The Indus Restaurant & Bar Conisbrough — Restaurant in Doncaster

Indus restaurant, Conisbrough

My experience with Indus started on a negative note even before stepping foot in there. I wanted to book a table for dinner for my friend's birthday but as she and her partner both cannot handle too much spice though they love Indian food, I had to first ask the restaurant if they could do the dishes as "mild". For that purpose I called the restaurant several times but regardless of what time I called (during their opening hours) I could never get a response and never got a call back. Finally, I emailed them to ask. I got a response back in two days that they could take care of our food preferences. Cool.

So many days got wasted in this (I had started six weeks before the target date) that I could not book the slot she wanted. Do you think my friend said "Oh, well, at least you tried."? You don't know girls then.

On site, I loved how easy the restaurant was to find and how big their dedicated, free, car park was. The restaurant itself is also pretty big with one big hall housing a lot of tables, but it was also quite busy. But, enuogh space to walk around and sit comfortably without bumping the back of your chair into your neighbour's. Decorwise, pretty good, nothing outstanding and nothing to complain about.

Another thing that I had not liked from the booking process was that multiple times during the online booking they had reminded me that we must leave the table by this time (1.45Hours from start of booking). I don't like to be hustled, it gives me a non-premium, non-respectful feeling.

But that was not a problem as their service was quite fast. The girl who took our order was happy to answer all the questions and anything she didn't know, she confirmed with the kitchen. We made sure to let her know that two of the people wanted their dishes very mild and I wanted mine medium spicy. We were very clear on this and the girl repeated everything correctly.

Does that mean we got our food as we wanted? Guess again. My food was without spice which meant that I hated it. My friends' food was medium spicy which meant that they could not eat it. We complained and their food was replaced but it was still spicy. Mine was a half-portion when I had ordered full. Because of the taste, I did not want more but they happily (insistently) gave me a full as well which was a waste because I could not even eat half of that.

The final cherry on this train wreck of a dinner was the bill. It had two items on it one of which I had ordered but not received. The other we had not even mentioned. It took 3 cycles of complaints including a chat with the manager, (who was the girl who had taken our order), to get this sorted. She had taken the order correctly but it got mixed up somewhere down the line.

I don't think I have ever had this before in a restaurant where there are extra items on the bill but what surprised me more was their casual attitude about it.

Other than the mix-up in the spicyness the food was alright, not so great that I would go back for it but good enough that I could have eaten it. As it happened, we went somewhere else to get a snack/dessert as we had all left hungry. If you are wondering why I didn't swap with my friends for their spicy food, I am vegetarian, they are not.

It should be quite apparent, that I would not go back there or recommend it to other friends. I can make Indian food myself so when I go to a restaurant, it needs to be special. This wasn't it.

I don't like to be vicious to people who are running a business and trying to make a living, so I have tried to narrate just our experience as it happened and tried to be fair about it. You are free to draw your own conclusions. The place was quite busy so obviously, there are many people...

7 of us visited Indus for the first time last night and were very impressed with the whole experience. Parking was plentiful, free and right next to the restaurant, upon arrival we were shown promptly to our table in the very tastefully designed dining area, there are long tables for larger groups and lovely little booths for smaller parties, all looked very stylish and the restaurant was extremely clean. We were given a drinks menu and there were plenty of options to choose from, including alcohol free for the drivers, we thought £16 for a bottle of wine was great value, they also brought us a jug of free iced water for the table with lemon and limes which was a nice touch. Our food was genuinely the most tasty and varied flavours we have had from an Indian restaurant in a long time, we love Indian food but have really struggled to find any restaurants outside of London, Manchester and Glasgow that can compete, but Indus really is outstanding. I can highly recommend the lamb chops for starters and the naga was delicious. Some Indians seem to be be afraid to add much heat to a curry but this really packed a punch, lots of depth of flavour as with all the curries we had, the 5 adults all shared our different dishes, they were all unique. We had two children with us who didn't want Indian food but that was no problem, there were options to choose from and the staff even happily knocked up a cheese and mushroom omelette for my daughter which she really enjoyed. The staff couldn't do enough for us, it was our first time at Indus but definitely won't be the last, it could be our new favourite place. We'll done Indus, keep up...

Food was good. Popodoms served quickly along with array of pickle tray (selection of 8 items) their onion bahjis are more like irregular nuggets rather than the preferred flat disc shaped items but they were tasty. Prawn puree mixture was sweet and tasty. Prawns were firm but the flat bread was a bit chewy and thicker than I'm used to. Noticed quite a few of their mains included the dreaded green pepper. I sampled the safe butter chicken which was a bit different to all the other dishes with the same name but it was very good and the chicken was very tender. Other dish I sampled was a lamb Karahki (spelling may be wrong). - again very tasty with tender meat. Special rice was plentiful included small amounts of red and green pepper 🙄 - (you may have gathered I'm not a fan of green peppers 😝) also has sultanas which add a bit of sweetness but no peas or mushroom just bits of onion. Decor is fine enough. Televised Indian dance videos more suited for us males rather than women but I suppose it's sadly the norm with the majority of music videos of today. Toilets looked clean enough but toilet seat was broken/loose and the soap dispenser needed topping up. Prices were probably on a par with most other Indian restaurants and, like with most Indian restaurants ( why?). You get an itemised food bill with this extra chunk added at the end under the heading 'DRINKS' - making groups having difficulty in adding individual bills up. Like, if you have a 'fish' knocking back the beers one after the other and a driver who has just a half with such a diverse mixture of drink consumed is difficult...