Samira Restaurant — Restaurant in Bloomington

Updated, 1 August, 2023

Is it possible that each time I go to a restaurant, it keeps getting BETTER?

Samira does that. I had the sabzi tchallao (sauteed spinach with lamb over basmati rice) and thought I had died and gone to Heaven!

The red lentil soup is a MUST.

The staff know the menus cold, and are extremely attentive all throughout the meal.

This is undoubtedly my favorite restaurant in Indiana.

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Samira's has the reputation of being the best restaurant in Bloomington, and one of the very best in the entire Midwest -- with good reason.

The dinner begins with an appetizer of badenjan (baked eggplant with garlic), which is really wonderful. My partner had a dinner of appetizers so he could sample different kinds of food. I had quabili pallao (seasoned basmati rice with carrots, raisins, tomato-onion sauce and a choice of lamb or chicken), and tried a side dish of butternut squash, which I have never cared for as an American dish.

The quabili pallao was exquisite. Mine came with bits of lamb, which is my favorite meat. A special note about the rice: their preparation of basmati rice is really fragrant. Basmati rice is nice to begin with. Their preparation is probably the best I've eaten. Seriously: you want to have this served with your dinner.

I have never liked butternut squash as prepared in American dishes, so I thought I'd go out on a limb and try a middle Eastern preparation of the dish. I'm glad I did. Their butternut squash (kadu), prepared with tomato and garlic, is light years different from the American kind.

My partner had Bolani (a turnover filled with seasoned potato and leek), the meat sambosa with cilantro chutney, and an additional order of grilled eggplant with carrots (bedenjan, described above). We sampled from each other's plate. We loved everything we tried.

There are very good reasons why Samira is listed as one of the best restaurants in the Midwest. The waitstaff are very knowledgeable about the foods on the menu, and the service was very attentive.

I'd give this place eight...

Awful experience with dinner at Samira tonight. First, I made a reservation several days in advance for 7:30PM and confirmed it. However, when we arrived today at 7:30PM, we were told it would be a 15-20 min wait. So Samira knows how to take the reservations, but not how to actually honor them. Second, the service was horrendous and among the worst I have experienced in a long time. Our waitress (red hair in a ponytail) was really bad. Everything took forever. Our drinks took 30 min. We ordered iced tea and 25 min later were told they did not have any. Lemonade took 45 minutes because, as we were told, it was being "freshly made". Appetizers took a total of 50 minutes to come out and both the Greek and the cucumber salads had more onions than anything else. I asked for more water at least 3 times and it still took forever. It was never brought without me asking a number of times. When I asked why everything it taking so long, instead of an apology, the waitress very rudely responses "You can see yourself that we are busy" and just walked away. The main courses luckily did not take as long and some were actually pretty good (lamb, chicken and shrimp kebabs were good, the Manta was not, side dishes were bad). My wife asked for a second glass of wine, but it was never brought. We wanted desserts, but given our horrible, rude and slow waitress, we did not bother. The check came quickly, but the credit card receipt to sign took 20+ minutes. At that point, I saw that the bill had lots of mistakes on it - we were still charged for the iced teas that they did not have and for 2 Greek salads instead of 1 that we had. I told the horrible waitress and asked if making the corrections would take another 20 minutes. She rudely responded "Yes, it just might". So, overall, while some of the food was relatively good, the service was terrible both in terms of my reservation not being honored and the terrible waitress. There was also a very large group sitting in the middle that was so loud, they were making...

My wife and I live in another State, but one of our family members recently located in Indianapolis. While visiting Ind, we discovered Samera’s Restaurant in Bloomington with seemingly good reviews. We made dinner reservations for the three of us on August 19, 2023. We were greeted by the friendly hosts and seated. Understandably, they were busy on a Friday night, and the service was a bit slow, nonetheless tolerable. We appreciated the complimentary thinly sliced eggplant with some bread. I didn’t find it to be very special – the eggplant slices were cold, and so was the bread, and I didn’t see a typical yogurt that accompanies the dish.

My family members’ favorite Afghan dish is Manto, and Aushak. That was our main motivation to drive 120 miles round trip. For the three of us, we ordered four main dishes, among other things: They included: Manto, Aushak, Lamb kabab, and Quabili Pallao.

While all the above were well prepared, and I must say we had enough to eat and even took some home with us. I was a bit taken by the fact that Manto only had a limited number of rather small pieces of dumplings but complimented the dish with plenty of rice. I could say the same thing about Ausha, and the Kabab. The most important missing things were fresh bread (they told us they had run out and are making more) and yogurt. I bet they may have run out of yogurt, too, but they didn’t say it.

I have been to some middle eastern restaurants in the Detroit area where they serve fresh over baked bread during lunch and dinner hours, and it is one of the best. A good Afghan meal usually accompanies freshly baked bread.

This was our first introduction to experience Samer’s Restaurant, and we may, unluckily, have not been there on one of their best days. I wouldn’t mind going there again if I were in the Bloomington area. Waiting for a positive experience before I drive 120 miles...