Exotic Karahi — Restaurant in Slough

MOULDY DRINKS SERVED - BE CAREFUL!!

We often come here for different occasions and have found it to be adequate (not amazing, but good for a quick and local meal). This time around, there was mould in a drink (a Coke) we ordered. Literal green mould. I immediately showed the manager, Minnie (could be Mini, Minita), and she was first sort of apologetic and offered to replace the drink, which we declined. We had ordered food at that point so felt compelled to stay, even while my husband was spitting and being sick outside the premises after drinking the mould (in full view of the staff, not one of which asked if he was okay). The food came, we ate and mid eating Minnie tries to show me the coke bottle. Firstly, ridiculous to bring this up while we’re eating. Secondly, I’m not sure what she was trying to prove by showing me the bottle again, as we had already established there was mould in it and she had agreed.

This was a family meal, and I had dealt with this drink issue as subtly as I could without drawing attention to it for the rest of the guests. My dad, unknowingly, went up to pay the bill. Minnie said absolutely nothing about the mouldy drink and happily accepted full payment (minus the mouldy drink, obviously). When I found out, I was furious. The least I would do as a manager serving mouldy drinks to customers is offer them something as an apology, whether this would be half off the bill, or at the extreme least, not paying for any drinks (which amounted to about £20…)

I say this to Minnie, but she is saying she doesn’t understand. I ask for her managers, she refuses to tell me when they’re next in and says they’re not here. She eventually told me the name of one of her managers, Simona, but wouldn’t tell me when she’d next be in. I asked for them to take my details and contact me, but she said I need to contact them and they’ll respond in their own time. It’s a little bit laughable.

I told her if my husband gets sick from this, I’ll be coming back and taking this further, and she says I need to take it up with Coke. That’s not how consumer law works, which I tried to explain but she refused to understand.

Overall, she personally couldn’t care less that she gave us a mouldy drink and towards the end, was extremely rude and unhelpful. I wish I could have told the customers to watch out for the mould in their drinks. In the circumstances, I acted extremely reasonably, and it’s a shame that Minnie did not care, whatsoever, about her job, customer satisfaction, or have any integrity or decency to even apologise more than once. Utter rubbish!

I’ll be reporting the restaurant to the relevant food safety authorities. Clearly something is going very wrong here, which is a shame as it’s been a long standing restaurant in the local community for a while. Can’t say I’ll be going back and will definitely be warning off...

Worst dining experience I think I've ever had, and such a shame as this place was recommended to me over a year ago so we were looking forward to finally giving it a try. On arrival (Wednesday night) the place looked pleasant, apart from the temporary wooden boarding for the door following a recent "attack" apparently. There were Indian families eating, so we thought that was a good sign. The place was extremely noisy from the kitchen pans, music, babies crying, etc., and would've been quieter outside. We were seated at the smallest table by the front window/door even though larger tables were available elsewhere. Popadoms arrived, then 10 mins later they wanted to serve the main. We asked if they could hold back as we were chatting and had only eaten half the popodoms (an attentive waiter would see that), so they agreed to wait another 5 mins. 1 minute later another waiter brought the plates for mains and started to move our popodoms. We explained we'd asked for more time but he said he wanted to serve it now (who's the customer here!) So I suggested he took the popodoms away and deducted off the bill as there was no room on the tiny table. We'd chosen main dishes we were familiar with elsewhere so we had a comparison, and although we took into account that most Indian restaurants vary in recipes... I have to say the food was nothing like we expected! The ordered chicken tikka biryani was actually just tasteless boiled chicken thrown into the rice at the end (most of it brown meat and grisle) along with too many bay leaves, far too much salt and other strange 'stuff' that i couldn't identity in the overall wet slop. Absolutely awful. Even the Saag Paneer was thin, runny, greasy and no flavour. My friend had a similar experience, so we decided we'd had enough and complained. The manager offered to have it cooked again but we declined. If they couldn't cook it right first time, what difference would it make anyway? We were then offered complementary coffees and accepted. The noise was getting to us by now but we waited 20 mins and still nothing arrived... we couldn't even get any staff attention to ask for the bill (as a joke)... so decided to call it a day and walk out. We didn't run, we stood for a few minutes to try and catch someone's eye, and then slowly walked out. Nobody seemed to care... and sadly that sums up the whole evening spent at the Exotic Cuisine! They didn't appear understaffed but maybe lacked efficiency and communication, and the kitchen seemed to run to their own schedule and not take into account timings to allow customers to sit, relax, drink, talk and enjoy a relaxed atmosphere. It most certainly wasn't that....

I'm Polish. I like Polish cousine. But I'm also open minded and like to try different things. We say: if you see a lot of locals in the restaurant this restaurant MUST be good. Place gets very busy so to me best is to taka away. However when we have family visitors from Poland we go here. The starters🤩 even before you order you get crispy thin bread and 4 sauses to that. Than what we love is Naan-bread. This is not typical naan you buy in shop. It has in menu about 15 different flavours including sweets ( naan with marzipan I think ). We take one with cheese and garlic ( we ask chef to put them both on ) amazing! I could only come here to eat naan bread. Than main course - I don't even know the name of that dish- it's cracling on suspension frying pan dish and smells lovely ! It's chicken and occasionally you see waiter carrying that to table. We usually take ( except naan bread and milkshake for our son ) chicken tikka masala, chicken curry and egg fried rice. All lovely! And don't get distracted by chicken tikka - first time I said to my wife that I don't like theese indian style chicken ( tikka, tikka masala or curry ) But I turned up to be that I only tried cheap - street - fast food and in here it is like your own grandma would cook it for you. I Love chicken tikka masala !!! But only here or other proper restaurants not retail made for. You also get long drinks, shakes, alkohol, water juices -you name it, it's all good! Bare in mind that place get very busy and crowded especially on birthdays or other Indian ceremonies, but ok, you can order for take away. Will be back! Thanks for lovely Indian Food! Recommend...