The India Cafe — Restaurant in Costa Mesa

The India Cafe has the potential to be great but they are just not there yet. The quality, flavor profile, and portions would need t improve for this to happen.

We have tried them twice (different items to try) and have ordered the following for delivery:

Chicken Tikka Masala ($15.95) - 3 stars - There was about enough chicken in there for 1 skewer so a little pricey for what you are getting. The meat itself could have been more tender as well. I am pretty sure for this dish and the butter chicken, they are actually using skewers for meat that was either not good enough to be sold on its own or had some fault and then got mixed with these sauces. I can even see the holes in the chicken where the skewer goes through as well as the burnt/blackened sides of the chicken. If the chicken was cooked with the sauce as well, it would be more juicy and tender. The sauce itself is flavorful though and not spicy at all - that would probably need to be requested.

Butter chicken ($15.49) 3 stars - Same issue. Decent sauce - nothing spectacular though and average chicken that is a little too hard from being in the skewer first. Also, small portion for both dishes.

Veggie Samosas ($4.95 for 2) - 2 stars - These tasted double fried and weren’t the freshest samosas we’ve had. You can tell by the shell and the filling. Whereas the shell was still edible, the filling itself wasn’t good at all. It tasted mushy and flavorless, the exact opposite of how you want your samosas to be.

Lentil soup ($4.95) 3.5 stars - It is a small portion as others have mentioned and it’s pretty spicy, but it does taste comforting…

Keema naan ($4.99) 2 stars - Our naan was burnt way too much along the edges, flavorless (I don’t even think they added any salt) and hardly had any ground beef. Not enough to taste it at all. It tasted like a plain naan really for double the price and half the flavor.

Mango Lassi ($3.99) 1 star - This was 1 star bc it was just some powder mix. You can tell by the color that it is artificial and no real mangos were used so that is disappointing. If they are cutting corners with their mango lassi, then I wonder what else was just powder vs real ingredients.

Our search continues for an Indian Restaurant we want to go...

Ordered food for takeout and was excited based on all the reviews.... however ended up being thoroughly disappointed by just about everything I ordered. This is a quantity over quality kind of eatery.

Tandoori chicken.... bland and 'dolled up' with a ton of flavorless veggies to mask the flavorless chicken.

Lamb Botti.... was a little better than the chicken good amount and not as chewy as I anticipated after eating the chicken but still had to dig thru a mess of flavorless veggies to find the small pieces of meat.

Tikka Masala- just one word to describe it: BAD. Well actually to elaborate the sauce is borderline tomato paste(ish) with hardly any flavor except sweet and the giant cubes of bland overdone cubed chicken pieces add to the disaster.

Samosa's- just ok (were not crispy but I had the food to go and that can happen so no judgement on that)

All in all the prices were great but u get what u pay for.... The one thing that seemed ok was the customer service and the person taking my order seemed...

Can't even describe how much i love this place. Smell and taste that takes back to Nepal and India and still without comprised on freshness and quality. I'm. Just amazed of the fact the restaurant is not packed at lunch time with such awsum food that is reasonably priced. Still, their delivery works pretty strong.. love their metal tray with rice lentils, chicken with potatoe and sauce. Their vegi damusah, their deserts. Mango lassi and banana lassi. I'm there almost every time I'm near the triangle around lunch time, with a wish on my heart that the door still open and the smiling guy will embrace me with comfort...