Clove Fine Indian Cuisine - Easton — Restaurant in Bethlehem Township

The first time for two aspects regarding this food experience. 1st signed up and used DoorDash delivery. The delivery service worked really great and judging from the distance I live from Clove Fine Indian Cuisine in Easton, it was quickly delivered. I ordered two meals, appetizer and two side type items: Vegetable Samosa, Saag Lamb (med heat), Chicken Saag (mild heat), (3 orders) - Naan bread & (2) orders of Papadum. I'll tell you this was the BEST Indian food I have had. Even my wife who tolerates Indian food said the same thing, best she ever had. Included in the meal were other cups of condiments (no charge) and added to my meal. Included in the meal were other cups of condiments (no charge) and I added within my meal. The restaurant gave two cups of some sort of rice pudding (for the lack of the correct name). Soooo so GOOD!! I have had this type of desert before at other places but this is the first time I could honestly say I would "order" this rice type pudding from an Indian Restaurant. The one side order we ate is called "Papadum" is a very thin, crispy wafer, paper thin lentil flat bread. This place is genius! Every place I have ever been to and even received cooked fresh by an acquaintance friend of Indian descent, made it very thin and served in a round shape (maybe 9 inches) diameter. As you can imagine on a take out, it would break apart into tiny pieces. This place makes them slightly thicker and serves them in a larger triangle (some cases slightly folded) shape and place a large quantity of these delightfully light seasoned chip in a brown bag. It makes sense in what I believe maybe untraditional as it is "take-out". I could eat their Papadum all day.....truly the best I have ever tasted. I did NOT experience any substitutions to another item similar if needed by the owner for any of the food we ordered. Having always called and placed an order, I was unaware if one orders via an outside delivery serve, a restaurant could substitute an item. Not a negative in this review but something to consider - call restaurant directly and first determine if your meal is in-stock, then order via on-line delivery service? Overall experience was the BEST and I will definitely do a sit-down dinner (if open at this COVID time), take-out and spread the word...

Do not go here!!!

I have never in my life ever been treated so poorly at a restaurant.

When my family and I came in we were immediately greeted with a weird chemically smell, so we asked to move tables and he puts my family of 6 on this tiny table that can comfortably fit 4 people. The entire restaurant was empty because it was 4pm on a Saturday so we asked to move to a larger table and he said no. Then the server comes and as he’s putting the plates down his entire hand is touching the side the food sits. Gross …

*The biggest issue * there was a fly in our coconut soup. We told our waiter and he agreed it was a fly. I took out my phone to take a picture of the food because this is a fine dining spot, we’re paying fine dining prices.. I don’t want a bug in my food (and admittedly already frustrated with their behavior). He grabbed the dish from my hand before I could take the picture and called his manager who took it from him. I got up to say “hey that’s my dish, I would like to take a picture of it” and the manager said no and in a panic scooped out the fly with a spoon and threw it on the floor. I was SHOCKED, who does that??? I was very frustrated by then and got loudly upset. Then the manager told me and my family to get out the restaurant and he doesn’t want to serve us.

You can look at my past reviews, I rarely give bad reviews and am very understanding of issues. But the behavior of this man was unbelievable!

Also the time before I can here, the lady manager was filling a buffet dish and dropped the entire PIPING hot dish on my baby sisters back which lead to an ER visit. We went back again to give it a second chance and recognizing this was a mistake.

Honestly, this place needs...

In the last two years or so I have gotten a lot more into Indian food. So much so that i've had Indian food in probably 25 different places across 10 states. For me it always becomes a taste vs. value situation and in some cases, Indian food can be quite expensive and will only be as good as the last place which was potentially cheaper. Here this wasn't the case. The prices were solid and so was the food. BYOB for anyone wondering, but there is beer sold in the gas station next door.

We started with some Keema Naan which was very good. The lamb was seasoned well and had a nice consistency. Sometimes at other places the lamb will be so ground that it is like eating a paste, this was ground but still had some body to it. I'd order this here again for sure.

The Chicken Tikka Masala to be perfectly honest is fairly standard compared to a lot of places we have been. The sauce had a very mild heat and a nice creaminess to it and the chunks of chicken were tender and tasty.

The Lamb Biryani was solid, but didn't have the depth of flavor that a lot of biryani's i've had before. I enjoyed it and I would get it again, but I have had much better biryani's. Also the addition of peas was new to me. Didn't love or hate that, just different.

The Seafood Vindaloo was a minor miss for me. If we had just gotten shrimp vindaloo I believe I would have really enjoyed it but some of the other seafood just made it a bit mushy and kind of lackluster. The sauce was very good and had nice spice though, so next time i'd get just the Shrimp.

All in all, a really solid place to grab an Indian meal. I'm sure...