Shanti Restaurant - Cambridge — Restaurant in Cambridge

We were here with our team from work for dinner. It was about a couple of hours before they closed. However, it seemed like the staff was fixated on getting things wrapped up for the closing. They closed the outside seating well before we reached (they were packing up and stacking chairs when we reached the restaurant). The staff was very cordial, and the service was great. The food, though, was another story. There was nothing special about the food. There's nothing to remember it. Not bland, but just not there. Maybe we are spoilt by the quality of Indian food we get back home in New Jersey. There are several reviews raving about the food, which honestly, sounds like they have not eaten good Indian food before. All in all, if there are other options, including eating at home, take it. Maybe, when there are no reservations elsewhere, try it. Someone told me this was a chain, maybe that explains the lack of trying hard to make the food taste better. Not sure, but definitely not a restaurant i will try again when in Boston. I will take my chances with other Indian restaurants or...

The tastes are pretty decent but the menu can be pretty misleading.

I ordered a chicken do piaza and a peshawar naan. The do piaza was described to have an abundance of onions and bell peppers and have a sauce with a heavy flavor. I'm normally very sensitive to flavors and this dish did not have a heavy flavor at all. It was very light for an Indian dish, in fact. And there were hardly any vegetables in it. Instead, there were just giant chunks of chicken.

The peshawar naan was described to be stuffed with coconut, almonds, pistachios and rasins. I didn't find or taste a single scrap of rasin in the entire order. Thanks to these two miscommunications, I didn’t enjoy the dinner as much as I could have, since I was expecting far more vegetables and flavor to balance with the rice.

So if you're not familiar with Indian food like me, the menu descriptions might not be the most accurate refs for...

Awful experience today at Shanti! As an Indian restaurant they ran out of paneer, and replaced it with a completely different item that’s nothing like paneer. They had some paneer left and refused to give in the fixed tiffin menu even though we had already paid for it and it was advertised on their menu as included. If a restaurant does not have something they should be incredibly flexible in replacing it with an equal alternative of the diner’s choice but instead some of the staff was rude and unhelpful, and illogically unbudging. Even with vegetarian dietary restrictions they refused to give the paneer and said we had to order a la carte even though paneer was already on the tiffin menu, showing that they didn’t care about the customer but only about the option that made them a few dollars more. Safe to say will never be returning to this place again. Hope everyone tries Maharaja in...