Saffron Indian Bar and Grill — Restaurant in Boise

After 3 days of eating fast food and salads on the road in a Idaho road trip, we as a family of 3 were craving for Indian and this restaurant was the one of the two open on Sunday evening.

Went into the empty restaurant and there was no one. Patiently waited for 15 minutes, tried “excuse me is there someone” for around 20 times with no use. Then called hotel number and Andrea came out. She explained there was no one and she was washing dishes. Accepted.

We ordered Tandoori Roti, Naan, Veg korma and Dum Biriyani. After 15 minutes, we got our food. Naan and Roti were ok but korma had no salt and was cold on inside and hot in outside which meant it was heated up from the freezer. We asked about salt and we were given salt sachets. OMG :(.

The lesser I say about dum biriyani, the better. It looked like they tried to scratch the vessel it was cooked to take the remains. There was no side as I was told raita is over and I was given coconut chutney as a side for biryani. Are you guys serious? One touch of coconut chutney to mouth and I had to wash my mouth to get rid Of the pungent and horrible feeling. I have eaten in a lot of Indian hotels but this was taking the atrocity to a different level. Our stomachs churned till the next morning.

Horrible food and abysmal quality. Go at your own risk and if you do not value your money.

I do not wish to complain about other reviewers but Most of the reviews mention decor and waiter Andrea. She was good and it was no fault of hers and I even gave her a good tip but I believe the most important thing in a restaurant is the food. Leave that aside and any amount of hotel appearance and customer friendliness do not really matter

Will never visit again. Sorry for the bad review but can’t leave a good review...

Update as of Jan 2020 - Saffron has improved a lot w.r.t to their food quality and service. Two weeks before they had the South Indian themed buffet. It was one of their best buffets. 80% of the dishes were delicious and true to the flavor of the respective regional cuisine.

Update before 2020 - The good reviews motivated me and my family to dine out here. My feed back is purely for the owners to review and make necessary changes.

Location and Ambience - Easy to locate and closer to main road. The location is inside the Wyndham hotel. There is parking space too. The inside was pretty and had a good ambience. It was clean and spacious. However I felt that tables could have been bigger considering the space they had. A family of four would struggle if different dishes are ordered.

Service - It was ok. Water glasses were refilled quickly and used plates were cleared up faster.

Food - I was excited to try the south indian and had ordered for Masala Dosa. The experience was not great. The dosa was dry and felt the batter was not fermented enough. The sambhar ( really sorry to say this!!) was not a sambhar at all. This is not how it tastes. The chutneys had no salt in it. The saving grace was the filling.

We also ordered for lamb biriyani - lamb was tender and dish had the real biriyani flavor to it. However we felt the rice was a bit crispy and oily. Samosa chaat was a disappointment. The qty was less for price and there were just 2-3 crusts of samosa.

I will come back again to try the rotis and gravies. This place definitely deserves multiple chances. Sometimes it takes time to get consistency with food and services.

Pros : Gulab Jamun and Ras Malai was...

The food is quite good, but the service was poor. There were only 4 groups in the restaurant this Saturday evening, but it took 10 minutes for a waiter to take our order. We overheard the couple next to us ask about part of their order they didn't receive; it came to them around 10 minutes later. Another couple near us had to flag someone down to finally take their drink order. Around that time our appetizer arrived, which was good. Another 15 minutes.and my chicken curry meal arrived along with delicious naan. There should have been more rice to go with the curry, but that's a minor complaint. The curry was good with big chunks of chicken; I ordered medium spice which was perfect heat. After 15 minutes we asked about my wife's meal, and after another 15 minutes they brought out the Chicken Xacutti. It was pretty good, but it needed salt and tasted like it had cilantro in it which we don't like. We were pretty much ready to go by this time, so we wanted to get a box and pay. We sat for 20 minutes trying to get a server's attention. They kept walking by, but were looking at the floor, so couldn't make eye contact. Eventually we had to walk to the cash register to get things moving. Then they had to take the mango lassi off of the bill because it never arrived. The ambient Indian music that was playing in the background was soothing at first, but started cutting out, which was annoying. Lesson learned: ...