Punjabi Dhaba — Restaurant in Cambridge

Good old rustic style Indian Dhaba. The kitchen was surprisingly open for viewing right behind the cashier which was great and a rare sight.

The first big bummer is that they only accept cash. I think the Indian owner is trying to save some taxes at the expense of their customers time and painful atm visits Coming to the food. We ordered chole bhature , alu paratha , tava roti , lassi and shahi paneer

Chole bhature : The bhature were fresh and had a good homely vibe to it. The chole were good but not exceptional. It felt a bit bland with very little spice or tadka if you may. Alu paratha : The paratha was freshly made which was a good thing but again the taste was a bit bland. The filling was heavy but low on taste. Could have been better. The size was huge and can be more than enough for one person Shahi paneer : Shahi paneer was a swimming pool of fresh cream. The cream over powered the entire taste of the dish. I could not taste any spice any masala other than the cream. Cream is good to add for some good layer of creaminess but dont cooke your food in cream. The good thing about this the fact that it was served with a lot of add ons. Paratha , rice , onion , raita and an onion pickle at no extra cost. Again a rare sight. Felt very dhaba style and was happy with it Lassi : The lassis were very fresh and tasted good Tava roti : Fresh , big and good. Add some makhan to give it a dhaba feel may be

Overall a good raw experience with basic decor. No parking. We parked at a nearby Walgreens which was a 2 min walk. They can def work on the taste of the food and for the love of god keep a credit...

Any business who has been serving more than 15 years, must be great. Well, that is what I thought but this place proved me wrong.. . I’m not saying everything in this place is hopeless, but hear me out before you go yeah as I did. . 15 years back of faculty member who I worked back in India told me about the restaurant . so I decided when I ever come to Boston, I’ll definitely try it out and that’s how I decided to go to this place. . The place with its name, Dhaba “ meaning street food with street food prices is right 👍. Relating to the Boston food prices, the prices are relatively justified. . Coming to the food. we ordered both vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. Let me tell you what is good, the regular Nan and the pickle is great. 👍. They something called a chicken biryani, and the people who think this is Biryani… THIS IS NOT. This would be called PULOA. It looked recently OK but really does not match up to the spice level and flavor of a biryani and the chicken they use us tender breast cubed piece. You will never find such a Biryani anywhere in Punjab or anywhere else India. So this is just a Boston thing. We got the Resmi kebab. it was dry. Feels like bit mummified- it was like a frozen meat and then cooked when requested. Coming to the vegetarian even more disappointing was the combo for chole buttura ( the chole curry was watery) buttura was fried in old oil- definitely does not deserve the $16 price tag. . Oh, I forgot to mention $2.75 chai is worth...

I don’t know how come this place got so much reviews maybe cuz of non vegetarian food but I don’t think this place deserve any good rating for vegetarian food specially when they are selling it as Indian cuisine. Visited during long weekend along with family and ordered paratha(gobi,aalo, Muli) along with pineapple lassi, chole bhature and malai kofta plus garlic naan Let me write about each item separately Paratha: it was all made up of all purpose flour( maida) and wasn’t cooked properly. It wasn’t also stuffed properly. This was the worst paratha I have ever had. They just serve all these paratha without any pickle or curd. If someone want to try the real taste of Indian paratha than please avoid this place for sure

Pineapple Lassi: it was really hard to figure out what kind of lassi I’m having it. It was too sour and feels as if it was prepared from rotten yogurt.

Chole bhature: it was the only dish which I was able to finish it. It wasn’t that great but compare to other items, this was the only item on which I survived

Malai kofta: it was really sweet even kofta wasn’t that soft

Naan: this was so dry that you will feel to eat it with water rather with any curry.

Upon complaining, person at the counter replied us very rudely saying this is what we serve and no one has complain. Didn’t have courtesy to change our food also. I felt so bad wasting soo much food and money

Note: this is my personal opinion for the above food which I ordered not sure...