Banjara Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in Toronto

We've ordered from here many times for many years and the food has always been good. Today was our second time dining in and unfortunately our last ( dine in and take out for that matter) While waiting for a server, which was taking much longer then it should have, my 6 year old was complaining, she desperately needed water since she's still adjusting to spicer foods. After almost 10 minutes, of no one in sight to refresh our cups I decided to help myself and walk over to a pitcher of water which was sitting next to a few other pitchers about 3 steps away from our table. Cups filled, and pitcher back where I found it, still no server in sight nor did any of the employee's witness what I just did.

Fast forward to the end of our family dinner wrapping up, our server wasn't the worst , but she wasn't that great either. My opinion on her quickly changed when my partner and I noticed something unusual and never encountered at a restaurant before up until today .As we began to leave our table , the server began to clean up a table which finished just minutes before we did . Unlike other experiences , where your server clears the table the usual way: grabbing plates, cutlery, dirty napkins and of course dirty cups whether empty, full or half full. What we witnessed however was the server taking the glasses of half drank water and pouring them back into the pitcher , that was being used to serve and refill the glasses at the tables around us. This obviously led me to think of a few things now: 1. Was that pitcher I helped myself to earlier as I waited for a server for more then 10 minutes to refill the cup of my 6 yr old , who's mouth was on fire and whining because she desperately wanted some more water , the water that was in fact someone else's left over's? 2. Could they be using this water for other guests ? 3. If they aren't reusing this water , are they washing the pitchers before refilling them and if they are, is that enough ? Or acceptable regardless ? 4. If I did just serve myself left behind water from other customers by accident, surely anyone could make that mistake, including another server? This left a obvious bitter taste in my mouth and left my brain to wonder what other unacceptable acts go on here? Unfortunately what was witnessed today, is the reason I will no longer order out , dine in or recommend nor speak highly of Banjara going forward after what was...

Let me start by saying, after much research and debate I wanted to give Banjara a try although it's an hour away from my place. To add, this is also not to take anything away from other reviews and in no way putting the place down. I am a foodie that has experienced some very good and not so great foods, all kinds so this review is about food and experience.

The service in general was below par, the server had no idea what to recommend what is good, appy, to sides to main, no idea, nothing and looked lost. My wife and I had to waive to get their attention although pressing a little button on the window frame next to us did not seem to get their attention.

Let's cover the food which is what the excitement would been for. Starting with the grill sizzler, we went with the house mixed grill and it was good. On to the main, I love lamb and I also love karahi dishes so wanted to give lamb karahi a try at Banjara. I will be honest here, this was by far the worst lamb dish I have had ever. Meat was tough, cold, totally imbalanced in spice, flavor and there was nothing resembling a lamb karahi. The rice, again cold and stale. We ordered salad and it was terrible complete with, pale stale lettuce, some sliced onions and looked more like a kitchen hand threw a bunch of leftover greens together. The naans, well I can't say whether they came out of a tandoor as I've had some great tandoor baked naans at other Indian digs in TO. We ordered lassis for drink and it was average. The entire main course, meat, naans, rice, salad was left behind after an initial one single bite each of karahi by the two of us. The girl who came to settle the cheque asked if we wanted to take the leftover food with us which would've fed two people, but my wife and I politely declined as I could not see myself eating it let alone offer it to another family member.

I am sorry to say, but the food was below par, the service was poor at best and Banjara was an absolute let down for what should have been a pleasant and rich experience of succulent Indian dishes. I should have gone to a neighborhood place of which there are a few to choose from that would been a hands down better choice. Lastly, it seems parking is a nightmare...

I have never had worse food than I had here. None of the things we ordered were any good. I have been to the place before few years ago and it was very good at the time. I wanted eat a sizzler and for that I went there, actually they lived up to that, because the sizzler was good, but anything that followed it, was just one mistake after another. And we had ordered all the food together which also included the take out I took home for my friend, because they told us kitchen is closing soon( which was understandable per the closing time ). But because of that now we had so much quantity of bad food. For the garlic naan, they have switched sizes, and each naan is very big now. While ordering we very obviously had ordered garlic naans double the quantity of what was required as I was not aware of the size change( which would have been sufficient if not for the size change) , but the server didn't suggest us the size or quantity (which I know isn't always what they do, but makes the experience nice).

And they had this machine for cutlery cleaning or something which was in dining area, was so loud. We sat down and after few minutes the noise started, and it takes so long to finish one batch of cutlery in that machine, which we bore through, after a while, guy came with a new batch of cutlery, and started the machine, and it kept on going, and we had to switch the table.

For the take out food, my friend didn't have lunch that day, and came home taking break from his job after 1 in the night to eat, and refused to eat it after one bite because the food was that bad.

I would not recommend the place, unless going for just the sizzler, but again the loud noise ruined the experience...