Indian Rose Restaurant & Takeaway — Restaurant in Plymouth

Want to prefix this review by saying I really hate leaving negative reviews but my partner and I were both really upset and offended with how we were spoken to and treated at Indian Rose last night. There were only a couple of other tables taken so one would think they may appreciate our custom. We'd been before a couple of times and been very happy, tonight though was a very upsetting and distressing experience. We ordered egg fried rice for my partner as she just wanted something without spice (particularly coriander). When it arrived it was sadly an "Indian-spiced/seasoned" version of the egg fried rice you'd get in a Chinese restaurant normally. We mentioned to the nice lady who served us that we just wanted plain egg fried rice and it didn't mention anything on the menu about it having Indian spices etc added to it. The male owner then rushed over and told us off for not saying we didn't want coriander and went on a bit of a rant about how everything in Indian restaurants has coriander in it (which isn't true anyway) and how it was our fault for not saying we didn't want spices etc added to it. When I politely mentioned that on the menu it just said egg-fried rice he started raising his voice at me saying he'd been a chef for 30 years, he owns 8 restaurants etc. He then quite loudly and very patronisingly said "Have you never been to an Indian restaurant before?" We eat out a lot and have never been spoken to so rudely. I also love Indian food and have never even seen egg fried rice on any menu hence my assumption it was the Chinese rice dish. He then said egg fried rice is an Indian dish (which is also incorrect in my opinion as it is widely considered a Chinese restaurant dish and google confirms it is Chinese). He wouldn't let me speak and just kept talking over me and raising his voice at me. I then said "I don't like being spoken to like that and find him very rude and patronising". He just kept arguing and saying he's not rude, this is just the way he speaks while raising his voice at me more. This was in the middle of the restaurant and can't have been a nice atmosphere for the other diners. We were going to leave as it just ruined the whole evening but the nice lady who served us came to calm the situation. It's such a shame because the restaurant is really beautiful and the food we ate apart from the first egg fried rice was really nice. The lady server was also very nice and I gave a service charge at the end based solely on her service. The manager may be a successful businessman and good chef. That's not my complaint. My complaint was the way he speaks to us as customers and how he responded when we just politely mentioned about our dish being different to the listing on the menu. It's very sad as we've just moved back to this locality and Indian food is my favourite cuisine but I certainly won't feel comfortable coming back here or recommending it. I asked the lady server to just serve us for the rest of the evening as we didn't want to have to speak to the manager again. Going out for a meal should be a nice pleasant experience, it's not always overly affordable for people to eat out at nice restaurants in this climate and therefore one would at least hope to be spoken to in a civil manner. This turned out to be very distressing in the end and although we had a nice meal the whole thing was completely ruined by the way we were spoken to by the manager....

Hadn’t seen my friend in many years. She came to visit me and wanted to treat me to an Indian meal. This was local to where I live and had really good reviews, so we booked it for Thursday 4th April at 7.

It turns out we needn’t have booked, as there ended up being just 6 customers in the restaurant ( ourselves and two couples). When we arrived, we were made very welcome and our order was taken very quickly. We started with poppadoms and dips- very tasty, but would have been even better with a bigger portion of the dips.

I elected to go for the Mixed Starter, followed by the Lamb Tikka Balti. My friend was prompted to miss the starter and have Lamb Rogan Josh and a sweet, as they looked so good and there was plenty of choice.

My starter was beautifully presented and was really enjoyable (10/10). We both agreed the mains were of a high calibre- very good indeed. The meat was tender and everything very aromatic.

All good so far, although it was noticeable that a few of the staff were openly on their mobile phones and this distracted from the atmosphere. I guess they were bored because it was so quiet, but not a good look to a customer.

My friend was looking forward to her sweet and ordered the Amarena - essentially ice cream, yogurt and dairy cream topped off with black cherries. It is also the dish presented on their menus.

When the dish arrived, it looked nothing like the picture nor the description. There were only two cherries and these were frozen. As she was so disappointed, we raised this with the same staff member who had made us so welcome at the start.

Rather than offer an alternative solution, he became quite defensive and explained the desserts were not prepared on site, but brought in - so nothing to do with them essentially! He then asked would she like to choose an alternative. Obviously she said ‘no’ as we now knew the desserts were not going to be as they were presented on the menu.

It was noticeable that we were given a wide berth after that. My friend had to approach the lady on the till to pay the bill. She explained how she was reluctant to pay for the dessert as it was clearly misrepresented on the menu.

The tiller nor any other staff member at the restaurant apparently had no authority to discount the dessert from the bill. In the end, she placed a phone call to someone and was bringing the phone over to my friend. My friend asked ‘to whom am I speaking’, but we heard a voice say ‘ just take it off the lady’s bill’. The tiller unfortunately didn’t know how to activate the discount but we got there in the end.

I would have starred this higher, as it started out so promisingly - but ended up being not so good. I think the staff would benefit from some customer...

Took my friend for her birthday expecting a lovely chilled experience only to sit through 2+ hours of mayhem! New staff and staff sickness had a serious knock on affect to the whole running of the restaurant. We ordered cocktails and the pinicolada was so sweet like drinking pure sugar, badly made sadly. Our chutney selection was good but the popadums were a bit limp, not nice and crispy as they should be.45 minutes later we were told our order had not made it to the kitchen! When it arrived a further 15 minutes later most of it did not disappoint with regards to flavour but with my friends Butter Chicken, you could clearly see they had just deep fried the chicken pieces(or hot fried in a pan) and then just threw it in to the butter cream curry sauce-not impressed! I had chicken Kori, as I said the taste was all there just seemed chicken was very over cooked. The manager/owner did come over to apologise and explained the situation but with respect I’m out for a dining experience not a social worker visit. One of the male floor staff was extremely rude to the young girls trying to learn their job (I think?) and enough so that I had to mention it to the manager. A big argument also ensued in the kitchen at one point which was clearly heard in the main restaurant, (I was in the ladies right by the kitchen at this point and things were obviously thrown or dropped) Some of the dishes that came out while we were waiting looked pretty impressive in their glass bowls with lots of dry ice effects which only made our dinner all the more disappointing when we got it. Overall all the staff were stressed and it put a real damper on the evening. All in all a disappointing experience and I will not be going...