Gaylord Fine Indian Cuisine — Restaurant in Chicago

Nothing can make up for poor service. This place has decent vegetarian curries, but dry and burnt naan, and charges a hefty service fee for any group 5 and over. Unlike Indian Garden, this restaurant does not give you menus that clarify these additional costs or tell you of the fees beforehand.

One of the ladies in our group has a gluten allergy. She had to wait almost 10 minutes for someone to tell her what food did not contain wheat when the restaurant was barely filled at 11:45 AM.

At the end of the meal, we asked for a Northwestern discount, which they declined, when their website stated otherwise and we had called to confirm days earlier. This wasn't a big deal. The most disappointing aspect was when we asked to pay individually, the waiter patronized our group of ladies by saying "you don't seem to understand what I'm saying, we can't split the check for your group in our system." When asked why they couldn't treat us as individual customers, the waiter continued to rudely speak to us as if we were dimwitted. The waiter finally went to find the manager after turning around with an exasperated expression on his face. In the end, the manager came over and agreed to let us pay individually, but charged us a hefty service fee.

None in our group will be coming back. We also will not be recommending this restaurant to any of our Northwestern colleagues for personal or university business. There are so many great places that offer better food, and more importantly, better service. Overall, a somewhat traumatizing dinning experience on what should have been a great lunch gathering of work colleagues on the Friday before a...

Hey! I visited a Gaylord Indian restaurant in downtown Chicago yesterday, and I had a very bad experience that I want to share.

The food was terrible, and the service was extremely poor. We entered the restaurant around 7:25 PM, and surprisingly, all the tables were empty. When we asked for a table, they told us that dinner time in Chicago was already over.

We were a group of five people. We ordered Chicken Tikka and Paneer Tikka — they were okay. Then for the main course, we ordered dal, which had no taste at all. It looked like just boiled water with dal. The Bhindi Masala had raw bhindi (okra) — completely undercooked.

Later, we asked for some green chilies, raita, and a bit of rice. They gave us jalapeños instead of green chilies. When I asked why, they said, “These are green chilies.” I told them jalapeños aren’t the same, and they replied, “We don’t use green chilies here.”

I live in Boston and have been to many Indian restaurants across the U.S., and every single one of them uses green chilies. I couldn’t believe an Indian restaurant in Chicago doesn’t use green chilies.

The staff then got defensive and said, “We’ve been in the restaurant business for 40 years, don’t tell us how to serve. We cook 40–50 orders a day.” Honestly, who serves no-salt dal?

I’m also sharing some pictures here. Out of five people, we barely ate — just two naan, one roti, and a small bowl of rice — and we still ended up paying nearly $150.

The manager and server had a very rude attitude and didn’t know how to treat .

I did not see a single Indian chef in...

Staying at a hotel one block away and decided to try for some variety. The Gaylord name carries some weight and the online listing seem to indicate it was associated with the old classic in California. Well, the name is the same but the food ain't.

Decent looking place. Service was fine.

Wine list pretty bad, although they do carry an Indian line of wines which is novel. I wouldn't recommend them but it was nice to see it on the menu. They had an extended list of martinis and cocktails, which maybe is what I would do next time (cocktail and snack food).

Menu is pretty broad, with a good variety of snacks (bhel puri, etc) plus north Indian stand-bys like samosas and pakoras. They also have some samplers for $10. Samosas were decent; crispy if a tad oily, with some spice. Chutneys were watered down but decent, and they did provide what looked the the standard Bedekars mango pickle which was very helpful.

Good selection of normal north Indian fare plus dosas and other south Indian. Also good selection of thalis. Prices for thalis are good for the amount of food you get... like $20 for the vegetarian that included soup, two subjis, dal, rice, raita, naan, which was enough food for two truth be told.

Of course, where it counts is the food and I wasn't impressed. The food was pretty bland and non-exceptional. Add salt and spice and it was tolerable, but it really isn't worth a trip given there is very good quality Indian in Chicago.

My advice is to find...