Thali Restaurant — Restaurant in Quintana Roo

We stayed at Bahia Principe for our trip to Tulum with friends. We reserved Thali as the only Indian option at Bahia Principe for our ala carte dinner option since we are Indian and quite a few of us were also vegetarians and needed that dose of Indian food. So many things were wrong about this place from the time we entered to the time we left.

Menu - the items in the menu were either not represented well. Or the day we went there was something seriously missing from the food. None of the dishes actually represented what they should be.

Food - almost everything we ate didnt taste indian. Coming from india this is not even representative of what we would call Indian food. Not even for an American audience. There is a take away joint in Tulum called Indian Express. They make better Indian food than Thali. Presentation was good but if the food doesnt taste well then it doesnt matter.

Service - It was a sit down dinner and since we sat down the waiters and servers were unable to answer questions and seemed visibly upset at the questions we were asking. We had a diverse group of people who had different restrictions. Plus they were unable to clearly explain what kind of food was being served. Not only that they didnt know what the dish consisted of. Then they got upset that we were upset and wanted something else. Nothing came extra or compliments of the chef to make our dinner better. Plus the food that came to the table came so so late - with nothing in between to keep the guests going. Had quite a few bad service dinners but this one took it to another level.

Isnt Bahia an all inclusive resort? Because we were clearly told that we wouldn't receive more food. Plus we were asked to order in part or get the thali. We understand what a prix fix is but not sure if we were paying for that in an all you can eat place. Plus some of the item s mentioned in the meals weren't put out with the words "sorry we are out of those". The chef wouldn't allow us to have extra sides as well.

We had a large group and reserved our dinner via email. They knew that the group had more people coming but they didnt try to provide enough chairs. When asked for they mentioned that the reservation for so many so we can't accomodate others (these others were infants whom we dont need to mention in most reservations) and refused to move tables/chairs - when the restaurant wasnt even...

DO NOT GO.

I would never ever recommend any person to dine in here ever. It is not even close to what indian food taste. They are misrepresenting Indian cuisine. Chef probably never had Indian food in his whole life. Read below if you want to spend time reading the experience we had.

Good idea making you feel like you are getting 3 course meal. But they fail badly. Service: took 2.5 hours for complete food. Its slow. Especially when menu only had few items in it. I had VADAPAV as starters and it was vada and PAV was literally a bread piece from their buffet section. Chutney was drizzled but pretty poor. Presentation was good.

My wife got Manchurian. It was uncooked from inside as it was still RAW. You could taste the batter inside.

Next was main course. We had ordered dal makhani and Cholle Bhature. There was no Bhature with it. Both entrees were ok at best. But Naan were no close to be called as Naan.

Also, when we asked for Papadum, guy was like those are chef compliments and may be we are busy cannot get them out. Basically putting us off. Finally he did bring it out though.

My daughter had Veg Thali which said it has Gulab Jamun and Papad with it. When thali came out and it was missing, we asked about it and were told we dont gulab jamun in stock. And he argued about papadum.

Desert was a disaster. We ordered Shrikhand. It was very well presented. But main desert Shrikand was worst. Like it wasn’t even an attempt to make any kind...

The room was nice. The service was disorganized. We got the tandoori chicken and onion Baji to start. These were presented well. The tandoori chicken was served on a small hot plate with a smoking charcoal inside. The flavour of the chicken was surprisingly bland. The onion baji was ok. One of us ordered the Thali Sampler menu which was a bunch of small plates. This arrived first which meant your food was cold before everyone else got their food. The other mains were the Butter Chicken and the Gobi Aloo. The butter chicken was meh. And the Gobi Aloo had bits of cardamon and cinnamon bark still in it causing you to spit out something every 2 mins. And the naan was not naan. It was more like stale pita. And why they felt the need for pickled onion garnish on top of every dish is beyond me. Service was sporadic. We ordered coffee and asked for sugar. The sugar never came. They forgot. The desserts were not good. Not awful but not good. The Bharfi - Indian traditional sweet infused with cardamom and crunchy nuts was a tasteless rice cake. The Grajjar Ka Halwa - Carrot fudge, served with chocolate crumbles, bitter chocolate mousse, carrot paper and milk reduction was missing the chocolate mousse. I asked the waiter and he said it was in the chocolate crumbles. Unless they dehydrated it and crumbled it as well, there was no sign of it. The only redeeming dish was the poppadoms and tamarind sauce at the beginning...