Smart India Restaurant and Bar Mount Maunganui — Restaurant in Bay of Plenty

We had an awful experience yesterday. I would leave zero stars if I could. The food is mediocre for the price and to make it even worse it is not even close to authentic. We ordered some biriyani and it felt like it was just a portion compared with the briyani served at other places. The tandoori chicken was also below average. The only thing that was good was the mango lassi. The lassi was really good. But would never recommend to come here just for the lassi, you can have similar or even better one for a better price in a lot of places.

Worst slice and customer service in the Mount. We were welcomed with a rude greeting. Paid for a meal for 2, & immediately after finishing our food we were asked to leave our table. I just finished my lassi and was having some water to get the taste of. Id understand if we had been there for a long time already, but we had not even been there for more than 35-40 minutes at this point. The restaurant was not at all busy, with lots of empty tables and still had 10-15 mins to the displayed closing time. Very unprofessional and rude. It was very offensive and insulting to me as I was the one forcing my friend to come here when my friend had another place in mind.

Won’t be coming back here. Come here if you want attitude. And no respect for your money.

Reply to the response -

Hi Sunil,

Thanks for your reply. Really appreciate the owner coming back on these issues and taking the feedback in a positive way. We understand the need to clean up the kitchen and making orders before that but in this case we have already told your staff that we won’t be adding anything more to the order when one of the waiters came and asked about anymore orders while we were dining. We placed our order at the counter even before having our seats as the restaurant was about to close in a hour and we understand and agree that you have to start cleaning the kitchen before closing. I have read your response to my friend’s review about that night. Thank you for confirming that the restaurant closes at 10 and the staff informed us about that. While asking us to leave at 9:45-50 your staff was a bit rude and said the restaurant closes at 9:30pm. Our table was not messy and we didn’t dropped anything on the floor so it was just a minute cleanup that was needed at our table and there where still a group at the restaurant having their dinner while the staff asked us to leave.

We understand the taste in the food can vary a bit sometimes and who knows maybe it might have been better on other days and we came in just on a bad day. It’s hard to meet everyone’s expectations on food and we wouldn’t have put the reviews for just because of that. It was the quality of service that made us put the review. It was truly insulting and disrespectful. We can argue forever with the ‘he said he said’. Letting us know that it’s almost the closing time and making us leave 10-15 mins before are two different attitudes. I believe a lot of customers would feel that way.

Once again thanks for taking the feedbacks. Hope the team improves their approach towards the customer and good luck to...

updated AVOID THIS PLACE *Avoid disappointment * Reasons are mentioned below I phoned to order takeaway Chicken biryani. As soon as went there unhappy faces i approached Front desk but she was busy om her cellphone . I asked for my order then owner of resturant which is very rude brought my order and chrged me money . I had no issues till then . However, I came home checked there was no Raita (complimentary yoghurt dish served by all indian restaurant in tauranga and papamoa)

I called again then front desk lady answered I infromed my concern rather than going to resolution she started being rude and bossy and said come in here for real person . As I tasted only one bite found out chicken not fresh oven cooked rice and mixed with curry no taste at all very basic biryani . I think people who try first time to cook biryani at home can defiantly cook better than this Restaurant.

I went back to their restaurant then i advised front desk girl to learn some manners and customer service "Treat people how you want to be treated". Then her father(owner) came in refund my money however they should have gone for resolutions to replace food with better quality and an apology for their un professional behaviour.

I read all reviews after this incident most of customers have same issues .

I bought another chicken biryani from OWN Masala Tauranga it was far from my place but was worth.

People who read my review wanna best indian food in tauranga Here is list of some good restaurant Own masala, Great spice, house of spice.

Again Not recommended this place at all

updated Their receptionist keeps on calling me as of 29/09/2025 around 4:30 pm And threating with police as her brother in police , it is like mentally harassment to a customer if you have my number you should be apologising not arguing for whatsoever reason.

According to her she is minor , then why and how she is receptionist serving alcholic beverages thats question to worksafe or whatever authorities responsible for

Kindly please stop calling me and forcing me to remove this review .

Again avoid this place at every cost and ill definitely inform my family and friends Restaurant's so unprofessional behaviour

Kindly work on...

Had a rather humiliating experience here. If I could give them a zero I would. Walked in and was given menus and seated. The woman returned very promptly to ask what we wanted to order, we told her we hadn’t decided yet. She said then, “We are closed” very abruptly in front of the other seated customers who were still dining (it was 1.30, on Checking apparently they close at 2 or 2.30 depending on where you look). We then asked it she wanted us to leave, however she said no, she just wanted us to order quickly. We then asked if we could just order somethings off the snack menu to save time, she then said there is still time. We ordered, but just snacks as I didn’t want to order whole meals and be left with no time to eat them. She brought them out in a takeaway bag and we paid. We sat back down to eat them as we have children and thought it easier and there were still people in the restaurant, she came over and said we were not able to sit and eat and that we had to leave. She was so unbelievably rude, we were so shocked! And this was all done in front of other diners. The mount is full of fantastic places to dine, with amazing customer service. I would highly recommend you dine at one of those and not support business who treat customers so poorly. When we walk past at about 2.15pm, the open sign was still flashing with people inside. Maybe we didn’t spend enough to be treated kindly. And the food we...