KAMASUTRA FINE INDIAN RESTAURANT AND WINE BAR — Restaurant in Toronto

FOOD COURT QUALITY! We came to Kamasutra on Bayview Ave in Toronto Sat Dec 10 for dinner with high hopes, in advance of our pending New Years reservations there. Unfortunately, we were disappointed. Our server was friendly however did not communicate to us until after the fact that we would've been better off ordering the Dinner For Two option rather than separately ordering the appetizer, three entrees, rice and naan sides. This ended up costing us an extra $8+ unnecessarily. Regardless we ordered the 'recommended' Vegetarian Pakoras to start, washing them down with a Cosmopolitan for my wife and tap Tankhouse for me. The pakoras weren't too bad although a bit bland. The cosmo not worthy. The beer seemed a touch off. From there it was all downhill. My wife pulled two lifeless fruit flies from her cosmo (fruit flies in December?). Apparently, fruit flies don't know a bad cosmo when they drown in one ie we were about to send it back anyway due to poor chemistry. Our server replaced her drink sans two flies. For entrées we chose the Mixed Vegetable Curry, the Bombay Bakra (lamb), and the menu's touted "best seller" Butter Chicken, with sides of naan and rice. Shortly afterwards a second server brought the entrées setting one down at a time, but unfortunately spilling the butter chicken from chest height onto our table sending splatters of (colourfast) sauce onto both my wife's and my shirt. With the white table cloth (and us) now soiled we were quickly ushered to a freshly clothed ajoining table and given a jar of soda water to dab our shirts. Upon sitting down we immediately noticed my dinner knife heavily coated in what was obviously the previous patron's butter chicken sauce which our now clearly embarrassed server quickly replaced. The rice and naan arrived next and we began to serve ourselves however we'd noticed the butter chicken (what was left of it) was barely warm. Freshly nuked :/ it arrived back at our table within minutes. Would have to say the butter chicken wasn't bad but not great. As another reviewer put it, Canadianized Indian food ie the chicken was clearly added to the sauce at the last minute as the spices had not permeated through the meat, rendering it dry. Same for the lamb which was extremely dry. As for the Mixed Vegetable Curry...meh. After ordering a second side of naan our server was never to be seen again although throughout the mishaps we had remained pleasant, even forgiving. At the end of the night we had to go to the bar to retrieve our bill.

Although our server and other staff apologized for our unfortunate experience, a reputable food establishment will recognize when they have not lived up to expectations adjust the bill accordingly. Kamasutra is not one of those establishments. We didn't press the issue.

Needless to say we've decided to cancel our New Years (and any future) reservation here.

Dec 11 (the next day) My wife and I woke up this morning and first thing on our minds was how badly we felt ripped off last night. As we look through the reviews we see many people who had similar experience to us. We also see many people who have given 4 and 5 stars (head scratch). I don't want to be overly punitive here. Although I must give credit to the restaurant's director Vandii Verva for answering pretty much everyone's review, his standard reply to the critical ones is that he "purchased the restaurant in 2014 and has been trying to make changes...address concerns to the staff blah blah blah".

There were a couple of indicators when we first arrived as to what to expect re authenticity. For a Sat evening the place seemed empty, perhaps 30% capacity. Second, and maybe an anomaly, there was a large demographic of elderly Caucasian people who in my experience tend to shy away from authentic Indian and exotic fair in general due to the pungeant spices which often aren't agreeable to their systems. This may explain their appeal to the food's blandness. Not much can be said in favour Kamasutra. Best advice,...

I came across a deal that I couldn't resist so my sidekick, Raj, and I went out looking for Kamasutra. It's an Indian restaurant on Bayview, south of Eglinton, with a Green P lot conveniently located across the street.

Once inside, we were greeted by a very cheery young lady, Danielle. The decor was very nice and upscale. We asked about the special that I had come across but the manager said it was only available Monday through Thursday, even though it wasn't dated. Anyway, we managed to get past that and the manager ended up taking care of us through most of our visit.

We ordered from a four course menu that had lots of choices. We started with the Onion Bhaji and Tandoori Lamb Tikka. Both dishes were delicious, packed with flavour. The onion bhaji was crispy and was served with a tamarind sauce and pickled onions. The lamb was served off the skewer with a mint sauce, some veggies, and more of those yummy pickled onions. Wow, a great way to start our meal!

The remaining dishes arrived all at once, each in its own bowl, making it very easy to share. It all looked delicious but the camera had to eat first. See photos.

The Lamb Vindaloo is a curry stew with potatoes and spices. It was very good but Raj thought it tasted a little gamey. I loved it.

The Kamasutra Butter Chicken had a lot of rich tomato sauce, maybe a tad more tomato than I'm used to in butter chicken but it did taste very good. The chicken was moist and had a good depth of flavour. This may be one of the top three butter chicken dishes I've enjoyed.

Palak Paneer (spinach and cheese) may not be a very attractive dish but this version tasted very good. Again, maybe another top three.

We tried the Malai Kofta, a dish I've never seen before. It's a cottage cheese ball in a creamy cashew nut sauce. Interesting, in a very good way. I would order this again.

Rounding out our meal was a Chicken Biryani, Pulao Rice, regular naan, and garlic naan. The pulao rice had a little saffron, peas, and cumin. The naan was hot and crispy and the garlic naan was delicious. I love garlic. The chicken biryani was colourful and had a generous amount of moist chicken. This might be the best one I've had.

We also tried Cheetah Indian beer. It's a lager that we both found was a little sweeter than the Kingfisher we tried recently. It was good.

Overall, I have to say this is the best Indian restaurant I've been to. The food was excellent. The service turned out to be be really good, especially from Danielle, who checked in with us frequently.

Now that I've discovered Kamasutra, I can't wait to...

We went to this place for dinner with some friends. This was on the wish list of one of our friends and was quite highly rated, so we decided to give it a go. This place is located on Bayview Avenue among several other restaurants but was easy to find. It wasn't overly crowded for a Saturday evening. We called in before reaching there and were asked to just walk in. The decor of the place is quite good - as you would expect from a fine dining place. They had a sizable area for their bar, which I felt looked really nice. Surprisingly, there was no music, not even a light instrumental in the background, which seemed odd. In terms of the menu, they had several options, just like any other Indian restaurant. I liked that they had a Dinner for 2,3,4 option, which is a rarity. But they do charge extra prices if it is shared by more than the specified number of people. 3 of us went for the dinner for 3 and 2 others ordered from the al-a-carte menu. Prices were quite reasonable for a fine dining restaurant. In terms of food, the appetizers were not that great. We got the chef's special which was a combinations of a few different things. They were okay at best and one of the onion pakoras was gooey and under cooked inside. The main course was quite good. I really enjoyed the Malai Kofta and the Madras Chicken. My friends also enjoyed their Eggplant Bharta and Palak Paneer. The Butter chicken was good but missed the essential creaminess in it. It had a slice of orange in it, which I didn't understand. The Kashmiri Naan, which is supposed to be sweet, seemed more like a dessert and not to my particular liking The portions were quite good and the 3 of us struggled to finish the dinner for 3. Our waiter did seem insistent on the fact that the dinner for 3 could not be shared, even though the other two were getting food from the menu. A few comments from him when the food was brought out didn't sit well with my friends who thought he was too much up our case. We had a good experience at this place. This is a good place for a fancy dinner without burning a hole in your pocket. There are some areas where they could improve, but overall, I definitely see myself coming back here and bringing more folks...