I've been here several times, and the food and service have always been good. I finally had a chance to try their lunch special menu since I work a job that normally doesn't let me leave to buy lunch. They offer a vegetarian combo or a chicken combo meal for $9 Mon-Thurs and $11 Fri-weekend. Perhaps it was the language barrier with the server, but I was told that I had no choice in any of the chicken items if I ordered the chicken combo. I could only determine spice level of the meal and the soft drink that was included in the $9 combo. Feeling adventurous, I decided to spin the wheel and see what I ended up with for lunch. So for me the chicken combo was a bowl of chicken 65 as my appetizer, chicken tikka masala as the entree, and what I think was chicken biryani though it was different from my any biryani I've had (I can safely call it chicken fried rice). I also got two pieces of warm naan bread for my curry, and a cute bite sized gulab jamun for dessert. My unsweet tea arrived an iced tea sweetened with turbinado from the language barrier that persisted throughout my interaction with the waiter. However, it wasn't blow my head off sweet so I drank it rather than try to struggle further with the language barrier. All in all $9 for a sit down meal with a soft drink is a solid deal in this day and age for freshly prepared, tasty food. The only drawback for me is the fact the restaurant is part of the lobby of the Hilton Garden Inn, and as such there is a great deal of foot traffic through the sliding glass doors letting cold air in all winter and letting insects in now that it's warm. I spent my entire meal shooing off flies that swarmed around me constantly. It kind of puts a dampener on a good meal when you get to watch a mating pair of flies land on your naan and have sex on your lunch. The insect situation is completely not the restaurant's fault but just be warned if you dine in you may have to combat...
Read morePreviously, I've visited the Raleigh location and fell in love with the food, so I couldn't have been more thrilled when this restaurant came to Jacksonville. I didn't want to assume that it would be the same quality, but I'm thrilled to share that it's just as wonderful. The food here is thoroughly flavorful, well spiced, and incredibly well thought out.
We had multiple people who interacted with our group during our visit, and each person offered great food suggestions and helped guide our dinner.
We started with some Naan, previously my personal favorite was the garlic flavor, but this time I tried the cheese stuffed flavor, I could have eaten baskets of this Naan for dinner and been delighted. The texture on the outside was slightly buttery, a nice little crunch, and an incredibly flavorful creamy cheesy center. The cherry Naan was a nice surprise and highly recommended. This one was a fun experience! It wasn't overly sweet, delicious when paired with the sauces, and definitely worth the try!
Appetizers were ordered family style, so there were lots of options to sample and share. I optioned for the Gobi Manchurian, and it was an absolute hit! Probably the favorite of the table, closely followed by the knockout shrimp, we also enjoyed vegetable samosas, and masala dusted shoestring fries!
Main courses were an adventure in flavor! Butter Chicken, Korma, and Mango lime chicken curries, served with long grain white rice, and then an order of the fried rice. All were incredible! Butter Chicken is always the consistent dish that I use to compare different restaurants, and this one is as standout as their other locations. The mango lime was flavorful and light. The Korma almost convinced me to pick a new standard dish.
Not surprisingly, this was an incredible dinner with exceptional service. I'm thrilled this place is here in Jacksonville...
Read moreMy fiancé and I picked this place out as a pre-Valentine's date options and were a little hesitant to go as we LOVE Indian cuisine and have been to many places between Jacksonville and Wilmington. We were excited that we found another one near our house and were pleasantly surprised by our experience. We had no idea it was in a hotel lobby, and we were worried that it was a hotel-customer-only resturaunt, but it wasn't. We ordered in total: a mango Lassi, a masala chai, a knockout chicken appetizer, butter chicken masala, a chicken vindaloo, an order of garlic naan and an order of potato naan. Everything exceeded our expectations. When you are brought to your table, you are poured a small wine glass of water and then a fresh bottle of that water - that has their resturaunt name printed on it (so cool) - is left on your table to refill your water yourself which I actually thoroughly enjoyed. Food came out in a timely manner and was staggered really well with the appetizer and Chai and mango Lassi so we were never without something to eat or sip on. 😋 Food was really, REALLY good! I didn't really care about the potato Naan as I prefer whole chunks of potatoes in my potato Naan but my fiancé absolutely devoured them! Garlic Naan still comes out on top with being absolutely scrumptious and it paired well dipping it into butter chicken masala. The reason I give a 4/5 atmosphere rating (which really isn't that big of a deal) is that it was a little awkward hearing the receptionists amongst the hotel staff talk with customers. But other than that I really loved this place and will be...
Read more