Taaj Palace — Restaurant in Albuquerque

I was disappointed with dinner here... Whoever is managing this restaurant's online content is doing an excellent job of making everything look much better than it really is. It's in a strip mall and the main dining area is rather small and worn, although I noticed that they had a larger and nicer separate space used for overflow and large parties. My visit was in the dead of winter and the temperature inside was unbearably hot and steamy, like sitting in a sauna. It wasn't really overcrowded but still managed to be too loud.

The buffet was smaller than I expected because the menu seems really long. It was lacking some typical Indian food staples; there wasn't one type of curry, masala, vegetable pakora, samosa, or papadum. Numerous items weren't labeled correctly, with the front and rear foods switched. The fruit/dessert section was nearly empty and not at all enticing. I tried a spoonful of EVERY single item on the buffet and was underwhelmed with the flavors. Only a single dish had the slightest hint of spiciness and the ones that utilized yogurt tasted like it had gone bad.

The fish pakora (only seafood item available) was completely inedible because it was too tough to chew. There was only one goat dish and no lamb... Most every meat dish was chicken although there were some mystery meatballs that tasted like Italian food. The naan was plentiful but rather soft & limp. A lot of dishes were indistinguishable from each other and many lacked texture like they'd been cooking for too long, especially the lentils.

Warning: if you order a hot beverage such as chai tea it will arrive in a miniature teacup the size of a child's plaything. Most places will bring you a whole teapot, or at least an adult size mug, but this restaurant apparently treats hot liquids like gold too precious to be shared.

On the plus side, the rice was pretty good as was the gulab jamun. About half of the buffet dishes were vegetarian or vegan and separate from those with meat, although none of them tasted exceptional. The service was fine; our waiter was fast and friendly, checking several times if we needed anything. We were able to pay our bill quickly at the register. The restaurant looked clean and there was a cute little area just inside the door where some interesting things for sale were at.

Overall I wouldn't recommend this restaurant for dinner but maybe the cheaper lunch buffet is worth it - the place isn't awful but certainly nothing special. I wouldn't personally return here because of the lack of flavor of most every dish... Indian food usually involves some spiciness and/or unique tastes, but almost the entire...

My husband and I used to love this place, it has gone downhill, the male server was very rude after I asked him if he can make some fresh bread with butter , the shorter male, he got an attitude, he brought us some but it wasn’t fresh so I asked him if they would make some fresh, after that he had a bad bad attitude, when he brought it out we both said Thank you, and he just walked away, anyway the buffet food was not good yesterday Wednesday, the chicken was black and smelt very bad the drumsticks and thigh’s, I asked for the owner, she came to our table and we let her know, even asked her to smell the chicken, so she did and said we get the chicken fresh every Wednesday and it is freshly made in the morning, yea right!!!! It was not, and she also said she puts out the fresh bread every 10 minutes, yea yea yea, that is not true!!!! We will never be back, it used to be my favorite place but not anymore, she didn’t even say sorry about that, maybe offer a discount for the chicken, but no nothing!!!! No wonder the parking lot was empty at 1:00 pm that was odd, the food isn’t good or fresh anymore, there were only 2 people in the restaurant at that time, now I see why!!!! Stay away food...

I would give them zero stars if possible. No hints of professionalism and neither good customer service. We drove 2 hours to get to this restaurant looking at their good reviews. Ended up knowing they don’t have dine in although it is mentioned in their google profile and their own website which mentions open for dine in on the reformed covid rules for dine in. We didn’t have any time to go to other place so we did the takeout. After getting the food we found this plastic thing in one of the biriyani. Took it inside the restaurant, the cashier mentioned the restaurant doesn’t have anything plastic of that sort.(FYI we weren’t looking for free food if he thought so). Then another older guy came in and said it was plastic from gallon of milk and that was it. They weren’t apologetic, neither wanted to take the food back so we just dumped everything on the trash outside of their restaurant. Worst experience ever. Wouldn’t ever suggest...