Punjabi Heaven Restaurant - Indian Street Food — Restaurant in Leeds

As a professional food critic I aim for my reviews to always be kind where it comes to issues but I am truthful.

The venue, staff, service and ambience are lovely. Beautiful artwork and decoration and very clean. The food, not so much. It is genuinely overpriced for what it is. There is no dress code and was disappointed to see that they allow people to attend in tracksuit bottoms which was off-putting as we had bothered to dress up to eat out.

Being near the door was disappoining to have to deal with a full queue of delivery drivers. I really think it brought the level of professionalism down. I think they should be made to collect from a back door.

I would love to give a 5 star review due to the great service and lovely staff, but, on this occasion I'm afraid I can't. It's the chef who is losing all the points.

Having been raised and lived in an Asian area for over 42 years I know my favourite food well and this food was not on point. It started when I began to drink my mango lassi which again was highly overpriced for the size of the glass. I began having to spit 'bits' out. I actually thought that the chef had accidentally ground up some of the mango seed by accident into it. I had to take it back and ask them to sieve it.

The most frustrating part was that for everything that was wrong with the food, instead of apologising and being accountable, they tried to tell me I was wrong and that this is how it is made. It's not. I've literally just returned from the middle east and ate Indian food constantly when travelling.

I found it very strange that there were no chapattis on the menu which one would think would come as standard as Indian restaurants generally serve them automatically with curry. Instead they had roti listed at £3. I asked can you make us some chapattis please otherwise how are we supposed to eat our curry? They agreed but when they were served they were swimming in either butter or ghee. My friend is a vegan and they knew that. We were both shocked and again when we pointed out that chapattis are supposed to come dry, they again tried to tell us we were wrong. When our regular dry chapattis came after sending them back, the man turned around said 'vegan chapattis' to us. I don't mind what they believe but you don't tell a customer that they are wrong. Chapattis are absolutely never served with butter/ghee. Never have been and never will be. The other problem with them was that they were truly tiny. Chapattis are big as a rule. They were child size. Please be aware that this restaurants chef automatically garnishes absolutely everything. I had to send my curry back as he had swirled what looked like pouring cream all over the top of it.

I ordered yoghurt as there was no raita available on the menu. I had to leave it. It tasted sour and was thick and lumpy like cream cheese. The chef didn't even whisk it to smooth out the consistency and then decided to serve it with pomegranate and something green on the top. Again, it had to be sent back and asked for it plain.

The curry was disappointing. I tipped it out of the serving bowl and onto a plate to be able to access the meat. The meat wasn't marinaded as it was plain white in the middle. It was plain chicken just added to a sauce. The chunks were far too big and needed cutting in half or even quarters and for £12.99 there were only 5 pieces of meat in a whole heap of sauce. I felt like a paid for a bowl of sauce and left hungry.

The shop next door sells Aisan sweets. We did buy some on leaving but the prices were exceptionally expensive. £1 for one gulab jamun. I saw a bag of crisps for sale for way over a pound.

Due to so much being wrong, I am unable to give more than two stars and I believe 100% that this is down to a bad chef. Please stop selling plain meat in sauce and advertising it as what should be marinaded meat. That's unfair on the public and please add chapattis, raita and all regular food that people expect from Indian cuisine onto the...

Beer choice was fine and reasonably priced. Cocktails probably slightly higher priced but didn't try. Bhindi starter was fine but not crisp. Fish pakora was fine. Chicken Handi and Punjabi Lamb were both good & curries were full of flavour & meat was good. The special cheese naan was excellent. The plain parata was fine but didn't enjoy it much after the excellent special cheese naan. We had the curries with plain rice. Cucumber raita was fine. Gulab Jamun with vanilla ice-cream was good. Matka Kulfi didn't come in matka and wasnt good and icy mainly and not creamy and better to steer clear of that! Masala Chai was fine. Service was fine. Although the food was fine, I noticed on the wall opp between table 2 and 3 towards the back there was a large poster of khalistani supporting singer on the wall and unfortunately I won't be visiting this venue again in future for that single reason as I can't give my funds to any venue that idolised such people who are against my motherland. I have friends who regularly order food from this venue for their parties and have made my friends aware of the poster displayed here. But I for one won't patronise such venue again purely due to the poster of the khalistani singer displayed prominently here. I guess many Indians who respect their motherland would understand my sentiments against visiting venues promoting such secessionist khalistani supporting singers. Dropped to 4* purely due to the atmosphere of the venue after seeing the poster as I wanted to leave the venue immediately but had already ordered the food by then for my friends birthday and finished dinner and left. Am sure there are enough alternatives where I don't have to spend my money supporting venues that promote such secessionist singers...

Update: we ordered a takeaway from here a few months after the below visit. It was delivered without the breads we'd ordered so we complained. It's good that the restaurant then eventually delivered the missing breads AND offered to supply new curries as well, which they did. My gripe, however, was the very high prices, for the naan and especially the roti (which is a glorified Chapatti - see photo) - yes, we paid slightly more for the order via Uber (an high £3.50 for the roti - see photo) but even the restaurant menu has exorbitant breads & rice prices. The curries were, to be honest, nothing special - and very oily (see photo where we tried to spoon off some of the oil or ghee), but the takeaway cost was nearly £50 for 2 curries, 1 rice, some okra, a roti and a smallish naan (inc slightly higher Uber prices + Uber fee). Won't be ordering again. Too expensive and nothing special. Sorry.

Previous comment:

We celebrated a double birthday on a quiet night. First of all, each dish was around £2 more expensive than the online menu so that needs updating! The food was excellent and the service responsive and quick. But the atmosphere was kind of weird? Staff standing around looking miserable and bored which I couldn't help noticing. I know it was a quiet night so not great for revenue, I suppose, but I couldn't help feeling that we weren't welcome? Not sure I'd return because of that - and the...