Lounge Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in Braintree

We usually go to another “Indian” in the town but decided to give Lounge India another chance after a horrible first experience when they first opened (staff very rude and owner or manager came up to our table and demanded it back the second we’d paid!).

They have parking here but it’s quite confusing which area is for the restaurant - there’s also a fenced off parking area next to a house but there are no signs saying if restaurant customers can park there.

The decor of Lounge India is beautiful and the food is lovely but the service is really not good.

Throughout the meal we were made to feel so unwelcome. There was only one waiter (an older man) who was friendly and smiled.

My partner asked me what I was going to order and I said something from the chef’s specials. He didn’t have that page in his menu - both our menus were falling apart with loose pages in them. I was really shocked when our bill arrived and it was almost £80 for two mains, two naans, a rice, a soft drink and two beers. At our usual “Indian” that would be £60. And they include service in the bill, presumably knowing that most people won’t want the embarrassment of asking for it to be removed. £8 for waiters who gave the impression they didn’t want to be there is hard to accept.

The owner of this restaurant needs to be told this - going to a restaurant is about more than just the food. You can have great food but bad service will make people not want to return.

When we left the owner was sitting in the entrance area chilling out with his delivery drivers which wasn’t the most professional of looks.

It’s sad to give this place 3 stars as they clearly have good chefs but we won’t...

Plus points: Most staff are friendly Most food was quite nice Restaurant has a nice atmosphere

Let downs:

‘Mild’ seabass was extremely spicy. Mains took 50 minutes to come. Staff tend to ignore you after you ask for something, have to remind them 2/3 times perhaps because they were busy. Once the waiter finally brought out the food he asked is that everything? It was not.. he forgot to bring out the rice side dish which then took another 5 minutes to be made and come out This meant we didn’t get our side the same time as the main and we had already waited a long time. No apology either… Lastly the bill had a large glass of red wine on it which we never ordered. We were not even drinking wine. Not sure if this was an unintentional error or a way to make a little extra money. Anyway no apology for this mistake either. Politeness does go a long way and would have helped on these occasions Overall though the majority of food was lovely and I hope it was just a one off for them. Have not tried before but probably...

Ordered a delivery for a.s.a.p at 6.24pm , Message received at 7.20 saying order on the way. Phoned at 8.11 to find out where order was and advised delivery had left and was on its way.Phoned again at 8.40 to find out where the delivery was and told it was 5 mins away (we can drive to the restaurant in 5 minutes !!). 9pm another phonecall made to the restaurant asking where the delivery was...Told it was 5 mins away again !!. 9.10 delivery arrives ...YAY !! Half the food cold and when we opened the chicken dish... it's lamb !!. Yet another phonecall to the restaurant and after explaining we had ordered chicken was asked " well dont you like lamb then ?". replacement chicken dish arrived in 9 mins so we finally had all the A.S.A.P delivery food 3 hours later. We will NOT be returning to The Lounge India or ordering from...