Tandoor Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in Durham

This review goes into detail our experience with Tandoor Restaurant. We were looking for a venue for our daughters first birthday party that was meant to be special for her, our family and friends. It was difficult to get in touch with the owner Preeti, but we eventually sat down with us asking our needs and how she could service us. Months before our July party we discussed menu, timing, logistics, etc.

The week of the party, Preeti had suddenly informed us that we would need to leave the hall at 3pm because that is when their “restaurant” closes. We were never told about this and we were told that we would have the hall/venue (separate from the restaurant) for the entire day and that she would not book another event. Then she said, she has another event in the same hall at 5pm so she has to get everything cleaned up in preparation for them. This obviously put us in a bad place, because we are less than 4 days from the party and she is pushing all these new details on us. It became a flip flopping game between her restaurant being closed and her needing to clean up for the next party. Which was it… we will never know… it just wasn’t right. When we initially met, we told her our party would start at 1 and did not have an end time because we were told we would be the only event and we did not want our guests to feel rushed to leave. During the confirmation call with all these nasty changes, she said “who eats at 1pm for lunch and kept repeating that her restaurant closes at 3pm, despite this being a private event separate from the restaurant.” After lots of back and forth we settled on ending at 4pm, despite not being satisfied with this. She was trying to do 2 events in the same day and just didn’t tell us until the week of our event so there would be nothing we could do. Even when we came to setup, she said, its not about the timing…. Her statements never matched up.

We specifically asked her for no eggplant on the veggie platter and instead cauliflower. She made the note and said “I will fry it so it does not get soggy.” There was no cauliflower for appetizers and at the end of the event she acts like she did not know anything about it saying I would never put cauliflower out. (By the way, she said she did us a favor by reducing our $1500+ bill by $15 for her mistake)

We did food tasting 2 weeks prior to the event and the food at the tasting was good, just a little spicy for what we wanted for our guests. At the party, food was spicier than we had at the tasting. After about 1 hour, they started to remove the food from the buffet so they could start cleaning up the area for the next party (WHILE our event was still going on). Preeti said she would cut our daughters birthday cake for guests. We provided two SMALL cakes to cut for our guests and guess what, they were NEVER cut and we took them back home. We were not at all happy about this and we discovered this after we paid the bill. Preeti mentioned that she would have plates, silverware, cups and napkins for the food and we would need to provide cups for our own drinks. We brought cups for our sodas and juices, we had to keep asking for cups for water she was providing.

We started to end our event at 315-330, and suddenly the staff came in to remove all our decorations when they were supposed to start at 4pm, once we had left. It looked so bad to have them cleaning and pushing guests around while they were still mingling and trying to have a enjoyable time.

I feel as though we were lied to, poorly treated and taken advantage of. We made the best of the event and had a good time, but all these major details should be a BEWARE sign for people who consider this place for an event. Management at the restaurant side was not organized and I felt like I had to reach out several times, which put me in stress during a stressful time already. I was not getting answers easily and I did not feel as though my guests and myself were taken care of.

Overall, pitiful management, organization, professionalism and a poor way to run a business by treating PAYING...

Well, that just happened. I have literally never written a bad online review in my life, it has always embarrassed me. But the tables have turned and I am embarrassed for this place. I wouldn't be writing this if the server had done anything differently to remedy the experience. My fiancé got some of the chicken 65. Big mistake, it was COLD and tasted like fresh rubber. We brought it to the server/ manager/ whatever's attention and he asked if we would like a fresh plate. I thought I was doing the right thing and point it out so that no-one else would have to taste the garbage... but instead of removing it from the line he came back with the same plate, scorching hot, after MICROWAVING IT! So thankful he did that since it then tasted like the Indian food you forgot you left in the fridge for a week and decided idiotically to try (we've all been there). My yellow lentils were grainy and inedible. The chicken biryani was one of the worst things I have ever put in my mouth. After literally the worst meal of our life (which by the way we eat suffered through about three bites a piece) we had to fork over $10 a person. Which might not seem like a terrible amount of money, but if you take into account the fact that we literally did not eat anything, threw up in our mouths, and all of the other delicious food within a 1 mile radius that charge significantly less (take away point: go to India Gate down the road), it adds up. I would have rather spent that money on a Costco pack of chewing gum to get rid of the lingering taste.

Sidenote, the server just threw the check on the table and then proceeded to space out on his phone for about 10 minutes. Literally not looking up once, and even taking a solid 30 seconds to continue staring down even as we were standing RIGHT in front of him. Maybe more time should be spent temping your food, and replacing it every 4 hours, making sure its the recommended 135 degree according to heath code (huge violation).

Also, taking the time to read the OWNER'S rude and disrespectful comments on this makes me more ashamed we even set foot in this...

This is the worst restaurant I've ever had to deal with. We had a party in one of their banquet halls and while we were told we had to pay for a minimum of 30 guests and will get take out boxes for the number that's less than 30, we did call before the event and ask if they can reduce it to 25 due to some cancellations and since they had 2 other events that day. The owner agreed very happily but then decided to only serve food for around 20 people. Our entire family didn't even taste the appetizers as they were gone too early and they even decided to take away the pizza we ordered separately. We had to ask them to bring it out. The lunch wasnt served till 1 pm even though we asked them to serve it at 11.30am and the owner wanted us out by 2 pm. The icing on the cake was him charging us for 30 people saying they have a minimum rule. They didn't bother to serve food for even 20 but made us pay for 30. The food on the other hand was beyond horrible. Paneer makhani was just paneer pieces in plain tomato puree. Honestly my 3 year old can make better food. We asked for the Malai kofta to be in white gravy and they just threw it in whatever was convenient for them after charging us a ridiculous amount per plate for the food. The dessert rasmalai tasted like I was chewing on plastic. All in all, they made it so painful for us to work with them by refusing to move furniture a day before the event, asking us to come over to explain at 10 pm the night before the event and all that. They are very cheap minded and just greedy for money and have no ounce of...