Masala Empire — Restaurant in Cologne

Don't Be Fooled by the Kerala Dish Options

Edit: Uploading some images since the owner try to dig into my personal details.

We've visited on: Aug 06, 2023

Did we share feedback on that day: Yes, we did. We called the waiter and explained everything because we were wasting the food. The innocent guy had only one reply, "I don't know enough about the food. But, I'll share the details with the chef"

Why did I add a review this late: I did it on the same day, but, for some reason it wasn't posted. Today, I just reposted

Why did I give such detailed review: We were waiting so long to visit this place. We travelled around 200km from another city starving just to eat from here and it was total disappoinment

Do I post negative reviews about businesses: Rarely, very rarely unless it's that disappointing

And, I spend money on this place and it did not give me value for money. So, a message to owner: Before you try to criticize and insult your customer, try to improve your quality. I am your customer. There is no point in hating an unhappy customer or a review from customer

For me, this was frankly, the worst restaurant experience in Germany. I was drawn by the Kerala non-vegetarian options on the menu, but left sorely disappointed. Here's what we tried:

Chicken Fry (starter) - 1/5: This was merely two chicken legs dipped in maida and fried. It had an excess of food colouring and lacked flavour. Chilly Beef Fry (starter) - 0.5/5: Consisting of beef pieces in the same maida batter and fried, this dish was a letdown. It was, oddly enough, akin to beef pakora and had some fried green chilies. Beef Curry - 0/5: As a Malayali, I found this dish inedible. We consumed only 10% of it and took the rest home to try to improve it, given its high price. The curry was excessively creamy and tasted like a butter chicken base - lacking spices and flavor. It was hard to tell it was even beef. Pepper Chicken - 0/5: This was a tragic dish. The chicken was tough, and the gravy too creamy, much like the beef curry. It seemed to have the same base, except for some extra pepper. Beef Ularthiyath - 3/5: While not great, it was at least edible. We managed to finish this one.

The total price came to 93 Euros, which included 4 beverages.

The only things I can recommend are the fresh onions, tomatoes, paprika that accompanied the chicken fry, and the basmati rice that was served with the main dishes.

The restaurant should stop deceiving people with false advertising on their menu. If they don't know how a dish should taste or how to prepare it, they shouldn't offer it. We were the only Indians in the restaurant, and we now understand why. On a positive note, the service was above average and there was nothing to complain about in that regard.

Also, I won't recommend using that...

If you are ok with substandard food being passed on as normal, then you must visit Masala Empire in Köln Ehrenfeld!

We ordered Stuffed Tandoori Aloo for starters. The description in the menu went like this “ Kartoffeln gefüllt mit einer Paneermischung in Jogurt-Masala mariniert und im Tandoori Ofen gegrillt.” Going by the description one would expect some amount of Paneer in the filling. There was absolutely none. When I questioned the waitress , she said maybe there are different kinds of Paneer and the Paneer you think should be in the dish is not the one we use. I was astonished and appalled at the same time with her knowledge of Indian food. Frustrated I called another waiter who was of Indian origin and complained to him about the missing Paneer , and this was his reply, “no one before has complained about of our food here , how is that you are complaining about it.” Moving on we ordered kulchas. After a wait for a good twenty minutes the kulchas arrived hot and dripping with butter uncooked ! We compalined again, and it was replaced but only after talking to the waiter, manager and then the chef himself. The replaced kulchas were still not great either and we were offered a complementary additional plate which we refused.

We also ordered fish tawa fry and Nadan lamb curry. Fish was ok but the lamb in the lamb curry was hard. However towards the end the manager did accept that there was a mistake in their menu regards to the panner in the tandoori aloo, although did not apologize for the inconvinience caused.

Towards the end, they did exclude the tandoori aloo and a kulcha from the bill but the damage had already been done leaving us really unhappy. The fact that people react very defensively to a very clearly substandard dish is extremely disappointing, especially considering the fact the prices are not very low either.

Overall experience: Pretty average food or sometimes substandard, made worse by a sometimes cocky staff. Would honestly not recommend this place. May be they did have a bad day, but hey we paid money...

Overall great experience but do not order water before looking at the price on the menu! Read below for detailed review. Went to dinner with my family and with friends. We had a reservation and our table was ready when we got there. Service was good. Menu is huge and can be a bit overwhelming. But I loved how it was broken up in groups so you can skip a whole page if you weren’t interested in that particular group. Food tasted good and the portions were generous, most of us had a hard time finishing the entire serving. Dessert was interesting, but not sure I would order it again. The server was of no help when it came to the dessert knowledge, which was a bit disappointing. We were all pretty happy with everything until we saw on the bill that one bottle of water cost 7€. And we had ordered 2, and honestly could’ve probably had one more, which luckily we didn’t. That is an insane amount of money for water in a country where tap water is safe to drink. And not to mention, at a restaurant where they serve spicy food and most people curb that heat with water. Honestly, that is the only reason I would never return to this restaurant. I feel taken advantage of, for not paying attention to the price of the water, which should be half the price, like in most normal restaurants. I don’t really care that it is some premium brand, it is after all just water. And if you want to have that brand, then that is absolutely fine, but please have a cheaper option for conscious people. Maybe it is not a big deal for some people, but for a family of 3, with another one on the way, every bit counts and I feel cheated of our hard...