India Today — Restaurant in North Island

We decided to try them for dinner and ordered a takeaway.

This place is definitely over-rated and the standard of food is quite poor to be honest.

Chicken tikka (25$) It was laughable when we opened our parcel and found 4 little pieces of chicken. Dismal portions really. The chicken was cold and dry, not the succulent pieces you'd expect. Not adequately seasoned. 25$ for 4 pieces of poorly cooked chicken - 0 stars from me

Plain naans (5$ each) You cant go wrong with this one. The naans were the standard naans youd expect. Nothing more. Standard naans - pricey , 2stars

3.Malai kofta (23$) My sincere warning to anyone who is reading this. STEER AWAY from ordering this! The entire box of curry came with 3 sad pieces of "kofta". They were 3 hard cylindrical pieves of deep fried potato. Nothing malai about this one. Koftas are supposed to be that melt in your mouth moments in a kofta curry, and this was far from that. Absolute disgrace of a kofta curry, massively overpriced- minus 2 stars

Chicken briyani (22$) India today seriously needs to look into seasoning its food better. The chicken briyani is not the fluffy dum briyani one would expect. It's more of a mix of rice with some spiced chicken masala (the taste more similar to a tawa briyani) No richness to the flavour , no raita to accompany the briyani. A mixed masala rice - 2 star

5.Eggplant sabzi (23$). The last on our order and hands down the worst. The proportion of eggplant to potatoes was definitely skewed towards potatoes. And by potatoes I mean half cooked almost raw hard morsels of potatoes. The excuse of eggplant was a sloppy mess, poorly seasoned and having no flavour whatsoever. A good sabzi gives you a good kick of garlic, the burnt aroma of eggplant and a good whiff of spices - all them lacking here. More potatoes, slimy eggplant, no taste - minus 2 stars

Now google wont let me review without issuing any stars and so I give them one star.

This place lacks respect for good authentic indian food, does not appreciate the need for good seasoning and spices, and is a joke with its portions. Way way overpriced for this rather bad and bland food they serve.

The decor looks amazing, if only the food matched that grandeur. 👎👎👎

Im not being a troll and hating a business, but the food deserves a good look and taste by the team. (And yes, I know my Indian food...

Usually love this place. Wanted to order takeout. So rung and ordered something we have often ordered (Butter Paneer). They said they don’t have butter paneer. We then rung back and a different person answered the phone, they said they could do butter paneer. Got there to pick it up and the order took way longer than they said which we weren’t too mad about because they seemed busy. We had two waitresses come up to us asking what we were waiting for, but didn’t come back with an answer as to when our order would be ready. Finally it came out and we checked with the waitress that the meals were paneer, she confirmed with the docket. We drove over half an hour home and noticed all the vegetarian meals had chicken in them. That’s three people that couldn’t eat meals that were paid for. Was going to call up and complain however they were quite busy and it’s always hard to hear them over the phone, also the petrol we would of had to use to drive all the way there and then home again, would probably be the cost of the meals. Not trying to hate on the restaurant or anything, like I said I usually love the place. I am giving it a 1 star because that is the rating it deserves and based on the owners reply to other peoples 1 star reviews, I’m quite happy to...

Pro: Friendly staff. Delicious food.

Con: Food takes a while. Wait staff do everything they can to push and charge one serving of rice per main without rice. They will add it to your order any chance they get with minimal clarification.

Note: Even their mild options still pack some heat. If you absolutely cannot tolerate any spiciness unfortunately this place is not for you.

From the menu it was indicated that most of their mains don't come with rice or naan etc. When we asked to clarify that, the waitress said that she will add rice automatically. We stressed that we wanted two curries that don't come with rice (as we have ordered other stuff). She understood. When the food was being served by a different waitress, she asked if we wanted rice. One of us indicated that they would like rice and the others said no. We were served a bowl of rice. Only when we went to pay did we realise we were charged for two servings of rice.

Suggestions: Instead of automatically adding rice, explain that rice is an extra charge, and ask if the customers would like to order it. Check to clarify how many servings are being ordered. If possible, serve each...