Bowl O Biryani — Restaurant in Downers Grove

Wow! I don't know if they make up their business on the weekend with the buffet, or if their rent is cheap due to the location, but I was shocked to see how empty it was at dinner time on a weekday after I had the best Indian food experience I have ever had.

If you have never had Indian food, come here. If you have had Indian food and want to try a new spot that will blow you away, come here. If you just want a dinner that is affordable, fresh, and facilitated by the most reserved and considerate waitstaff I have ever experienced, come here.

There are too few words and space available to explain how this meal inspired confidence in future visits, left nothing to be desired, and left me leaving happy.

To rattle off a bit, here is what to expect: Spotless water glass and jug at your table. Staff leaving you be while you eat, unless you glance over in their direction or they notice something missing at your table (they watch from afar without breaking concentration on their work). Fresh food options with exceptionally generous portions at a ridiculously low price. (probably over a pound of chicken in curry, four cups of rice, and garlic naan for less than $25) The most respectful and reserved staff you have ever experienced. Although at times they were nearly too quiet, they all maintained a gentle demeanor with sir/ma'am throughout. It is clear their intention is to do nothing more or less than facilitate a clear and consistent dining experience. Tasteful, decent quality/volume, Indian music. Clean bathrooms, dining area, and dishes. Spacious seating with an open/high ceiling dining space. A wealth of menu options that cover anything you may be used to ordering with plenty of items you may have never seen in other similar restaurants.

After asking my server what they ordered, rather than giving me a generic and neutral answer, he gave me a well spiced and flavorful dish I wouldn't have ordered otherwise.

Candor, kindness, and attentiveness do not go unnoticed and I hope this review convinces you to give this place a shot. This is the only establishment I can confidently wager to say this about:

If someone has a poor experience, or dislikes an aspect of the service, it is either considerably rare or a highly subjective taste that is unreasonable to accommodate.

Leaving a restaurant, trying to come up with any possible negative, and being left with 'one table's kid playing a game a bit loud' and 'sometimes staff was a touch quiet/hard to hear' is outstanding.

For context, I had the Chicken Methi Curry (Chef's Special) with Garlic Naan. My server/cashier listed on the receipt was Pramod.

Great job to the team here, I look forward to future visits and trying...

I went there a week ago to try the buffet. I was immediately greeted by the Manager, Prabhu. He's a very nice guy that used to oversee some operations in a prominent club in India and understands customer service from what I can tell. Where his challenges will lie are how he applies feedback from the customers to his current operation at the restaurant.

A little background that I grew up in India. So I have an appreciation of different types of food and can understand good flavors from the bad. So my review will be based on service, ambience as well as the comparative quality of the food relative to other similar restaurants. The service and ambience are good and comparative to other restaurants. However, I did not have a chance to order from the menu (I had the buffet). So I cannot comment more specifically on service.

One thing to note is this place is a "South Indian Non-Vegetarian" restaurant, of which there are a few in the area if any, including Chicago. You will find North Indian non-vegetarian restaurants abundantly in the area but the South Indian restaurants are mainly vegetarian. Keep this in mind and try to enjoy more non-veg South Indian fare if you can, including fish and other seafood dishes. A not to management: focus on this aspect of your operation, South Indian Non-Vegetarian cuisine. One of the challenges I see for Prabhu and his staff is "doing too much." They have a variety of dishes and the quality is not consistent on dishes. So, again I would challenge them to focus on one type of cuisine and try to specialize in it. There are other restaurants that can serve the remaining fare in better quality.

This brings me to my next point which is quality of the food. I would say the Chicken Majestic was great, while the mutton curry lacked flavor. Also, the vegetable Biryani was also very good. Chicken Biryani was a dum biryani and lacked flavor within the chicken. The chicken appeared to not have been marinated properly. Also, I suggest more cuts of meat in a biryani rather than just drumsticks because it does not work well with a buffet setup as chicken can disappear from the container in the buffet line quicker than anticipated. The gajar (carrot) halwa was also fine but not great due to the overwhelming aroma of whole spices such as elaichi. I assume these were not fully immersed in the dessert. I also propose the restaurant build a chaat station with chana and samosa. This is a big hit at Indian buffets.

Overall, I think it's great that Prabhu is building a proper repertoire with new customers (the place is new). However, his challenge lies in improving the quality of the food and focusing on south...

This place was such a surprise! We had seen it on TikTok couple of times and we live in the area and went to check it out the first time and we got to the parking lot which was empty all businesses in the plaza closed down, the restaurant looked like it’s boarded up so we thought they had closed down and left. Few months later again in search of good Indian restaurant in the area we found it on google and it had 4.5 stars recent reviews so we decided to go check it out, got to the plaza and realized it was the same boarded up restaurant. But this time we saw 1 person enter. And I said let’s give it a chance and go in. To our surprise the place is really big, good for celebrations and parties. It was pretty empty so we were still skeptical but we saw people come in for take outs. The food is absolutely outstanding! The fusion chicken was perfectly crispy garlicky and peppery with hot pepper flakes and a really delicious mix of spices - probably my new favorite and much tastier than chicken 65. The chicken 65 was ok, nice and crispy but lacked flavor, kinda washed up. The goat keema according to my husband is fantastic and reminds him of his childhood. Indeed it was tasty but a bit too strong and heavy of a lamb flavor for me and quite oily, however my husband rated it 100% and mind you he is a keema fan and expert. The cheese naan was nice but not too fluffed up, the cheese is inside the dough so won’t let it rise up, it was delicious nevertheless but more like a paratha with cheese filling. The star of the show is definitely their biryani line up. The goat dum biryani is out of this world experience where each grain has flavor and aroma and exceptionally fluffy separated not sticky not oily not dry, nice soft moist and flavorful with magical biryani spices. The goat meat was thoroughly and perfectly marinated flavored and super tender and juicy and aromatic! Definitely the best biryani I’ve tried in the US and I’ve tried other states too. The exceptional food was topped with exceptional aromatic masala tea and masala coffee, both extremely flavorful and aromatic with thick consistency and very fresh. This is definitely our new favorite restaurant for Indian food and we are lucky we are so close!!! Can’t believe we left the...