5th Element Indian Kitchen — Restaurant in Daytona Beach

Large selection of dishes representing the varied cuisine of the entire subcontinent. I had a Southern breakfast (albeit late night) of Idli Sambhar and Masala Dosa. My wife had a street food style selection of Samosa Chaat.

I am rating 5 stars to be nice. But, if I am being brutally honest, 5th Element lowered their standards during CoViD-19, and never restored them. The real epidemic is the widespread decrease in service levels, coupled with outrageous increases in pricing, implemented by so many businesses of all types.

They used to start you off with three complimentary papadum, accompanied by three chatni (hari, aam, and khatti meethi). Now, they do not do that. This applies to multiple locations.

They used to have an after dinner, complimentary, chai station, and soft serve station. The soft serve was supposedly out of order. We've all heard this from McDonald's so many times that it is a running joke. The fact is, McDonald's doesn't put in the effort to maintain the machine. I hope that is not the case here.

I was given a small chai when I asked if they still did the after dinner chai station. But, to be clear, there was no station. The gentleman prepared one and brought it to me.

From one point of view, he was going above and beyond to provide good service. But, from a more grounded, experienced point of view, he would not have to have done that if the former, better level of service were already in place.

This Daytona location did appear to have a lunch buffet, so that is good. All these restaurants that got rid of self-serve areas, even to the extent of refills and ketchup packets can all go to hell. There is no excuse for that now. They all used what basically amounted to the flu as an excuse to drawback services in an unreasonable manner. Simultaneously they raised their prices.

The Baymeadows location very recently reimplemented their buffet. It was just a couple of weeks ago. People, it has been YEARS since the sniffles came through. There are no more things that can be blamed on CoViD-19. If your business is lacking, it is not related to what happened back then.

They had a pretty spectacular looking bar area. I do not personally drink alcohol. But, I have in the past. The bar is very well stocked and kept clean. I have uploaded pictures of it. It lights up from within, which is really cool. I am sure they spent a lot of money putting this in place.

The bathroom was acceptable. This is a big problem for Indian restaurants especially. I feel like it has more to do with employees using the restroom and leaving it in bad shape than it does to do with the public. So, I'm not saying the bathroom was immaculate. It was...

I wish I could give less than 1 star on food and service. I'm not generally unkind, but this was once a 4 / 5 star restaurant for us until the last 3 visits, of which, the last 2 should never have happened. I chose this restaurant for my birthday and it was a HUGE let down. I asked if they could make vegetable masala. *the Jax location always does this, and does it well. * it came out in a brown sauce as opposed to a normally robust red. It tasted nothing like masala sauce, and I felt bad sending it back. Again, it came out EXACTLY the same (I suspect it was the same dish I sent back) when I mentioned it really wasn't any better, they sent a large/tall man to handle the situation not the woman who appeared in charge and took the food back the first time(I'm all of 5 foot nothing) I again explained this wasn't what I ordered and that I had the vegetable masala before, and it was smooth and bright red, and before, the sauce wasn't brown and clumpy like what they gave me. This man was completely indifferent, made some excuse and walked away, we couldn't help but to think they had hoped to "intimidate" us, and it only served to make us think even less of our experience. My husbands meal was also barely edible. We paid over $70 for a meal we couldn't eat, and it was obvious, no one cared, and had no intention to make it right, so now we enjoy good Indian Food elsewhere, and will never return to this location. I've never given any establishment this poor of a rating, but I suppose I've never been this disappointed with the food, service...

Review update. Sorry but You don’t tell what happened exactly!!!!!!! We come here often, but We had a pregnant friend with us this time. We asked for an ice cream cone for her before they close the buffet. Francis said it’s only free for kids it costs $5. So I said $5!!!! Next time I will get mine for almost nothing, He didn’t like my response n said you can’t get anything from outside I walked away to avoid any arguments n when I came back I found out he talked to the pregnant lady like you should not talk guys. You are wasting food!!! She was still eating . We understand They were closing the morning shift n were in rush to close and even took the plates away before we are done. But she wasn’t done even she was eating slowly n his way was very rude. It’s not a big deal for the cone or all your food. Just respect your customers guys. we always have to wait to get some kinds of food like the goat meat. They barely add it. But we like Indian food n come again. But this time was the worst experience ever at any restaurant. Very bad customer service n even nobody tried to handle the situation properly. We did switch to Masala n no regrets. They are the best in the area. The yogurt sauce is way better n the other kinds of soups n sides too. Be careful guys when you go there. Make sure you get better service. Or don’t go….. This was the worst experience ever, very bad customer service, staff is very rude, very bad food quality, don’t go there Very rude person his is name is Francis Treats...