Lemon Indian Cuisine — Restaurant in Greensboro

It's very rare that a restaurant or venue with such high marks (4.7) has such a poor showing, but in this case, I can't even give them the benefit of the doubt.

The "awkwardness" began the moment I walked in the door. A party of 4 were stuck there, waiting to be seated, but no hostess was on duty. Instead, servers would eventually make their way to the front, seemingly surprised that, yes, on a Saturday, there were indeed patrons desiring to partake in their offerings. After seating the party of 4, the next server appeared astonished that I would possibly be interested in dining alone, almost insisting that I must be DoorDash or a call-in order.

After finally getting seated, it took almost 10 minutes for a server to (randomly?) realize that I didn't have a menu or any other acknowledgement.

My standard order at Indian restaurants is one of the most basic and simple - chicken tikki masala and an order of butter naan. It's an exceptionally common and easy dish, and in most instances, it requires only minutes for my meal to be served. Not at Lemon.

Instead, I spent the next 30 minutes watching staff mimic the proverbial headless chicken - running everywhere, no one with any direction, most of the time seeming lost and confused about what came next.

It was essentially disorganized chaos. As aforementioned, no hostess manages the floorplan and seating. There were multiple DoorDash/to-go orders lined up on the unmanned and unused bar, but each time a Dasher would come in, they would check all the bags and none of the orders were those. (I felt quite sorry for some of the Dashers - I think they were there longer than I was.) It also appeared that servers didn't have sections, as I saw each server all over the place, serving random tables.

Finally, my meal arrived - sort of. The rice and tikki masala were delivered, but the naan was missing. I mentioned it to the (yet another) server who delivered the food, and he mentioned it would be right out.

Now, I do understand that there's no way that the staff of Lemon would know this, but I prefer to eat my tikki masala by dipping my hot, fresh naan into it. But, I have never had my masala delivered without the naan when I order them together, so this was a first.

But, alas, it was NOT "right out". Instead, it was another 20 minutes - as my masala slowly cools.

But, finally, all elements arrived and were in place, and I hoped that it would all be worth the wait. Again - it was not.

The chicken is commercial, cubed, dehydrated chunks, dropped into a bucket of Campbell's Tomato Soup that has been spiced. The rice is bland, long-grain white. The naan was the only somewhat good element, but it was still very thick and doughy, almost like a pizza crust.

So, ultimately, I truly hope I caught them on a bad night, and this isn't the standard. Based on my experience here, I would not recommend it. There were essentially no redeeming qualities to the...

I am from England and there are tons of Indian restaurants everywhere so I have eaten a LOT of Indian food, even worked at a restaurant part time. I have also been cooking curries at home myself for some time.

We stopped at this place while we were out of town one night and decided to give it a try, always looking to find the next "Gem" of a place and the menu boasted that it was "North Carolina's best curry" so my hopes were optimistic.

We ordered and got the complimentary papadums and sauces to start on while we waited. We got 2 sauces, and I'm used to getting 3 but more often 4 and these things were tiny (see pic with spoon for scale) they're complimentary so I can't complain too much, it just isn't what I'm used to at other places. We did ask for some mango chutney and they said that would be extra and so that set us back $2+ for that.

Our curries arrived and we had both asked for generously spicy. My partner ordered a vindaloo and I ordered a Tikka Masala which is what I normally choose when I am trying a new place for the first time before I move on to other things +my thought being that I want to see how they do with one of the most popular ordered dishes first)

Our curries were pretty good, not amazing but good. Mine was mostly sauce with some small pieces of chicken in it and the sauce was blended so hard it didn't have much texture left in it (onions from the base etc) and it was a little spicy, not a lot.

My partner's vindaloo was hot! Just the way he wanted it and it was very tasty (I wish I had gone with that one). The rice was about as good as rice can get, no complaints other than the portions were on the small side and definitely not enough for the curry we had and had to ask for more.

We ordered garlic and cheese naan bread which was fantastic, no complaints there!

Our server was great and didn't mind talking to us about our passion for Indian cuisine and offered some info and such, he was great (I forgot to get his name).

The place was overall nice on the inside, clean enough and furnished pretty well. The bathrooms were also pretty nice, the ladies had an automatic flush thing on the back but it didn't seem to work and it could have used a good dusting in there but otherwise it wasn't bad at all.

Overall I enjoyed my meal, it was good but not awesome and definitely not North Carolina's best, unfortunately. It's a little high on the pricing side too, I think we ended up walking out with around a $60 bill for the two of us, no alcohol, no desserts.

1 x Chicken Tikka Masala 1 x Vindaloo 1 x Mango Chutney 2 x Cheese and Garlic naan

If I could make any suggestions for improvement it would be a wider variety of condiments at the beginning of the meal and give the sauces some texture, so it doesn't feel like eating...

An excellent Indian restaurant. I am a lover of great authentic food from all cultures and nationalities around the world. Lemon does not disappoint! Our son was at Skyzone in the same parking lot, so my wife and I decided to stop here for dinner on a Saturday evening. And glad we did since we may not have hit this spot for a while.

Plenty of parking outside in the large lot at this really neat shopping and entertainment center. Service was top notch with friendly and attentive staff. It was busy on a Friday evening, but we had no problems getting seated without a reservation in their large dining room.

The menu was huge! My wife and I had to have a drink first and peruse the large menu to make our choices before ordering. One thing to note, they do not serve spirits, only wine and beer. They were out of my typical go to IPA if I’m not having a cocktail or glass of wine with dinner. And glad they were! The server recommended a delicious Indian beer which I’ve never had the pleasure of. Crisp, light and a perfect accompaniment to the spice of the Indian food.

The food was a pleasurable journey through the many Indian spices and flavors. The samosa and paneer pakora appetizers were flavorful and fresh. This samosa was the best we ever had. Perfectly fried spiced potatoes, onions, peas and cilantro. A paneer pakora is cheese dipped in chickpea batter and deep fried. Perfectly done here.

We then had the chicken tikka masala, butter lamb curry and garlic naan for our mains. The chicken was a bit tough, but the tikka masala sauce was wonderful and made up for it. I could dip that naan into the sauce all evening long. Amazing naan. The lamb dish was again, one of the best we ever had. It’s basically a creamier and more flavorful curry sauce. Butter just makes everything better lol. If you’ve never tried the butter version, come here and try it!

One thing to note for anyone who can’t handle a lot of spice or heat. They ask you what spice level you’d like from 1-10 for any dish. So you can order it completely mild or as much heat as you want. We haven’t been given this option for all dishes at many Indian places before. So if you’re on the fence regarding the spice, you don’t have to worry about it here. Try this place out, you won’t be...