Royal Tandoor — Restaurant in Christchurch

Royal Tandoor; a name that will give you the sense of fine food made to please food lovers. Sadly, it's all a front. I recall my experience. Royal Tandoor advertises a great take-away combo that comes packing with:

Small curry, Small rice, 1× naan bread, 1× 420ml drink,

It's the first thing you see walking in, and it's all for only $15. It's great! So, I ordered two. I looked in the fridge to choose my drink. Surprisingly I found no 420ml drinks. When I confusedly asked the front of house staff "Where do you keep the 420ml drinks?" He unabashedly replied "Oh, we don't have. Only 375ml!". "Ok, but the combo includes a 420ml drink?" I said. He looked at me with a wry smile. "Yeah but it covers 375ml drink too..." I am bewildered They will try to brush you off on a smaller drink for the full price you paid! Unacceptable. I managed to haggle a single 1.5L drink from him, but I am still shocked to see such a cheap farse trying to be pulled! Every restaurant should aim for great customer service, not mislead the customer and then attempt to rip them off.

Aside from that, the food is good, but nothing beats the bad taste of having to deal...

Got takeaway Lamb Pasanda and plain naan. Right off the bat, the rice was not a good start. Dry, individual grains with a less-than-fresh aroma and absolutely no seasoning; not even the barest hint of salt. The curry was dominated by large, raw chunks of green capsicum and a few big pieces of extremely dry, overcooked, chewy mutton. The sauce was overpoweringly perfumed with mint, but also very bland. The naan bread was the highlight for being simply adequate.

For the steep price, I was hoping for a local gem but instead paid for what could have been leftovers with a jar of simmer sauce poured over.

Actually, that's not true; if they were leftovers at least they would be cooked.

I recommend Everest Indian and Bombay Butler as...

Underwhelming.

I have eaten here several times over the last 10 years but won’t return now.

Starters were ok, samosas were good but the rest of the Royal Mix Platter was ok to bad. The chicken tikka and reshmi tasted like they’d been boiled in the sauce and had a nasty floury coating. The pakoras were bland and tasteless. One of the dipping sauces was inedible.

Palak paneer was ok but the cheese was overcooked and chewy. The butter chicken was bland.

The worst was the lamb korma. The lamb was tough and flavourless. The sauce was really bad, it was pale and quite gelatinous, the flavour of cardamom...