India Way — Restaurant in Leiden

“VERY BAD EXPERIENCE“ I think they don’t even deserve one star

On 1st September, it was my son’s 18th birthday and we decided to have dinner with our friends & family at India Way Leiden, as we always go there because it’s near my house.

The owner of the restaurant was extremely rude and didn’t know how to behave properly with the customers. My husband and a friend of ours told me when we came back about the incident that happened. My husband asked the owner about his opinion if the amount of food we ordered is enough for all of us, or if should we order something else, and to that he replied very rudely “if you want to order anything you order it NOW, it’s not like India, you can’t call us and order again after sometime!” He also proceeded to say “Educated people come here in my restaurant.” As if we aren’t educated!

I ask my husband why he didn’t tell us about that (we should have left that place, that was not the only restaurant in the town). He said he didn’t want to spoil everything just because of that rude man who was not at all important to our evening.

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But now we are SURE, we will never go in INDIA WAY Leiden restaurant again and he is losing his very frequent customer. And by the way, this was not the first time he was rude, one of my very good friends also recalls that she had bad experience in...

I must say I'm a bit disappointed, both in the food and service.

Food-wise: the onion bhaji had barely any onion in it, it was just fried dough with some onion mixed in. Usually the Indian cuisine is one of the most vegetarian friendly cuisines, but the vegetarian variety was very limited. Though it was not on the menu, I ordered chana masala, which was average at best. The naan is different from what I'm used to too, it was too thick and not buttery - also, ordering garlic naan instead of regular costs €2 extra. The papadum was not very crispy and we got only 1 piece for the both of us, and were charged €1 when we asked for one more.

Service-wise: we were told that we could not order appetizers up front but had to order everything at the same time. After ordering, it took at least 20 minutes for our starters to arrive, and over an hour for our main dishes. When we were done with our food, we got quite some strange looks from some of the staff.

Maybe it was just a bad day for them, but spending two hours for mediocre Indian food felt a...

First of all how can you serve mango lassi in small wine glasses?! 3 sips and we could order another for 3€ ?!?!?! Just be generous and serve a decent drink. Second, waiting over an hour for the first bites,... no this is not the way it should be right? I'm not ordering slow cooked food on the spot... Third the taste of what we had was blend, too much potato used as a filler in small plates...what did we have: from chicken vindaloo, masala, dansak to bhuna with side dishes like dal and aloo gobi Fourth, change the furniture if you see that people are rocking on their chairs and tables are going back and forth. Fifth, personal hygiene... please put on some deodorant for the guest even if you don't like it yourself. The sweaty smell of the waiters... just freshen up please! Sixth... you get the picture right?

From now on we'll go to The Hague or somewhere else if we have a craving for decent...