Biryani Pot — Restaurant in Houston

A long time ago, I fell in love with a restaurant. It had everything I could ask for from a restaurant, but sadly it wasn't meant to be. It started as any other day. Work was slow, but I was hopeful, because in a few short hours my coworkers and I were going to eat another amazing lunch. We made the 25-minute drive to the place, but the doors were shuttered. They had gone out of business, and taken along with them the part of me that loved a restaurant in a way only that makes people who care about you go, “that’s a little weird.” I still went to lunch with friends and coworkers, and I still enjoyed the food, but I didn't -love- places anymore. Not the way I used to, at least. My capacity to love a restaurant in the, "it's 8 AM and only 3 more hours to lunch--I can't wait!" way, was gone forever.

Until I had lunch at Biryani Pot. It was everything I had hoped for, and then some. The Gobi Manchurian was finger licking good. The Palak Paneer had just the right spinach-to-paneer ratio. The cheese naan was fresh and filled with stretchy cheese. The biryani was I'm-too-full-to-keep-eating-but-I-will good. The service was... well, pretty slow actually, but what's a few extra minutes of waiting for food that's so good?

At the beginning, the restaurant was clearly run by people who knew how to cook and not necessarily run a successful business, because they made a lot of not-good-for-business errors. Like closing the kitchen when there is a line of people literally out the door. Or not hiring enough wait staff to handle a full house. Turning away people who clearly want to give you their money, enough to wait over an hour, is just bad business. But whoever is running the show is clearly learning from their mistakes. For starters, they have better hours now. They also expanded the location and renovated it to where it looks more like a traditional sit down restaurant. The service still needs work, but it has improved drastically. Parking used to be an issue so now they have a parking lot attendant who helps you find a parking spot. The quality of food hasn't decreased and their prices haven’t increased. I could go on, but I won't.

Try this place out for lunch, and once you love it and can’t live without it anymore, order it for dinner. To go. Often.

TL; DR; Service isn't great, but that can be easily forgiven because their food...

Non-veg thali was great. I'm not Indian but I've spent a lot of time traveling in India and lived in Bangladesh a couple years. I'm not actually familiar with Hyderabadi food but I liked it that each item had its own kind of spicing. Tasty and there was a lot of variety.in addition to the really good Biryani which turned out to have big chunks of chicken buried in it, there was stewed probably yogurt thickened chicken, a chicken "lollipop", battered and fried cauliflower, a veg mixture that included okra (out of season), plate- sized tandoori naan (what no chapati ;-) a plain papad ( something I really like and don't usually see an Indian restaurant here. Try it even if you usually don't like the astofoetida taste of papadum), yellow split pea daal, a soupy daal I can't think of the name that you use like gravy, raita,a light but pleasantly spicy broth before the meal, and a sweet that is kind of like flan( it wasn't familiar to me since I usually avoid sweets). You don't get any choices so it won't be for you if you don't like hot food though on a world scale it's kind of medium hot. At $9 it's an incredible bargain. Priced about like it would be in India since it's the equivalent of 3 meals. Probably more than an entire small Indian chicken. I ate until I was a little overly full, my husband then had the leftovers for dinner and I had what was left from that with fresh rice the next day and was overfull again. And I normally eat two pieces of chicken at a meal. Oh and it has atmosphere. Though a bit of a mix of formal and informal like really being in India... including Muzak in the front and Indian music coming from the kitchen. Friendly service. It didn't seem slow but on the other hand I was getting essentially the...

Food OK and Very very BAD service.

I see the change (not good) in attitude in terms of the service provided from the first time I was there to second and third time. What was most disappointing and prompting me to write this review is that they really did not bother to even ask what was needed to correct when they know the customer is not happy. I ordered the food and one of the members was not feeling comfortable with the smell around and we requested for a different seating which they did not accommodate and showed the displeasure, the guy who was taking the order mentioned that I can talk to the owner. And no one came and I had to pack my food and take it home and wanted to talk to the owner when paying for the food and there was pretty bad attitude and ignorance to the fact that someone is not happy and want to talk.

I am from Hyderabad and enjoyed the kind of food they serve. I enjoyed the first time and even took couple of my friends later. But since than the quality of food was also not upto the initial taste and standards. when the food was not that good one of those times and I even said them what was not good. But this time I felt I should write a review hoping that they would show some respect to their customers and try to improve on any suggestions that they can...and customer service is a basic necessity in this line...