Tajmahal Restaurant — Restaurant in Fort Collins

I went to grad school with many Indian friends and learned first hand from them. Taj Mahal has it's ups and downs- pretty much akin with the all bad or all good reviews they get. The textures are perfect in our experience, and we've been many times. Actually, the veg samosa is one of the best I've ever had.

The problem is in the way they use spices. To make things palatable for Americans, they use less spice overall. They've missed the point that same spice MINUS chili would give a much better overall flavor. It's not the spices that Americans don't like/can't eat - it's the copious amounts of chili powder. In the meanwhile, because all the spices are lacking in normal Indian food quantities, the food becomes bland and tasteless.

Their method of preparing Indian food for Americans was appropriate back in the 90s and early 2000's. Nowadays though, even American palettes are becoming more sophisticated. Now- Taj Mahal's food may bring new Indian food converts, but those customers will quickly find better preparations at other local restaurants.

I make AUTHENTIC Indian food at least 3-4x/week - as taught by many Indian moms and aunties (and even men sometimes). You can only get my food at my AirBnB. People ask me why the food is so bland at Taj Mahal- It's because they were first in Fort Collins, and found a winning recipe for making Indian food palatable to the university crowd AT THE TIME.

I really love this restaurant and their family. Writing this to help them take that leap and risk to update for...

My parents were born and raised in India so I grew up eating all the traditional dishes. I got the daal soup, chicken tandoori wings and chicken biryani. Daal soup was good, although I do like mine a little thicker vs watery. The chicken wings were a 2/5 for me, mainly because the quality of the wing wasn’t there. I worked in a chicken wing shop for 5 years and even if you bake, grill or fry wings, the bones shouldn’t break in half or lose integrity, that usually means the quality of the wing itself isn’t all the way there. Massive amounts of onions that went along with it too, if you love onions you’ll love it. I love onions but felt it was a bit much for me. I didn’t finish the wings and threw out a few mainly because of above. The chicken biryani was very good, I liked the good portion of chicken, cashews and threw the excess onions from the wings into the rice. Yogurt sauce was good too. Overall, I’d go back if I was really craving biryani and give them a chance to try other dishes, but not tell my parents or write home about it.

Also, upon picking up my food I asked if my bag had utensils and since it was stapled shut I didn’t wanna undo everything. I was informed yes but when I got to my hotel there weren’t any. Small inconvenience and probably an honest mistake but utensils and napkins should be standard in every to go bag IMO. Just fyi...

Ive been coming to the Taj Mahal since the week they opened and they never disappoint. They have plenty of options for vegetarians and meat eaters, so it's a great place for a mixed group. There are usually Indian music videos playing on screens that are easy to see, but high enough on the walls that they don't distract from your dinner companions.

The go-to for most of my friends is the saag paneer, which is delicious. I like to change it up, but probably get the alu gobi most often.

The samosas and the chai are among my favorites, so be sure to try those. For dessert, I love the kheer, but I have friends who always choose the gajjar halwa or gulab jamun - IOW, you really can't go wrong.

If you can, go for the lunch buffet. You'll get to try a great variety of delicious dishes.

The service here is almost always fantastic and the owner always smiles when he stops by the table. The only bad thing about the restaurant is that parking near it...