India Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Chaska

First timer here-Went to Chaska's Indian Bar and Grill yesterday for dinner @ $65ish total (before tip):

2/5: Ragata - potato patties with chickpeas/sauce - flavor is fine as sweet, tangy, savory; would not recommend this as an app to start with though; bf is vegan so I went with it. I'll have to try something else next time.

5/5: Garlic Naan - clay oven baked naan bread with garlic and cilantro - oh man, this was great! You can definitely taste the garlic! So fluffy and warm when it comes to the table. We also had some regular roti, which was plain flat bread-additional cost. Order extra garlic naan as these can go out fast - 4pieces per basket (good size).

4/5: Vegetable Mekhani - variety of veggies in a tomato curry with cashews/raisins - they ask for level of spice on curries, regular or extra hot, and I went with extra hot; boy, did they deliver on the spicyness! So good. Veggies included cauliflower, carrots, onions, green beans and zucchini, but I didnt taste any cashew or raisins in this dish. Maybe they are cut small?

4/5: Punjabi Chana Masala - regular spice, chickpeas with onion/tomato curry - the flavor is great here, we just didnt eat it as much because we had the potato/chickpeas appetizer. Idk what BF was thinking on this one lol.

(Fyi: I believe the curries come with regular white rice on the side, pictured in the silver container)

5/5: Chicken Dum Biriyani - this was awesome. You can tell its authentic because I wasn't expecting a hard boiled egg in the middle! Since BF worked in southern India for a month, he said it's usually how they prepare the chicken biryani. I wish there were more raisins and cashews as I'm a big fan of these in indian dishes with them; didnt taste any nuts or raisins, but the dish was still awesome. Comes with yogurt sauce.

2/5: drinks - got water to start with. i ordered a diet coke, and i dont know if they provide free refills on pop as they open the cold can and pour it into a cup; beer wise, BF ordered a beer and the waiter said they were out, BF asked if the next two beers were available, but the waiter said they didnt have it; so BF ended up with one in stock-he was fine about it. Waiter said it was due to an ordering system on Monday that they didnt have the ones BF wanted in stock during our time there.

5/5: service - there was only one guy waiting tables, but he was nice and still attentative to everyone as there were 5 groups in the place, including us. The other groups were definitely new to/trying Indian cuisine because I overheard alot of questions on spice, ingredients, recommendations etc, and the guy was very knowledgeable and nice about the food they provided.

4/5: overall experience - according to BF and Google 4.6 star reviews, the dishes are authentic. I love indian food so I'll have to come by again to try their goat curries. The dishes may look small, but we left with 3small chinese box containers to go, so plenty for both lunches tmr! Prices are reasonable. Again, i would come back and try other dishes here; they have a separate menu from the main/website menu that specializes in dosas, street food and desserts, so there's many things to look forward to. Their location is kinda hard to find if you're not familiar with Chaska, but just know they are across a Perkins in that...

I generally don’t write reviews but today’s dinner incident forced me to write one and as soon as I am back home I decided to pen this down. I went to India Bar & Grill for dinner with my family. Though google hours shows the place to be open till 10 pm we were told that they close at 9 so the server was kinda not too happy seeing us there at 8:30 pm. I ordered multiple dishes and one of those was a Kadai Chicken. The rest of the food was decent but the chicken dish seemed uncooked and not really to the standards of other dishes or what we have seen from other restaurants in the area. The chicken seemed boiled with no taste at all and above that it was just mixed with some kind of brown gravy and bell peppers with zero consistency and taste. I called the server and told him that the dish was not upto the standards we would expect and I will pay for it but I really wanted to give the feedback. He got offended and started to say I cannot refund it or whatever and I told him that the first thing I said is I will pay for it. In some time he came back and said I will call my owner and please talk him. I told him why since I don’t want any refund but he said you can give him feedback and that he will not feel good to charge me for a a dish we didn’t have. I agreed but guess that was my biggest mistake. I talked to the owner and told him the same and then came the biggest shock of my life. The owner told me that you came to our restaurant around 6 months back and complained about a kid sampler so are you doing the same thing again and I was speechless. Yes, I would have complained about it 6 months back because the food was super oily and I couldn’t have let my kid eat it and so I gave that feedback but isn’t what we are supposed to do and isn’t what people in service industry are looking for - genuine feedback. I ordered worth 60 dollars of dishes and those 10 dollars wouldn’t have made me rich by any means but the owner humiliated me by saying such things as if I am coming with my family to have a good dinner and then complaining intentionally juts to get a $10 discount. I have never felt such disrespect and humiliation in my entire life. My kids were looking at my face after I talked and kept asking me what happened but I couldn’t tell them anything. I wanted to let it go and not think about this any more but I couldn’t and hence ended up writing this review. The food at this place might be decent but I think more than food all of us want good time, honor and respect and per me, unfortunately I don’t think you would get it at this place. This is the first time I have faced such humiliation and this incident would surely haunt me...

Maybe I've become jaded, or maybe I eat out too often. (Okay, there's no maybe about it. I eat out too often.) But the food I've been served in restaurants lately has been as uninspired as it is unsatisfying. I am happy to report, however, that India Bar & Grill is a happy exception!

My husband had visited this little café in Chaska for their lunch buffet a few weeks ago, and really enjoyed the food, so we decided to eat there for dinner tonight. What a delightful, fully satisfying meal in a cozy atmosphere served by a lovely and gracious host.

I've only ever eaten Indian food once before, so it wasn't long before our server caught me googling every other word on the menu. He very graciously made a few suggestions of dishes we might like, and assured us that the spice level could be adjusted up or down on any dish to suit our tastes.

I decided on the Shrimp Aamwala, and Hubby chose the Tandoor Mixed Grill, which featured shrimp, chicken, lamb and sausage cooked in a traditional clay oven.

Wow! Every dish was an explosion of flavor, spiced just right so as not to overwhelm or exhaust the taste buds, but to tantalize just enough to draw you back for more. The Peshawari Naan (authentic Indian bread stuffed with coconut and dried fruit) was a beautiful complement to the pungent spices of the main dishes. (Seriously, I may come back just for the bread, which is no surprise to anyone who knows me.)

A testament to the deliciousness: When we were finished with our main dishes, all that was left was a handful of rice and the remnants of the aamwala sauce from my dish, and we begged to take them home in a to-go container. When was the last time you bothered to take leftover sauce home from a restaurant?

We finished by trying a cold and creamy saffron-infused rice pudding and Gajar Ka Halwa, a wonderfully warm concoction of grated carrots cooked with cream, almonds, cashews and raisins.

My only regret is that I did not ask our server for his name. He was so kind to help us navigate the menu and shared with us a bit about Indian culture, Hindu cultural and religious practices and his experiences adjusting to American life as a new resident.

India Bar & Grill is a wonderful eatery! We look forward to returning to try other intriguing dishes...