House of Biryanis and Kebabs Newark, DE — Restaurant in Delaware

This is a place that seems to do mostly take-out but still has quite a few tables and a pleasant, but relatively simple interior.

I ate here recently and it was an exceptional experience. This place has regional cuisine from many different parts of India, but I get the sense that their South Indian food is better and the North Indian food is offered more because Americans are more familiar with that style of food. We ordered Biryani, two hot dishes, garlic naan, and samosas. The garlic naan and the samosas were easily the best I've ever eaten. There was a mint sauce and a tamarind sauce, and although I've had both of these sauces before, they were both much better than I'm used to, among the best I've had. I tried the Gutti Vankaya which was eggplant in an unusual curry sauce that had peanut, licorice root, and very hot peppers in it. It was my favorite dish and it was totally unlike anything I've eaten before.

Be careful on the spice level. You can vary the spice level by dish, but some dishes are inherently hotter than others, so for instance, the vindaloo and the gutti vankaya on "mild" were still quite hot whereas the biryani we ordered medium and it was not as spicy as those two dishes. So you need to know a bit about the different dishes you are ordering to know how to calibrate the spice level. It is plenty spicy even if ordering everything "mild". I like that they don't dumb down the food here, it's legit.

I loved the atmosphere. This place was not over-airconditioned. It was slightly warm, but comfortable. I liked it, some people who expect highly-air-conditioned interiors may find it too warm, but I personally prefer it this way and it would make me want to come back here especially in the summer when most restaurants over-air-condition. Plus I hate thinking that my money I'm paying for the food is actually going to their electric bill, so that made me feel better about eating here.

The one thing here was that the biryani took a very long time to come out. I recognize that biryani is a slow-cooked dish and there's a degree to which you can't skimp on the cooking time too much, but it was timed a bit late relative to the rest of the meal. I would appreciate it if they could better coordinate things so the food came out at the same time. Like we had to pause eating and then resume when the biryani (which was the largest dish we had ordered) came out and that was the only thing I would complain about.

The food was such good quality though that it was worth it. Very good prices. I didn't have them but two people ordered Mango Lassis and liked them very much.

This is my kind of place and I am not only going to come back but I'm going to bring other people here because I want this place and places like it...

Let's start off with some positives, the family working the front counter seemed very nice and attentive, the food was packaged well. I generally get my Indian food to go and the food retained its temperature very well during travel. The portion sizes were decent and the prices were on par with many Indian restaurants in the area.

The meal itself is where most of my issues occur. My order was chicken kebabs, paneer tikka masala, chana masala, and then naan and samosas as a side. For the main entrees specifically the curries which I tried first were far to salty this then overwhelmed any other flavor that they might have had for me, but from what I could taste both dishes the spice blend felt off in my opinion and did not strike me as good representations of these dishes that Ive had before. The kebabs were decently cooked airing on the over cooked side, but didn't pack any flavor at all, even for being charred on the outside they did not have a good smokey flavor to them mixed with any spices. Given this is a franchise I'm not sure the state at which the food is prepared whether it's on site to order or is in some prefab state (Given the estimated time for pick up was only 20 minutes I'm leaning towards the later at least for some if not most of the primary dishes).

I genuinely only really liked the samosas and the naan but both of these are most likely premade.

With more attention to the flavor profile of the dishes I think this place could be good but as it stands I don't think I can recommend this to others. Hopefully it improves.

(I thought I took a picture of the kebabs...

GOAT HALEEM WAS GOOD 👌👌👌 Local restaurant needs a boost... Try it once ....👌👌👌

when I was picking up the order for take out...I started off discussing the portion of the Goat Haleem.. as I saw a Small bowl...coz recently I had tried the chicken haleem from a nearby restaurant..... and comparitively the Goat Haleem quantity was less for $17. I was even asking to charge extra to increase the portion.

The Owner Mr. Anand is a polite and kind person, who has been running this restaurant from many years and he understands Hospitality and customer satisfaction.

He made me understand why the portion is less for a Goat Haleem in comparison to Chicken Haleem.

Not only that he understood I am looking for value for money and I am a business traveller so I get very few options of Indian food. So, to avoid a sitiuation of unsatisfaction from Goat Haleem and 1 Naan that I had ordered... He added a complimentary Chicken Biryani.. asking me to taste and give a feedback on it.

My assumption of the Goat Haleem portion is less turned off.... The food was delicious .... every bite had shredded Goat meat... Spices were balanced ... not too spicy not too less also...nicely garnished... looked very tempting and was cooked really well..

Haleem Quantity , the proportion ... including the naan ... made me fill to the Neck..

The taste was really satisfying....👌👌👌👌👌

The Complimentary Chicken biryani became my lunch for the other day... It was pretty good ... but not a 5 star one....

Thank you Mr. Anand... Keep up the good...