Restaurant Continent — Restaurant in Karlsruhe

I have visited this restaurant twice so far (buffet during the day on a weekend).

The location is nice. It is situated on the main shopping street in the city but not too close to the city center Marktplatz, where there is a constant flow of people. This makes it very easy to find and the location is well connected in terms of public transport. If you are with a car you will have to walk a little bit if you are lucky enough to find a parking spot in the smaller streets nearby.

In terms of atmosphere the restaurant is nothing spectacular in terms of design, some nice paintings on the wall and light Indian music in the background, which allows guests to actually chat with each other. From my knowledge there is no toilet on the ground floor (I might be mistaken) so one needs to go upstairs, which makes it difficult for mothers with very small children and people with disabilities. There are no signs indicating where the toilet is anyway. I also didn't see any disinfection on the entrance, which during COVID at least for me is a must.

The buffet price is very reasonable unless you have a small stomach in which case it is not worth it (then again this applies to most buffets). During the day from Monday to Friday the prices are much lower but even with the higher prices on weekends it is still a good offer. One thing (and the staff warns you about it) is that you need to pay a little bit more if you don't order any drinks. As for the drinks themselves you have a decent selection of those (mostly your typical drinks you can find is many European restaurants) but at a price point that in my opinion could have been lower. 2 EUR for a small cup of coffee is a little bit perplexing when you put it against the food offering.

The buffet menu consists of multiple dishes ranging from plain bread (really nice!) through meat and vegetarian dishes. In terms of authenticity I was told by acquaintances from India that it is not really your typical Indian food you can get. It is a typical thing to do for many foreign cuisine restaurants since diverting too much from the local taste will lead to a drop in customers. So expect a couple of typical German potato dishes. The rest is quite nice. Nothing too spicy (but you can add some fire to your meal using some sauces on the side), warm, quite tasty. Where the restaurant doesn't really shine is deserts (at least the ones offered as part of the buffet) - some fruit and a not that great milk rice. The drinks are ok but I would prefer to have a larger selection of Indian tea. Due to the drinks offering and a cuisine going for a little bit towards German I deduct one star.

The service is a little bit lacking. The first time I went there my table was soaking wet so I had to go look for some napkin or paper. The person on the reception (who also handles the cash register and waiting the tables) can come across as a little bit cold (or perhaps me being in an Indian restaurant elevates my expectations for a warm welcome). One thing I really didn't like was the fact that you are never told that if you have multiple people together on the same table and then everyone wants to pay separately you cannot use a card and have to pay cash. I had to pay double what I owed to cover the bill of one of the people I was with since he didn't have any cash. This puts guests in a very awkward position. One more star deducted for service that needs improvement.

Overall I can recommend this restaurant if you want warm, tasty meals. The somewhat chaotic organization of the place (toilets, service) and desert offerings plus somewhat Germanized menu will not prevent you having a good time with someone in a...

I'm a bit puzzled by why this is rated as a less expensive restaurant. The dinner buffet is priced at 18EUR and the quality of the food is just okay - the ingredients are fresh, but the preparation is very ordinary - grocery-store-level. What put me off most was the sneaky hidden costs. If you must order a drink to sit down for a buffet, then maybe include the price of a minimum drink in the buffect price upfront? We ordered a water and an apfelschorle, and found while paying that we had been charged for a "large water" and a "large apfelschorle". Apparently the gentleman in charge thinks it is perfectly justified that the waiter assumes you mean large if you don't specify the size. It makes no business sense to pull the wool over your customer's eyes like that, unless you really need the extra euro, or you're serving something special. Not taking names of competitors, but I know they're not serving anything special you can't find elsewhere in Karlsruhe, maybe farther from campus. There is a lot of oil and butter in the food, and the aftertaste is worse than the taste. I liked some of the dishes like the chilli chicken and the fresh naan that the lady promptly brought out after I pointed out that the bread on the buffet was no longer edible, but most dishes were disappointing in very elementary ways - undersalted or oversalted, fried fish was battered too thick and cooked too quickly, palak paneer was mostly just tel palak, lamb was tough and undercooked and so on. If you do try this place, remember to ask for...

The food is so-so. The worst (and one star is just one star to much) is the attitude of the personal. When I dared to complain about their unacceptable drink policy the person was very rude.

I think their buffet drink pricing policy is very nasty and the way it is executed is absolutely dishonest. The authorities of the city should step in - and if the management does not comply with basic ethic standards, that place should be forced to close.

Is it that hard to understand : advertising the price of the buffet in large characters being 12.90 Euro - but putting in small characters that it's 13.90 if you do not order an over-priced drink from them - is DISHONEST and predatory practice?

As far as food: the chicken had no taste. Very obviously they use the same chicken as a base and later add different sauce and call it according that sauce. Looks good, but tastes very same - just the sauce is different.

On Feb. 13, 2023 there were only two salad dressings - and only one soup. Maybe on other days it is better, but on that day - for a 13.90 Euro buffet - the selection was rather basic and the taste of poultry choices was...