Mint Indian Cuisine — Restaurant in Florida

The decline of this establishment and the food they serve here genuinely saddens me. It is an interesting meditation to leave a review like this from a place of love rather than ego, but meeting one puffed chest with another one will never help anything. I’ll keep this as objective as possible: the aloo chhole was under seasoned and under cooked— my husband bit into at least two raw bites of potato. The mattar paneer, which has been excellent in the past, was over seasoned. The vegetable biriyani, which could have been incredible, was so over seasoned that it was actually legitimately inedible. The seasoning was so improperly distributed that it was sticking in clumps to the carrot slices. I felt slightly ill after eating it and had to stop less than 1/4 of the way in. The raita was not very palatable, though I’m not sure if it was old or if I just didn’t personally like it— it was my first time having it. The mint chutney did not taste fresh at all, to the point that I opted not to eat it despite it having previously been a favorite of mine. The roasted papadam was the only redeeming part of our entire meal. Now, I’ve been healing my throat chakra, so I decided to call and tell the restaurant staff about our experience with their food. It’s appears to be a family run business, and the young girl who waits the counter and answers the phone was very kind when I called— then she put me on the line with the chef. I’ve dealt with this man many many times over the last few years that I’ve lived in the area, and wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he is the owner. In the past I’ve found him very pleasant to interact with, so I was surprised to be met with so much unhealed ego in response to my experience. “I cooked it myself” was his response. When I told him that my husband had raw potato in his meal, he said “I boiled them myself”. When I realized that my concerns and experience were falling on deaf ears, I ended the call. If I made someone a meal like that, I’d have chosen to take accountability for their unpleasant experience, and I’d have chosen a filter of validation, compassion and kindness when communicating about the food. We are all human and we all make mistakes, but if we cannot take accountability and choose to learn and grow from them, we will only stagnate and deteriorate. I’m not sure if they still do, but they used to sell copies of the Baghavad Gita here. I hope the owner chooses to sit with a copy. I personally will never return here after this experience, not out of spite, but as a boundary. $65 and a tip would be better spent on ingredients for my own food, which I can ensure is made with the love and care I used to be able to depend on from Mint. May this review serve as a wake up call to the assumed owner, who I hope chooses to learn and grow from...

I was a regular here for two years before they recently switched management and changed their name. My partner and I are creatures of habit and literally order the same thing every time we come here. It had been a while since we last ate so the first thing we noticed was the lack of staff, one line cook, one register person on a Saturday afternoon. Lack of staff made wait time much longer than quoted, but its been a favorite eatery of mine so I was okay with waiting extra this time. We finally received our food, one wonton soup, a rice combo and a heavenly salad. We were told they were out of wontons for the soup, so we would be comp'ed additional spring rolls. There were usually six wontons, we received 1 additional spring roll. Already that ratio seemed weird, but once again we ignored it for the time being.

The wonton soup had a thick layer of oil floating on top. This was nothing like before. We had a random assortment of vegetables thrown in, squash, broccoli, carrots. No bok choy which was always a treat, and standard. The soup broth tasted like chicken noodle soup, it was not light and clear like before. It was just sad, I'd drink the broth before like it was water and this was not appetizing.

My partner's heavenly salad was missing ingredients like cilantro, snow mushrooms and peanuts, the side dressing was so watered down and tasted like apple cider vinegar. The dressing is what made it so delicious, so this was a huge upset.

My rice combo, frankly, you couldn't really mess up but it was. I had a side of spring rolls, the chik'n and yellow rice with a side dressing of sweet and sour sauce. Once again, sauce was so watered down. The rice looked like bits of white rice thrown in, was bland and not seasoned like it usually was. At this point, the salad and soup were so disappointing, we did not want to continue eating here. We spent nearly $40 with tips, and the only thing that was enjoyable like before was the chik'n. There's no point in wasting that much money to be disappointed at every bite.

It was extremely awkward to confront register person about this, who said he was technically the management. He at first did not want to refund us, instead offered to comp other foods and soups. With the wait time so long and the taste of these familiar foods so off, we did not want to continue our experience here. We finally received a refund, which also was a process since he didn't know how to do that function in their system.

I'll try again in the future, but this experience from start to finish has been just so sad as a regular. This was my favorite restaurant in Gainesville. We really miss...

I don't like to say bad things about a local business. But this time I'm bending my rules. Really disappointed. First time visit. Waited for almost 40 minutes for 2 recommended meals for take out. Watched 3 other customers walk in, order, wait, and get their food and leave within 10 minutes. Thought they'd forgotten about me, everyone went in back. Went back to the counter to see if anyone was back in the kitchen. The counter guy appears and says my food had a few minutes because they have to still make the spring roll. Then another man came out with something he put on the counter, said hello, and went to the back again. Ten more minutes go by and he brings out the food. No apologies, no smile, just nothing. Here's the kicker, since I had so much time to wait, I read alot of the stuff they had on the walls about the place. There were some really nice reviews about the place and the owner. There was even a picture of the owner in the article. It was the guy who came out and said hello. This food was expensive for two lunches and I felt unappreciated for my patronage. I went to my car, opened the boxes and was even more disappointed. The food was cold, and bland. My friend said to me "the owner was there, why didn't you say something to him? "...exactly...the owner was there...why should I point out the obvious problems if he doesn't see it himself? Not worth giving it a...