Maharaja Palace — Restaurant in Colombo

If you are planning to have a lovely dine-in experience at Maharaja Palace, PLEASE READ!

Maharaja Palace is one of the few Sri Lankan-based authentic restaurants which has a true sense of Indian cuisine and a great ambience all around. I had visited here about 5-6 times, and my experience was above-average in all those times except 01. (Hence the 3 stars)

Pros: - Authentic Indian dishes with great taste, (somewhat) affordable food items (For LKR 3.5k you can have an appetizer, your choice of dum biryani as the main course, and a Kulfi), Overall excellent ambience and aura.

Cons: - On a busy evening, one of the Thai-speaking server ladies took our order and due to the language barrier she asked for the food item numbers we wanted, so we gave them to her. Then they were delivered by a Sri Lankan male waiter, who rushed to put the food items on the table, and there was a dish of mutton (we didn't know that this was mutton at the time!) and I immediately said, "Hey, we didn't order this one" and asked him to check. He looked at it for a moment and said "This comes with the 'Fish' Biryani and an additional unit of Fish" I asked "Are you sure?" and he replied yes. We felt a bit suspicious but kept consuming it since the waiter, at the palace, provided the green light, and we had neither experienced nor heard of such experiences here.

Now the time came for the bill, and this mutton dish was added as a billed item, and I straightway informed the manager that we didn't order this. To my surprise he was rude, and with quite a bit of an egotistical voice uttered: "But you have consumed it right? you have eaten it!" I stood my ground and said, "It's not our fault that your server said this was included as a complimentary food item for the ones we ordered, so we are not going to pay for it", and requested that the server come and explain himself.

This time the manager agreed and came back in a very apologetic manner and said sorry multiple times, but did not even offer for us to pay 50% of the fee, as it would be justified for all the parties involved. It was about 9.30 p.m. and we needed to go back home (which is about 20km from Colombo) so I paid the full price for a food item we didn’t order!

Verdict: - I’d still go to Maharaja palace, as the taste of the authentic Indian food items exceed my disappointment with the manager and the server who were neither responsible nor accountable for their own mistakes, but would very carefully and attentively check when my order is taken, even going for recording the entire thing, because, on that front, Maharaja palace has...

Maharaja Palace at Colombo 7

Location : Opposite Royal College Skills Centre in Rajakeeya Mawatha. Ample parking available at the terrace.

Ambience : An old plush bungalow converted to a restaurant. Tall wooden carved doors guarded by a doorman with long moustache clad in sharwani suit and turban adds into the Palace-esque.

Two floors of seating with the top floor very calm an quite. (The ground floor was booked entirely for a B’dy party, and it was the total opposite - Full of noise and music)

Service : Since the table was reserved we were guided to our table without having to look around. The two who served us was courteous and nothing much to complain about the service.

Food : Ordered 3 Cheese Naan, 1 portion of butter chicken and a portion of Prawn khatta pyaza.

Each cheese naan were cut into two and ‘actually’ had cheese on it. The butter chicken curry tasted good and had generous amounts of chicken in it although some of the pieces felt rubbery.

The prawn portion on its own was not that great. The prawns although grilled was not seasoned enough and this dish comes with lot of onions. But we dipped the prawns in the chicken curry and that made the prawns taste much much better.

Mrs. Kota had ordered a biscuit pudding as a surprise for Mr.Kota. This was served with whipped cream and two slices of strawberries on top. This is something to avoid as the biscuit pudding was too hard and felt as if it has been in the freezer for ages.

VFM : The food except for the biscuit pudding tasted good. Nothing much to complain nor nothing much to write home about. Nice ambience. Prices are slightly on the higher side, may be for the location and the ambience.

Kota rating - 4’ 2” (Out of 5 Feet)

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It’s a bit of a hit or miss. The first time we went there, it was really good. The food (Mutton Dum Biryani and Mutton Vindaloo) were outstanding. The best I’ve had in the country. However, we just went there again today and it wasn’t as great. Ordered the Prawn Dum Biryani, and while the prawns were indeed huge and well cooked, there wasn’t much flavor at all in the rice. The side of raita too had been reduced to a tiny amount compared to the dish we got before. Had the palak paneer that lacked salt and wasn’t a big fan of it. The cuttlefish curry was too full of pepper corns that it was unenjoyable. It was alright though to just fill up. Portion sizes were huge, which is great. Their butter naan was brilliant. This time, we ordered dessert and the Gulab jamun while soft, was unnecessarily microwaved (we could tell as the bowl was warm and the syrup was bubbling). Ambience-wise, there’s more than enough space, especially parking. The only issue when we went the second time was their AC had malfunctioned, so it was quite stuffy. Staff was very polite and friendly. There wasn’t much flavor one chap who really tried his best to make us feel comfortable and advised us of the discounts as well on offer. Only one gripe is that they sometimes tend to be a bit rushed towards the late evenings. That said, they’re very attentive and serve the food pretty fast. Heard that they had to discontinue the Thai cuisine as their chef had left, which was unfortunate. However, always found it odd that an Indian restaurant served Thai. Still, will try visiting again though and go with...