Nasha — Restaurant in Austin

First I should say, the food was exactly what I expected and wanted walking in the door. If you're looking for Indo Tex Mex fusion this is definitely the place. The menu was straight forward, the only obstacle I had was deciding which thing to choose! Not a bad problem at all.

My only cons (and they are honestly petty to me):

Waitresses should have a place to congregate other than at the bar (this includes after shift). All three waitresses sat at the bar, counting tips, looking at their phones and surfing the net for their next adventure. None of these are bad things to do in general but customers don't care to hear that "this is the first day in long time you've gotten cash tips" or "you're browsing for the cheapest trips to Amsterdam" or watching you and the bartender embracing and chatting for a few minutes at a time. These are all personal items that should be out of few of paying customers.

Food/prepped items should be marked daily/nightly for the next shift. My bartender didn't know if it was jalapenos or serrano peppers in the bin when making my curried margarita. To his credit, he admitted it and said if it was too spicy to let him know and he'd correct. No correction was needed and the drink was fantastic. However, I over heard another customer ask for something lamb, and a girl from the kitchen came out to speak with the watiress about not having it. No problem, except now there are three watiresses on their phones and one kitchen person standing behind the bar talking to them about being out of an item (at 6pm on a Saturday) 3 feet from all customers. The waitress told the customer directly, as expected, but went right back to bar and told the kitchen staff of the replacement item and started chatting with the other watiresses again.

The staff should be more engaging. I told the bartender my plans for the night (going to see the Congress bridge bats) and tried to strike up conversations, but was met with no interest. (This one is the most petty of them all). Any bar, whether walk up, 1 stool or 10 stools should have a tentative bartender that is interested in the customer. Note: I did NOT receive bad service at all! My food came out on time, my cups were always full and I didn't feel ignored just uninteresting.

Parking... There's maybe 8 parking sports in the "parking lot". However there is street parking all over. I had found a spot in the lot no issue.

The "hostess" system is severely lacking. Not only did the two active watiresses draw up a hostess chart on a receipt in front of me. They left it on the bar and filled it in not a foot away from where I was sitting at the corner (away from the chatty waitresses working/not working).

All in all, I give this place 4 stars. You ask why? Well like I said the above items, at 6pm before rush hour, are all extremely petty. This was the first and only restaurant I've been to inside the downtown area. The food, the concept and the beautiful food delivery give this place 4 stars to me. The other star isn't forever gone and isn't far off. Just see items 1-5 above, really a space for the waitresses away from customers is all that is needed. I'd absolutely go here again.

Edit: I should add, I ordered the tiki masala chicken enchiladas and they...

I have waited two years to post this review because I have only recently processed the absolute mess that is this restaurant and a friend asked me if this was a good place to eat. The high reviews here only further prove to me that many people in Austin have no idea what Indian food tastes like.

I arrived at Nasha with another friend of mine, both of us a little homesick and wanting some good food that our parents might make. After being seated we decided to order the fusion quesadillas they had as they seemed interesting. Our server asked us how spicy we wanted it: medium, hot, or "daisy" spicy. I was very concerned as to what daisy spicy entailed, but decided that he must have meant desi. Thinking that we would be fine with desi spice, we ordered. "No it's daisy not desi." "OK."

After waiting in anticipation, we finally received our quesadillas. We bit into something out of this world. I say that as I can't imagine it was created on this plane of existence. My working theory is that satan created something that he didn't feel comfortable feeding the denizens of hell and decided to send the recipe up to Nasha. On a more serious note, I guess the master chef in charge at the time was not aware of any spice aside from paprika and "daisy" was the trigger word to dump a Costco bottle of the red powder onto each quesadilla. I guess you could argue that we were too weak to handle the spice, but I would say that I've had spicier Indian food before and enjoyed it. Usually you want a mixture of different spices and flavors, not the bland heat and coughing that comes with just paprika.

Some yogurt later, we were ready for our main course. I ordered a lamb keema (a specialty, oh boy) and my friend got the biryani.

Keema isn't supposed to be dry, but it isn't necessarily greasy. What I received was lamb drowned in oil. Moving my plate about, I could see oil sloshing around at the bottom. Very appetizing!

My friend fared far worse. His biryani was topped by an interesting sauce that made the entire dish extremely bitter. I wisely chose not to taste it. He decided to ask if it could be sent back. Apparently, one spoon meant he had eaten too much to take back. Wanting to just eat and leave at this point, he got a kurma. This is a standard at almost all Indian restaurants. But Nasha was not going to settle for standard.

You may have heard of molecular cuisine. It's an interesting cuisine trend where chefs try to trick your palate with unique flavors and make things taste quite different from what they might appear. I've always wanted to try it but it can be expensive and rare to find. Luckily, Nasha is nearby and revolutionizing molecular cuisine by making food that appears edible taste confusing.

My friend had one spoon of this eldritch concoction before refusing to take another bite. Curious, I tried some. The curry went down sour, but I wish that was all. A moment later an aftertaste began to run up from the back of my throat. What was sour was now disgustingly sweet, like someone had forced a spoon of sugar down my throat. To this day, I have no idea how they managed to mess up a kurma so badly.

We decided to leave, our time and money wasted. In my native language, nasham means terrible. I guess they forgot the m...

Fusion? meh.. there are some food varieties that just shouldn't be mixed, and this is one of those cases. Honestly, it should be considered a crime against nature to attempt to meld Tex-Mex and Indian cuisine on the same menu. Admittedly, my wife and I both harbored traditional Indian food on our taste buds, and knowingly entered into this Tex-Mex experiment with eyes wide open.

We leaned toward the Indian side of the menu with our order...Lamb Puff Samosas, a Masala Curry, and standard Naan. I will say that the Samosas were nicely crafted, with a light, non-greasy crust on the outside, and is the reason I've assigned a 2 star vs 1 star rating. Also, the young lady who took our order (at the counter) and delivered to table, was pleasant and efficient (that helped elevate my review to 2 stars).

However, we quickly found the flavor of the Samosas and the two dipping sauces provided to be devoid of any significant Indian-esque flavors (same with the curry). Nice texture, but little in the way of traditional Indian flavorings. Similarly, the chicken curry masala dish was totally missing the traditional Indian flavors we expect at an Indian restaurant.. edible, and not unappetizing, but certainly not the best Indian has to offer.

My scorn though, is directed to the Naan, one of the primary dishes I always look forward to with an Indian meal, and which I usually devour right down to the last tidbit.

Our Naan came to the table somewhat tough in texture, with a rude departure from ANY other similar offering we've enjoyed in some 40 years of Indian food enjoyment. It was frankly, near inedible, and seemed to be perhaps left over from the earlier lunch time (admittedly we arrived at 2:00 PM). This was likely the ONLY time I only finished about 1/4 of my Naan portion, and even then with disatisfaction!

In my mind, an Indian restaurant without edible Naan is like an Italian restaurant without good bread, or a Mexican restaurant without decent chips or tortillas.. really inexcusable, and a deal breaker for us.

I'll accept that perhaps the kitchen was having a "bad hair" day and decided to stretch the 2 hours-old Naan into mid afternoon service. But, given my personal requirement of a decent Naan to qualify for a decent Indian meal, I don't expect we'll be willing to venture a...