Nirvana Indian Cuisine — Restaurant in Arcadia

The WORST indian restaurant ever. And possibly one of the worst restaurants in GENERAL I've ever been to. The lady owner has discriminated me from the rest of the other customers. I went in by myself, to eat the lunch buffet after work on a weekday, and I noticed right away, her attitude was just off putting and made it clear to me, that she did NOT want to talk to me at all. For some reason!

Now, I'm assuming the worst here. But it most likely has to do with the fact that I'm east asian and she probaly does not like us! Which honestly, I can understand. But if you live In Arcadia which is predominantly Chinese/Taiwanese residents and maybe she personally has experienced a lot of rudeness from the community or whatever. But even so, you still shouldn't act like that towards a stranger and especially, a CUSTOMER. I just simply went to eat at their establishment, to enjoy a nice indian buffet. Which is one of my favorite food and they somehow did not want my company there at all! Did I mention it was my first time there? She proceeds to talk to the other tables and asks them, "how is your food?", "do you need more water?", but then walks past my table and ignores me! If that's not some sort of discriminating behavior in 2024, then I don't know what's going on with her? I really wanted to ask her and confront her about this, but for some reason, something told me it's best just to eat your last crumbs on the dish and pay and just leave. It would've been a waste of time and breathe. That's the vibes I just picked up from the situation.

I respectfully said "thank you" every time and still showed my respectful mannerisms that I was taught since I was a child from my household. I even asked her, "is it ok if I can get more napkins?" and she proceeds to just have this straight stale face without saying a word and goes to the kitchen and then brought back some napkins for me! Wow! Amazing customer service people, am I right?! The food was not even worth mentioning. For AYCE lunch, it came out to be $20 just for a very small selection of repetitive rice, curry, tiki masala chicken, and about 2 other dishes, along side with the 2 rice putting dessert and what seems to be some kind of home made salad.

The food by itself, I would give a 1 star rating for bland taste and not being worth the price. There was also a lot of standing around and simply looking towards customer's tables. I noticed it while eating and it's one of those uncomfortable moments you get where someone is staring at you while eating! Once again, just amazing customer service they have there...

Never will I come back here and so should you! I'm not a picky eater/person and as a food lover, I can assure you to stay away from this sad place. Wasted my money and felt discriminated and heard absolutely NOTHING. NO WORDS from the so called "server". Not even a "you're welcome". AMAZING. GOING SOMEWHERE ELSE IN PASADENA NEXT TIME. **

Buffet experience on Sunday : I had buffet with my family and friends on Sunday and was our first time here.

Space /size :- We were expecting a medium sized place, but the restaurant is small sized with a total of 8 tables . Out of 8 , 7 should be able to seat 4 ppl. The buffet was at the corner and was decently kept. Due to space crunch at a time, 2 ppl should be able to take items from buffet. Not easy walking if too many ppl tris.to take food at a.time.

Most of the tables were full when we reached .

Ambiance:- As expected, playing Hindi songs out of the TV.

Service:- As the no of tables were less, there was only 1 person serving all.the tables. Service was good, he was.quick.to turn around with items ordered.

Cleanliness:- Tables, plates and buffet space was kept clean.

Food:- Starter items was only a pakoda . I went directly to main course, took chicken Tikka masala . No Salt at all. Tandoori chicken basket was empty on my first trip to buffet section. Came.back to the table and ordered a mix.of plain and garlic naan. Got garlic and buttered naan, but no complaints. For a table of 5 , they were providing only 3-4 pieces of naan at a time.By the time second set of Naans came in,my hands were already dried. On the second set of Naan , tried mutton curry and fish curry. I loved the mutton curry. Fish curry was bland. Tandoori chicken was Ok. I would say mutton curry is the only non veg curry I liked on the buffet.

Desserts/ sweets: None of us tasted the gulab jamun or rice.pudding to rate it.

Overall I would give 3 for the buffet as I had lavish Indian buffets for the same price with much better taste.

I would definitely recommend.people to try this place ,may be alacarte.

Next time I will only try take away from this place and would try chicken biriyani.

13$...

We're lucky to live in a town with many Indian restaurants to pick from. My favorite food is, and always will be, Indian cuisine. The local establishment we've relied on the most often has recently found itself a rude order taker, hiked their prices, and diminished the sizes of their portions. So we thought we'd give this Nirvana a go. First off, the gentleman who took our calls was eager to answer any questions we had. He wasn't just informative, but very polite and knowledgeable. A very good, and important, first impression. As for the food? Best Indian I have ever enjoyed in my life!!! Not just in flavour, but the vibrant colors of their dishes is a sight to appreciate. They have a "buy 3 get 1 free" deal going. Any time you can save $20 on an order that's less than $100 you're getting a great deal. The Shahi Paneer is something I'm going to dream of for a long, long while. The chicken Tikka Masala was at least as good as the place we used to order from, if not better. A little light on the chicken, but the sauce is the star anyways, right? The spicy spinach dish my wife ordered (I think it was saag paneer, but I'm not sure) was pleasantly spicy and delicious. The garlic naan had a bit too much cilantro for my liking, but I know most people wouldn't mind that. The naan are large, so the $4 a pop price really isn't that unreasonable. Our party of 6 all LOVED their meals, had more than enough to eat WITH LEFTOVERS (nothing re-heats better the next day than Indian!) and the total bill, with ample naan, was about $75. That's a deal! This was a 5-Star rating well earned. This is our new to-go...