Biryanis N Chaat — Restaurant in Austin

I was craving Indian food and happy to find this relatively new food truck. Google reviews look good with 4.4 stars from 134 reviewers at the time of this writing. Mostly for portion sizes, good taste, and reasonable prices. I'm sad to say my experience is quite the opposite.

I ordered Samosa Chaat and Hyderabadi Dum Ka Mutton Biryani via Uber Eats for convenience. I don't mind too much about the inflated price and quite misleading pictures (for portion sizes) on those delivery apps. What bothers me is there's barely any meat for the biryani...it's mostly small bones with tiny meat on them...and there's no samosa for my "samosa chaat." Not even sev (crispy noodles).

Tastewise, the (missing samosa) chaat was quite plain and tasteless. Not much flavor at all. The biryani, on the other hand, was full of flavor. Yes, that's good. What's NOT good about it (besides the portion size with barely any meat) is there are bits and pieces of herbs/spices in EVERY bite. Tough ginger skins, cardamon seeds, cloves, cinnamon sticks, star anise (that's a surprised spice for biryani...for me, at least)...you name it! Try soaking a piece of clove/a small piece of cinnamon until they're soft and chew on them. That's what it tastes like. There's no way to remove those bits and pieces for every bite. It was quite an unpleasant experience!

As for the "service," I can't tell if it was Uber Eats's fault or not. But, it took quite a long time (almost 40 minutes) before my order showed up as (Uber's driver) picked up. It took the driver less than 10 minutes for his trip of less...

I wanted to try this restaurant ever since I heard about it. I really enjoyed the food and was pleasantly surprised by the flavor. I had ordered Dal Makhni and Chicken Tikka Masala - both medium spicy. I wasn't expecting anything exceptional considering how poor the other Indian restaurants are in South Austin. But the food was very tasty and the spices/flavor pretty spot on.

The Dal Makhni had just the right hint of cream, which paired well with all the spices in it. The Chicken Tikka Masala had a generous portion of tender and flavorful chicken pieces (which seems rare these days). The curry wasn't exactly like the usual tikka masala but the flavors were very well balanced. What I also liked was that the curries were very reasonably priced.

This restaurant is a breath of fresh air when you compare it to all the other Indian restaurants in South Austin area, especially the brick and mortar ones. If they can keep their flavor consistency, I believe they can really garner a faithful fan following.

EDIT: Tried this place again and had 3 different varieties of Dosa. They were all ok (partly because they got cold and a bit soggy in the togo box) but the sambhar and chutney were very bland, especially considering they charge extra for both. Taking one star off...

So I live near and saw this little food truck appear and after several months decided to stop in and see if the food was any good. I was pleasantly surprised and the taste was wonderful enough for me to have stopped in 5 times in the last two months. The the people working there are very nice as well. The only reason I am giving 4 stars instead of 5 is that I can't do spicy heat anymore even though I love heat. I do ask for no heat and I can tell the heat has been reduced quite a bit that from the first time I had it but unfortunately for me it's still to spicy. Love the flavor though and if you love traditional and spicy you will absolutely love this place. There's definitely a 5 start waiting from me when I can get all the delicious flavor they have but just without the the spicy kind of heat. Other than that the food...