SPICE KITCHEN — Restaurant in Ashland

I was brought in by the high ratings and glowing reviews. The food was absolutely terrible, not just one dish but everything we ordered was just sub par and I would rank them in the bottom 20% of Indian restaurants in the greater Boston region. Beginning to think these reviews may have been paid for or gamed.

Gobi Manchurian - looked nothing like the pictures and tasted just about average. It was soggy and the spice level was off the charts even though we ordered spicy and NOT very spicy, very disappointing- they should learn how to make Gobi Manchurian from Pepper Indian cuisine

Chicken 65 - don’t know what’s 65 about it because it about the blandest chicken I’ve ever had in my life. Absolutely NO favor, this was set to medium spice. No spice at all and no flavor at all either. Just a bunch of tasteless sauces. Worse, the chicken was only 90% cooked. Maybe they can learn how to make chicken 65 from Bawarchi Indian cuisine.

Saraon ka saag and Makki ki roti - the saag was average at best, roti was like a hard fried bread, never had anything that hard in my life. I could split a wooden table if I banged it hard enough with it. No idea what’s it was but it was yellow and rocky. Maybe they should learn how make it from Peppinos dosa in Waltham. makki ki rotis is a hard to make bread, it’s supposed to be soft yet tough and very flavorful. Everything this wasn’t.

Chole bhature - the bhature was the saving grace, the chole once again was average. Nothing authentic about it, if you’re looking for something better try Veggie crust in Brookline for Chole Bhature (they’re a Indian veggie pizza but make fantastic chole also)

Samosa chaat - this is hard to mess up, really it’s that easy to make, like potatoes, even a teenager can make this, it’s just about as basic as it gets and yet…. Soggy and lacking balanced flavors. Not flavorless but that why it’s 2 stars and not one.

Thoroughly disappointed at how poor the quality of the food is here and it’s not just one dish.

Can’t fault the service or ambience, just the product. Sigh…really had high hopes for gourmet...

Ok, white guy (mostly white) review coming in of an Indian food place. I have a lot of experience with most of the Metrowest Indian food restaurants. I was a little bit suspicious of this one because it's a take-out location at the back of a small grocery store.

So, what to expect? It feels like this place caters mostly to local Indians and as such, the spice level is high. If you don't tolerate spicy food very well, even the "mild" level may be too spicy for you. However, if you do like spicy, even the medium is pretty spicy, especially when you eat it hot.

We ordered a variety of non-veg appetizers and the chicken is pretty good. If you're a fan of Chix 65 that's definitely a good one to get. The Chix 555 is also good.

The Gobi Manchurian was EXCELLENT with a solid crunchiness outside the fresh cauliflower.

My favorite is always a really well made curry with ginger. This place DOES NOT DISAPPOINT! You could taste everything and the flavors were exceptional. Even the rice was very well made.

The one-star taken off was because this place uses A LOT of ghee in their recipes. I mean, a lot. That does add to flavor somewhat but it does make you think twice about having the food frequently. Also, the samosas were pretty uninteresting, but you're probably not going to go for this place just for samosas.

The food was a little late in delivery but they made up for it with some free Gulab Jamun. Otherwise, it was a good experience and we'll definitely order again. Maybe we'll try some...

I really hate leaving bad reviews for small businesses because I know it can negatively impact individuals, but I really had to leave one because I went out of my way to go here after seeing the good reviews. I just went for the weekend buffet and it was one of the worst meals I’ve had in a long time. The buffet is very small and extremely oversalted. The Chana masala was so salty I could not finish it and drank an entire pitcher of water. The goat curry was all bones and oil. There was only one other group of people there, so the food has all been sitting out for a while and they were reluctant to put anything fresh out. They did have decent naan on the buffet but they would only put three pieces out at a time, so my companion and I couldn’t even have two pieces each. Maybe it is different when you don’t go for the buffet, but I cannot understand how they have such good reviews here. I ended up eating one plate and then getting food...