Jalsa Indian Restaurant / Banquet Hall — Restaurant in Carnegie

With over 50 items on an extensive menu ranging from noodles, wraps, dosas, pav bhaji, soup, parathas, Naan, biriyani and several types of curries, Café Delhi is trying to be a typical Indian fast food bistro. Sadly, I can't say it succeeds. What these types of joints back india get right is consistency. Also, the cook making dosas would focus just on that and the cook handling the Indo-Chinese preparations wouldn't also be in charge of biriyani. That's how they turn around high quality despite the breadth of menu offerings. Without that kind do staffing, it's unsurprising that Café Delhi doesn't get much right. Not even their masala chai. My spring dosa was missing the 'assortment of veggies', per their menu and was instead just overstuffed with a ton of potato. The paneer is chewy and the chilly paneer arrived sitting in a pool of oil. The naan is just about as good as frozen store bought naan. (Choolaah in Shadyside for me is the gold standard of paneer and naan.) The gobi manchurian is the only item remotely well prepared. Servers are way too busy to make recommendations or even eye contact for that matter. The dishes are simply plonked on the table randomly wherever they find empty space and one's left to figure out which one is whose. I wasn't too happy with cleanliness levels either. I've given this place a few tries and I get that Café Delhi satisfies a certain type of patron. If I needed my Indian-food-fix on a regular, almost daily basis, needed variety and if I didn't know how to cook, then maybe I'd've lowered my standards. But none of that applies to me and hence the rating. I wouldn't go to or recommend Café Delhi unless someone in the group really NEEDS chaat or a...

Carnegie is quite a ways away from my house, but I was really craving to try a new Indian place. Cafe Delhi had some interesting menu items and some menu staples. Plus, I was curious as to what restaurants in the area served. I ended up ordering the Chana bhatura and gulab jamun.

The bhatura bread was absolutely delicious. Portion was quite good. It was just oily enough to be flavorful, but not so oily that it was greasy in a bad way. There were also little crunchy pieces, as well as soft pieces. It was overall an excellent bread and something I'd recommend ordering on the side even if you don't get it with your main meal.

The Chana itself was quite flavorful. It was a little bit spicy, but I could handle it. The texture was a little off for me. There seemed to be less whole chunks of chickpeas and more small pieces. Portion was pretty decent and it was overall tasty.

The gulab jamun are a go to Indian dessert order for me (along with kheer). These gulab jamun balls were a little small. However, they were well made. They used an adequate amount of syrup (which is very sweet, but I could probably drink it on its own since it's so good). Not the best I've ever had, but definitely tasty.

All in all, this is definitely high quality Indian food, especially for the area. There aren't too many Indian places near Carnegie, so I definitely recommend giving Cafe Delhi a try. Portions aren't as huge as they are in other places, but the...

April 2022 update == Hard to believe it's been six years, but I finally got a chance to go back with some friends. The place has not changed. Still not atmosphere to speak of. You walk in and order at a deli counter and they give you a stand with a number. They then deliver the food to your table.

The good news is that the food comes out very fast, it is very tasty, and the staff was super nice and accommodating. Prices are extremely reasonable at less than $25 per person.

We ordered four main meals, an appetizer plate to share, some extra naans and some Lassis. All the food was tasty. Our concerns were that the Butter Chicken was not as good as we've had in other Indian restaurants in town and the quantity of sauce was excessive compared to the other ingredients in all the dishes. On the good side, they do have some unique dishes we've not seen elsewhere and we really enjoyed them so I upped my rating from three stars to four stars.

Another difference from other restaurants in the area, was the each of the main dishes came with Naan and not with rice. We did not know enough to order rice, so a lot of the tasty sauces ended up being left in the bowls - which was a shame.

Completely lacking in atmosphere but the food is good and prices are...