Rani Mahal — Restaurant in Paris

I stumbled upon Rani Mahal, a small family run restaurant, while looking for an Indian restaurant close to my hotel in the Opera/ Madeleine area of Paris. (Unsurprisingly, I had enough of French cuisine after a couple of nights in Paris.)

I had Vegetable Samosa as an appetizer and that was quite unique - so flavorful and fresh despite being such a staple of Indian restaurants the world over.

That prompted me to order their Vegetarian Thaali since, being a vegetarian, I wanted to sample their vegetarian offerings. This came with cups of: tadka daal, mixed vegetables, Bombay potatoes (which I substituted for the original palak), raita, rice, naan, salad, halwa, and papad. Pretty standard fare but so exquisitely prepared - just like home even though I didn’t specify degree of spices, etc. Every single item magically melted in my mouth and I soon polished off the sumptuous plate. To round it off, I asked for masala chai and that too was just like home.

Rani Mahal’s menu did not surprise me. In fact, I didn’t want any surprises. I was craving for good, home style Indian food that will satisfy my palate as well as my appetite. The restaurant accomplished this superbly and I now know where to go for Indian food in the...

I went here on the basis of the good reviews on google. But I was truly disappointed. After getting our table after 15 min of waiting time (the restaurant being full), the waiter came to us and blandly said that he would have to attend to the "other" (read white) customers first because "we Indians" can understand. Okay! Very straightforward, so we thought no harm in waiting for a bit. After waiting for about 20 min (with some gestures by us to at least provide the menus), he brought the menus and after waiting again for about 20 min, he took the order. By this time, the restaurant had become much emptier than before. But after yet more 20 min, he brought part of our order and told us that some items were unavailable. So we had to make do with some other dishes on the menu. This was okay for us as we were there near the closing time. The taste was okay and that's what the 2 stars are for, but the experience was completely abysmal. This was solely because of the horrible attitude of the waiter. Again, based on the reviews, maybe we were outliers in the statistics. But I don't recommend this restaurant from...

Came to the restaurant. Got seated directly. Got the menus. The waiter was rude and got upset that we did not laugh at his babyish jokes.

Took out order about 20 min later. The food came out about 20 min after he too our orders. We had no plates at the table. So we asked for plates thinking we will get them. It took the server about 10 min to get our plates and the food was already getting cold. In these 10 min we were waiting for PLATES he had already brought plates for two other couples that came in after us.

After the dinner. Which we thought was not up to the standards at all we asked for the check and the waiter came to our table and asked us why we left so much of the food and we answered that it was ok but we where not that hungry. The waiter then whispers “I like people that tell me the truth” meaning that we are lying to him. We told him the same thing. Then he went to the kitchen and started to scream and make a fuss about our comment.

Bad customer service. Bad food. Some people should not work but the...