Bites of india restaurant — Restaurant in Southampton

I took a taxi from town to come here, unfortunately the driver had no idea where it was so looked it up on his phone, which gave the old address as the owners had not updated the address, so the driver took me to an empty shop, He then turned round and tried to charge me to go back into town, fortunately I rang the restaurant from the cab and bailed out on route back,its 42 not 43 Shirley High Street. Once inside the owners were very friendly but the waiter told me they had no vegan dishes everything was vegetarian, but a women sitting eating who I believe was the owner corrected him, but told me when I ordered that I had not ordered enough and I should order a main, when I requested water I was presented with a large glass bottle of water at £4, when I said no please bring me a small bottle I was told they do not do small water, but later I saw the chief drinking one! The Samosa Chat was very tasty and nicely spiced and so was the Aloo curry, very good portions and reasonably priced (apart from the rip off water)but there was a very unpleasant smell all the time I was eating, which was very off putting, I realised later it was the washing up liquid used to wash the horrible plastic dishes the food was served in. All in all not the best experience, but I think the place is worth a visit if you are hungry and fancy a curry and are in town, apparently the waiter told me there are now 5 Indian vegetarian restaurants on that street?? I never saw them and they don't appear on Happy Cow,...

Beginning with the positives, the dry gobi manchurian was really good today. I liked the dal tadka the last time I ordered so I ordered it again only to be really disappointed with the quantity of fennel in it. It did not taste authentic and was too watery (video attached). The bhel puri was way too sweet. I know what I am talking about because I also know how to cook vegetarian food. Papdi chaat looked good but smelled really weird. Potato vada did not taste like potato vada either. The hara bhara kebab may have been good on its own but while packing it was soaked in a lot (and I really mean A LOT) of ketchup and yogurt ruining its texture and taste and the kebabs were disintegrating because of the excess unnecessary liquids on top. I think it is a very basic thing that sauces must always be given on the side and not heavily poured on the appetiser. All I could taste was ketchup and I literally wiped it off using a tissue to taste the actual kebab (I could still taste ketchup more than the kebab btw so that didn't help either). It's probably the first time I have seen lettuce with a desi appetiser. Please avoid such fusions or at least mention it explicitly. Onion salad is usually expected with such desi starters not things like lettuce. I have given this place a second chance too but this was the second time that I was disappointed and now I am really reconsidering if I should order from here again because personally I felt like I wasted my money and ruined my...

Didn’t expect a reply after your dispute but if you wanna go this far then ok first of your full bottles? Nope they were under half way not even half the glass filled up with the pani puri water and about your rules it’s kind of every restaurants policy that their written out as then it won’t cause a scene like this on the spot in front of all the other customers and about you refilling the same bottles and giving it to the next customer idk if that’s really that hygienic there could be a time when they’ve fell somewhere or a kid is playing with them and puts his mouth to it wouldn’t recommend anyone getting any food here especially with the horrible hospitality you get, + when u say politely I don’t think it was we’ve got camera recording of the way u treated us in front of all your customers and also where u say we come repeatedly it was my first time coming actually so idk where u got that statistic from, and when you say ‘we kindly asked you’ you may want to reprase that, I’m not sure if the way u talked to us was very friendly and if you think this is wrong we’ll come to the restaurant itself and show u the video ourselves! No one come to this restaurant, bad hospitality bad service bad...