Bawarchi Indian Cuisine - Columbus — Restaurant in Columbus

TL; DR: If you are non-Indian and/or not used to spicy food and/or only used to Americanized spicy food, avoid the Biryani. Their biryanis are INSANELY spicy even by authentic, Indian standards and the taste can be inconsistent (except for being hotter than the surface of the sun in spice levels).

I am limiting my review to their signature dish: the biryani. We usually order a family pack of the Veg Dum Biryani at least once a month if not more and have been doing so for 3+ years. One thing we loved about the biryanis was the amazing flavor, the consistency between orders, and the generous amounts. All of these made the biryani an INCREDIBLE value for money. The past tense being the key here.

In our experience, every aspect of what made the biryani so amazing has been undone.

Flavor: I am not sure if the chef changed or if they changed the recipe or the spice mix/paste or what, but the flavor is just not the same as before. The problem is even if it was, the veg dum biryani is now just INSANELY spicy to the point that the only thing you taste is the heat and no flavor. To provide some context, we aren't exactly lightweights when it comes to spicy food - we are of Indian origin, have eaten for over 2 decades in India, and love our spicy food. With that said, I can safely say that the average non-Indian person will NOT be able to handle the biryani unless they serve non-Indians from a different pot.

Over the last year, another thing that changed for the worse in this regard was that before we were able to calibrate the spice level for each order based on our preferences at that particular time between mild to medium to spicy. That has not been the case. I just ordered a family pack yesterday (Feb 14, 2022) and in frustration due to my recent experiences, asked for a mild-medium spice level, and despite that what we got was a box of fire.

Consistency: The consistency has gone down as well with the flavor varying greatly between successive orders. The only thing that remains consistent is that the biryani remains too spicy to consume even if you grew up in India on spicy Indian food.

Portion size: The family pack has certainly suffered from shrinkflation where while the price has gone up, the quantity has gone down. When we first started ordering here, one family pack lasted my wife and I at least 4 meals. Now we are lucky if it lasts us 3. To be fair, the last few orders have lasted us 4 meals but only because our gastrointestinal tract can't take the abuse of the spice level beyond one helping each meal. We are eating far less than we were before, that is something, I guess.

I feel like I've reached a point where I may have to look at other restaurants to fulfill my biryani needs, which really sucks, since most of Bawarchi's other food is...

Beware of this place they will cheat you and take more money from you.

I ordered a large pizza but after coming home I discovered it was the smaller size one. Now I could tell this for sure since I have ordered their pizza in the past and I know the difference in their sizes. I called the manager and told him this but he wouldn't believe saying his chef says it is a large one. I decided to take the box back to the restaurant and show it to him. On seeing it he said something about the size being large but also saw that I knew what I was talking about and gave up. He said he will make another large pizza and give me. To my surprise the next one that he gave was again the same smaller size one. On this he said that they were out of the large crust which is why I can keep both of these pizza. Now here is the problem Restaurant knew that they were out of the large crust when I placed the order and they still took my order and CHARGED me for the large pizza instead of the medium one. When I told the manager on the phone that this isn't the large size he kept on insisting on it saying that I was wrong. Only because I have eaten there multiple times I knew size difference and I didn't give up. But if this was my first time ordering a pizza from there I would have probably thought that this is the right size. Only when I got the another smaller pizza and told the manager this is the same size, the manager accepted that they were out of the large crust which is why they gave me the smaller one and now I could keep both of the smaller pizzas. So the staff already knew that they are out of the large crust and they still charged me with the large pizza price AND kept of telling that I was wrong and this was the large pizza?

These people are liars and cheats. There is no integrity in this restaurant and...

I took a friend of mine out for her birthday this evening. Very low crowd (less than 5 other people in the restaurant), but yet service was terrible & slow. When the server brought out our food, we were missing the rice. We had waved for the server to come to our table multiple times, but no success. He literally ignored us! I'm assuming he avoided us because he didn't speak English??? Since we couldn't get him to come to us, I had to go to the lady up front who took our order. She made me wait while she took care of another customer who came in after I had been standing there. When she finally turned to me, I mentioned that we didn't receive our rice. She then rudely asked if we received any of our food. I told her we received everything except for the rice. She rudely replied that she already TOLD me that I had the option of buttered naan, garlic naan, or rice and that I chose the garlic naan. I told her that we understood that we would get rice and that the garlic naan was extra. She then rudely asked if I wanted rice and how many. I told her 2. Nothing complimentary about the rice - Got charged an extra $4 for rice that should have came with the entrees to begin with and also got charged for the garlic naan. Entrees were small and the rice was cold. Poor quality and small portions for the amount I paid for for our two entrees. I should have walked out when she got rude with me. Never again will I walk foot into this place! There are many other quality Indian restaurants with much more friendlier service! This is NOT one of them!!! Take your...