Tadka (13.99)- When it arrived the table it looked very tempting and very nicely presented. That's it! If you check the picture I have attached, when we tried mixing the dal, it was full of water, it should be tadka instead but it had water. The quantity was great but not the quality and taste.

4. Tandoori Roti: This was the best part of the entire meal, I am very sad to share this!

5. Jeera Rice (4.99) - Great quantity however the rice was not fried like traditional jeera rice, check attached picture, it was too dry, other restaurants in Saskatoon they fry the rice in oil, tempered jeera however this was disappointing.

6. Shahi Tukda Dessert (4.99)- The rabdi on it was very delicious however the bread itself was lacking the taste of the syrup, Angeethi restaurant used to serve Shahi Tukda couple years ago however this one was not up to the mark.

Overall it cost $53, the reality is, this is another restaurant which is in the list of Disappointing Indian Restaurants.

I truly believe Tandoori Tadka and Sam way grill are the best indian restaurant because owners are the chef so they know what taste customers will like.

I really feel bad for owners of Namaste Bistro, for them it's 10/10 but the food is 1/10.

The main problem is the person cooking in the kitchen who doesn't know what is the taste and someone who have no training in cooking Indian food.

Unfortunately, our money was wasted and I do not recommend this restaurant to people who want real Indian taste.

All the best to the owners! It is going to be a big challenge for then to maintain their goodwill with the chef they have in the kitchen who doesn't know what is tasty...

We visited their restaurant around 11:10pm and placed an order at 11:25pm the food was served to us quarter to 1Am. The most frustrating thing was to observe them serve every one else who placed orders after us. They didn’t even bother to inform us if there was any waiting on our order; and just kept us hanging until i had to go and talk to the lady at the counter about what is going on. It was a huge night for our community as one of the singer “ Ranjit Bawa” was performing in the town and everyone was well aware in the city. All the restaurants were expected to get busier as 1500 people attended the concert from Indian community. I was shocked to see how poorly the restaurant was managed tonight. They had only 1 person serving and taking orders as well as the same person clearing the tables. It was clearly humiliating for the staff to the highest level and tiring them so much by overworking . As the managers must be well aware of the situation about the concert and could have better organized the restaurant by making sure they had enough staff tonight. Many people waited and returned from the door as they had such a poor management and no one was able to take their orders. I will suggest the mangers to better equip the restaurant with proper staffing in future if they want to stay in the business. They food tasted ok but to observe the one person overworked by the management was painful. If they keep doing this in future they won’t be attracting more customers. They restaurant next door might steal all their business. That’s where my family be going in rush...