Taj Mahal — Restaurant in East Hempfield Township

Just like everyone else, I look at the stars and read reviews before making any decisions on eating out or takeout from any restaurants. Somehow, I feel that most folks don't know the taste or have any tatse bud for certain cuisine. Maybe they don't eat food often that are from different ethnicities. I feel that writing reviews is a very responsible and sensible task and should be performed carefully and responsibly.

So let's start my honest review of this restaurant. Date of visit: Nov 14, 20

Vibe - very good place from inside, clean and spaced out due to covid19. Location - Location was out of place, however they seems to be doing good. Mostly non-indian customers. Service - It was goos service. They had more takeouts due to covid19 situation and there was another sitdown customer besides us. Menu - Items on menu was decent. Food - Most important review of my experience. I look for balance diet with good taste of spices.

Food was ok. Not impressed. Had ordered, Malai Kofta (too much gravy and only 3 Kofta. Thought it was a joke. With that amount, there should be minimum 5 to 6 Kofta. It is like ordering a chicken tikka masala and discover only few pieces of chicken and rest is gravy. That seems stingy. Don't get me wrong. Gravy is important but has to be in balance along with nutritional content of it. Most of the gravy in Indian food (especially in restaurants) are either made with heavy cream, half & half and/or full fat yogurt so tasty but ain't that healthy if that make up to 70% of the main dish.

Also ordered, Navartna Korma (Sometimes called, mix vegetables jalfrezy). It was supposed to be without onion garlic but still came with it so had them made again without onion/garlic. Gravy tasted like tomato paste.

Naan were dcent. Ordered kashmiri naan and lachcha paratha.

I would have given 4 * but taste of the main course was turnoff. I don't think I would go back to...

Decided to try the buffet toddy bc for $15 a buffet seemed like a steal. As a south Asian the best way I can describe the food is very Americanized Indian food- So catered to non-south Asians. To another south Asian I would not recommend the buffet- waste of money bc the food was very BLAND.

At the buffet they had veggie pakora, veggie biryani, lamb curry, chicken makhani, mushroom saag, this paneer dish, chicken tandoori. Very bland food. Chicken tandoori is just color no flavor. The lamb and chicken had a very meaty smell so the meat was definitely not prepared well with the gravy and the gravy itself was very bland- hard to call it any type of makhani or curry. You can tell the meats were boiled and just dropped in the gravy. The mushroom saag was probably the worst thing I tried. Canned mushrooms dropped in blended spinach- again no type of flavor at all. So very much catered to the non- south Asian taste buds.

Also not the mention there was this one server who was so rude to us. He told us to go sit in the back but then told us to move to another table bc it was gonna be a full house? Didn’t bring us any water until we had to call him over to bring us water, didn’t even bother to collect old buffet plates until we were actually done. We had the same server before when we dined in during dinner and similar experience.

But we did order takeout before and for the simple paneer saag and chicken tikka masala and asked them to make it spicy and it was pretty decent. Maybe 6/10? It’s very hard to decent or edible south Asian food in central pa so this wasn’t horrible.

If you really want some Indian food order takeout and ask for spicy or ask them to make it to cater south Asians and they’ll make it like that. So that’s the good of this place. For south Asians wouldn’t recommend the buffet. Non south Asians love this place and considering the location I can understand why their food taste the...

2024 Update: Been back many times over the past several years and every time, they bring out wonderful & flavorful food. No matter what we order, it has all been very well prepared and delicious. Whether we order Saag, Palack Paneer, Vindaloo, or Curry dishes, everything has been delightful. Great food & wonderful service make this one of our favorite places.

2019 Update: Went back again recently, and had a wonderful meal. We again had their saag, along with a vindaloo, and both were excellent. Also tried a cauliflower tandoori dish that was in the vegetarian section - and it was really awesome. Wonderful flavors - I'm not sure what exactly was in the sauce, but it was really enjoyable. Food is great at this restaurant. I'm sure we will be back again.

Original review: We were in the mood for Indian food, and tried one of our favorite spots to go, but they were full for the evening, so we googled alternatives and found Taj Mahal. Glad we did because the food was very, very good. We tried 2 appetizer sampler plates, one vegetarian & one w/ tandoori meats. We had 3 dinners, one saag, one curry, and one vindaloo. Everything that we had was delicious. Never having been to India, I cannot tell if it is authentic or not, but we all enjoyed it very much. The food is great here, and the service was very good as well. So they rate very highly for the 2 most important things for a restaurant - food quality & service. As to the 3rd area that I look for, the ambiance is mediocre, in my opinion. They did have a sitar player, which added something to the ambiance, but the it's pretty much a strip mall type restaurant. If I wanted a nice romantic spot, this would not be the place. But for a family dinner, it works fine. Their pricing is higher than most every other Indian restaurant that I've been, but as a back-up...