Arsalan Restaurant and Caterer Dubai — Restaurant in Dubai

So if you have seen my earlier review about the great and mighty Arsalan that I had visited in Calcutta you will understand the rating. This place that boasts "bringing the flavors of calcutta" is an absolute sham. I urge the management not to get offended, as I am the one who was truly and utterly disappointed and I'm just venting it out on this platform. When I came to know the same Arsalan opened up in karama I was actually ecstatic, I even went there personally and confirmed the authenticity of the place. I convinced some of my skeptical friends who haven't had a bengali biryani. I could easily say that the "biryani" what arsalan is famous for cannot even be compared to what gets served in jails, as at least they get the salt right. I mean why you have to call it "Dum biryani" if the dum effect is not shown, there is no smokiness for the biryani. And the service. This is something the management should really look into. Everyone in the restaurant is clueless of how to serve tables, everyone is well behaved but absolutely clueless. How can biryani, something that is premade take more than 30-40 mins to get to the table that is wrong. We ordered nan and some kabab, this came in around 1 hr and we had to decline it as we shared biryani with the person who ordered it. You know we as customers have some hopes the minimum that the food should get on time to the table and as a minimum have salt in the biryani. The other poor customers I bet haven't actually tried the real arsalan of Calcutta where it is not as plush as the branch in karama but has more heart than anyplace in the whole...

There was a point of time just few years back when I had biryani at Arsalan dubai and was like - that’s even better than what we get in Kolkata. But alas probably it was like beetlejuice, we praised it too many times and now it has come to a point where I had to throw almost the entire packet of biryani, chaap down the bin just yesterday.

The standard of Arsalan dubai has drastically gone down in terms of food, service and behavior of staff. In restaurant staff behavior especially at the counter has changed so much to the point you wouldn’t want to even talk to them. For delivery they keep making false statements and after reminders and calls we get food having to wait for 2-3hrs, and mind you this has been the case every-time we have been ordering, be it morning afternoon evening or night, weekday or weekend. These are in-spite of the fact that I have been ordering from them for like twice every week.

Now coming to the food, it’s pretty clear they have downgraded the quality of raw materials along with their cooking. Now it’s dalda instead of ghee in all the items and the mutton quality is nothing close to edible. I waited for a long time giving them multiple tries with various items before being compelled to write this review after my experience from last night’s order. The biryani smelled horrible, the meat quality was pathetic, and today I fell ill as well.

It’s sad to see the only restaurant serving your favorite dish going down like this. I really hope Arsalan can bring back the old self, but till then I don’t think I will be...

Read till the end...The name Arsalan is of high regards if you are from Kolkata....their food is good...as the pricing is premium. We had gone for lunch on a Sunday afternoon and I felt the service team was not ready to cater to a 100% table occupancy...we ordered Rolls,Kebabs, nan, chicken bharta, biryani mutton and chicken. Funny part is no cutleries were given post food was served...raita was not given with biryani...however was put in the bag when we had asked for the left over to be packed...fish tikka was like as if someone steamed the tikka as it was watery like a gravy and the firni was like a starchy cake which when cut with a knife will hold its shape (That was never how firni was with Arsalan)...now once done the team was in such a haste to clear the table even when 90% of the tables were now empty the person managed to drop a glass on my guest which eventually cracked and broke ( because they wanted to clear the entire table at one go)....luck me that my guest didn't complain.....but it was really unfortunate to see the service quality.....any how I guess both product and service needs to go hand in hand....it was always the case with Arsalan...be it Kolkata or Dubai...but my experience from Sunday 23rd February has got me thinking how the new competitor in Dubai is like......stay tuned if you like to know more on Arsalan's competition......any guess...