Favorite Indian Restaurant — Restaurant in Hayward

Apparently the owner has got 2 locations. One on A Street and the other on Mission which is where I ate. There is plenty of parking surrounding the single level building. The young employees, who were dressed neatly, kept the restaurant spotless. Unlike other Indian restaurants this one carried a large supply of wines, which I guess were targeted for dinner customers. I went in for a lunch buffet on my visit. This had to be one of the larger Indian buffets I have ever see. From chicken and lamb curry to tandoori, they were all there. If you like garlic naan make sure you ask your waiter for your supply because you are not going to find them in the buffet. Everything I tried tasted good to the buds with one exception - the soup. First I tried the dahl soup. It was so wash down that I thought I was drinking hot water. Then I thought you couldn't go wrong with chicken soup. Wrong. It was only slightly better. Obviously their chef does not specialize in soups. Then I wanted some chai tea but the pot looked like it was empty and neglected for a long time. Several customers came back to their table with empty cups. The waiters never once attended to it. Lastly I had to sample their desserts. Again their supply was larger than what I had seen in other restaurants. The rice pudding and the sweet cheese were my favorites. An hour after leaving the restaurant and for the rest of the day I developed extreme dry mouth and thirst. To me this could only be explained by one thing - MSG. So if you are sensitive to MSG you had better check with the restaurant first before...

My mother and I were excited to come after the Favorite in San Ramon closed, but this restaurant had abhorrent service.

We asked about the menu, specifically what papadam and sambar were. We were simply told that they were "Indian dishes" and nothing more.

We ordered Thali dinners and did not receive our garlic naan and poori at the same time, so we had to remind the servers to get it to us. We were served normal, non-garlic naan despite ordering garlic naan. When we asked one of the servers if it was garlic naan, he said it was. There was no garlic on or in the naan. There was a family with several small children, one of which enjoyed screaming with glee (I understand this is not directly under the restaurant's control) Our server approached us to pay /while we were still eating/. When my mother reached out to take the credit card interface, the server tried to hand it to her, spilling water over the table and her lap. The server apologized, but took no action to mop up the spill. Instead, the server decided to seat new customers, all the while water was continuing to drip onto my mother's lap despite both of us using our napkins to address the spill.

I hate to write this as our experience with the servers at the San Ramon location was always so cordial and professional. We were not rude, we were not loud, we compassionately asked questions when wondering about food options and when the wrong food was delivered to our table. We will not be coming back for a sit-down meal and recommend others...

I enjoyed everything about this place! Came in on a Saturday afternoon for the lunch buffet (not sure if there is a difference between the weekday and weekend buffet, but I know there is a difference between the lunch buffet and the dinner buffet...duh, lol). The place was somewhat crowded, but luckily my friends and I were seated quickly.

The buffet had a variety of different curries and more meats than usual, more dishes than the typical Indian buffet. They have both regular AND garlic naan available at the buffet. Which was lovely!

But the things I loved about this place were the mango ice cream and unlimited chai tea! Unfortunately, by the time I was just about ready for dessert, the machine was still in the process of making the ice cream, so I was only able to taste a little before leaving (since the lunch buffet was ending). The chai tea was awesome, though! And I loved that I was able to enjoy it with my meal.

The place is a bit pricier than other lunch buffets, but I have never seen a buffet with as many choices. There was a really good selection here. PLUS dessert!? They have kheer and gulab jaman in addition to the aforementioned mango ice cream.

The staff is hilariously funny- not sure if they mean to be, but they are super friendly and definitely provided my friends and me some laughs every time they cleared our table of our dirty plates.

Highly recommend this spot! This place might just be....my Favorite Indian Restaurant...