Bollywood SPICES — Restaurant in Antigua

Really lovely venue with great service and five star food.

Went here for a valentines date and was really happy with the food and the service. Waiter was very attentive and warm. We had a good selection of items from the menu which I'll review below if anyone cares to have a read.

The only downside of the experience and the reason I give 4 stars instead of 5 is because of a few minor cleanliness issues. If it were just one or two things I would over look entirely and neglect to mention them however we had 3 issues which impacted the evening. Nothing major but I know it would put some others off.

Firstly there were some old dusty cobwebs around the chairs a d the table and some spiders inhabiting them. Nothing major and the waiter took care of them for us.

Secondly the wine glasses on the table were not very clean and had again a cobweb with a spider between them and the plates on the table. Again the waiter took care of this for us so not a big issue.

Thirdly I was served a drink into a glass which had something stuck to the bottom. It could have been a raisin from the dishwasher or a bug but whatever it was had dried onto the glass and stuck there. The waiter was very kind and apologised for this. Changed the drink very quickly for me.

As you can see none of these issues are huge, but overall I felt that I couldn't give 5 stars for the experience. Even with the attentive waiter who kindly fixed all the problems for us.

Onto the food which was hands down 5 stars.

Poppadoms and chutneys were fine. Nothing special. Plenty of heat in the onion mix which is good as some places lack any flavour in the onion mix/dip that comes with poppadoms. Mango chutney and mint sauce were a standard affair, nothing special but certainly nothing to complain about either.

Onion bhajis were very tasty would definitely recommend to anyone who's visiting. Lots of flavour and very well cooked and presented.

For our curries we ordered a Chicken Korma and a Lamb Rogan Josh. I have to say the Korma was one of the tastiest I've had on the island and I've tried almost every Indian in the south these past 6 months of living here. The marsala/gravy/sauce was beautiful. Bursting with taste and very rich and creamy. Just what I'm looking for in a Korma. Chicken meat was fair. Plenty tender. But perhaps not quite as much meat as I would have liked in the curry. Rogan Josh was very good, again lots of taste in there. Perhaps not as spicy as I would have liked. We ordered it medium and would have expected a decent amount of heat in it at a medium but I would say it was quite mild. So I would recommend ordering one up from where you want to get a good level of spice. Lamb meat was absolutely magical. So tender and tasty. I would certainly recommend the lamb here as some of the best curry meat on the island.

Peshwari naan was fantastic, it's always my favourite but this place made it very well indeed. Plenty of flavour and a decent portion size as well. Cheese & Garlic naan was again fantastic. Probably the best on the island absolutely bursting with cheese. Pulled apart like a good slice of pizza. Lots of stringy cheese.

Garlic Pilau Rice was lovely. A very good garlic taste. Very strong flavour and some very nice rice to go...

I should start off by saying I have never written a negative review even though I am a prolific restaurant visitor. Restaurants are allowed to have a bad day but this experience is too worrying to not document.

It all started great with the waiter being very good with my 20 months old son. This was followed by a fairly prompt delivery of the popadoms and drinks as you would expect.

Alarms bells started ringing after I had been eating for half an hour for the main course. In this time I has seen various people complaining about the waiting time. After approx 45 mins I asked the waiter how long the food would be as I have a small child getting restless and very tired. He assured me it would be 5 mins only for 20 mins to pass before we received our meal.

The food was very average and the tandoori chicken was extremely dry and tasteless, being polite I only mentioned about the tandoori chicken.

We then had to wait another 10 mins and still no bill after repeatedly asking. I said to the waiter I would leave it up to him to decide what he should knock off the bill which resulted in nothing.

After asking to speak to the manager who as less than polite he knocked a poultry 10 euros of the meal so I said this was a bit insulting. He then became extremely angry and asked what I thought should be knocked off. As my intention was not to profiteer I said he should knock the drinks off which was 24 Euros which he snapped and then said are you happy now. I suggested this was not about money - it was about accepting the wrongdoing for the multiple lies that I has been told about waiting times and his reputation is more important than the bill which Ihad just paid.

He then went crazy and even demanded I pay the original Bill or said he was calling the police. Asking his waiters to acost me on my way out I then went back into the restaurant and he was shouting and raving like a lunatic which was very intimidating as I thought he might get violent.

Fortunately my wife and child had gone ahead to get back to the hotel as it was late.

A truly shocking experience which I would not want anyone...

Really disappointed after reading great reviews expected to have a nice meal. Got a little concerned when the couple at the table next to us began sweating profusely and walked out midway through the meal before ours had arrived. I soon discovered why. Ordered a Biryani with mild sauce which is something I usually eat. Withing the first mouthful it was clear something was off with it. The rice was heavily spiced and the sauce was hot not mild. I mentioned to the waited and his answer was to put some mint yogurt to cool it...which although not impressed that I was having to try fix their error I tried it and it was still inedible. The waiter brought a mild sauce out but unfortunately at this point the hot sauce and the mint yogurt had already ruined the rice so there was no fixing it. One server told me to just pay for 2 of the 3 meals as I'd not been able to eat the biryani. Then when it came to paying the other waiter basically said tough and that I was to ignore the first waiter and he reduced the bill by 10% which didn't cover the cost of the meal that was inedible so I had to pay for a meal and still left hungry as it was too spicy to eat. Also we noticed cockroaches and bugs running across the floor and climbing the wall to the outside area which we noticed just before we left. We wouldn't have bothered ordering if we had...