Aroma Indian Kitchen — Restaurant in Knoxville

Instant food poisoning!!! We wanted to go out for dinner with kids for our wedding anniversary and chose this place, which definitely was a big mistake.

We were party of 3 adults and 2 kids. Ordered Drums of Heaven (6 drumsticks), butter chicken, shrimp masala and biryani.

They really need to check their portion size compared to price. 5 pieces of shrimps and 5 small cubes of chicken in lots and lots of sweet gravy...and you pay #15-17 for it. Drumsticks were dry, overcooked and had too much red food color.

We ordered biryani with medium spice and it was tasteless with zero spice. Asked them to fix the spice level and they added a load of crushed green chillies (not biryani spice) that burnt our mouths for rest of the day. They served extra raita to make up for that but we ended up not eating biryani at all.

We ordered tandoori naan and it was actually a Flatbread. Asked them to bring butter naan , which were good. We paid the $100 for 3 small serving of food and left.

The worst part began after an hour; my husband started to vomit, and had a terrible stomachache for hours. Kids didn't eat much due to biryani mishap so thank God they were fine. I never write reviews about businesses, but had to write it to warn others about the food poisoning. Taste, portion size, price, spice, we ignored all but this discomfort I couldn't ignore and had to write about it. Update: in response to my review, they asked me to send an email, which I did. But the are least...

We went for lunch 30 minutes past the restaurant opening. As we entered, there is a taped piece of paper telling you to take a right and go down a small hallway to be seated. I would think it would be easier to put a small hostess stand at the front and seat people as they come in, but no big deal.

The lunch buffet seems to be popular but we ordered off the regular menu. The restaurant appeared relatively clean and we were waited on within a 5 minute time span.

All the food tasted fresh and was very flavorful. The best part of the meal was the grilled plate with chicken and lamb and the samosas. We left full and believe that the food was priced fairly.

My criticism and reason for 3 stars is that the atmosphere felt cold and like we were not welcome. When i would say thank you or ask for something there would be no acknowledgment that I spoke, they would just walk away.

It seemed that some of the employees were distracted by their phones and watching TV shows on them as noted in the picture. I feel that with the addition of a friendly wait staff that the overall experience would improve greatly.

And, the pictures of the bathroom are to show that more attention to cleaning needs to be had at this establishment. The bottom of the toilet was not clean, there were toilet brushes on the floor and toilet bowl cleaner under the sink which I believe is against health and...

I have an Indian mother-in-law that makes great Indian food, and I’ve ate at dozens of Indian restaurants from Chicago to Mumbai, and have had the gamut from bad to great. This place was a disappointment on many levels. First, I ordered the Samosa, which is like a hot pocket filled with potatoes and peas. It was a little on the bland side, but still pretty good even though the mint chutney was very bland. You could find better at the Indian grocery store in town. Then our waiter forgot we were there, eventually we flagged him down. Ordered the chicken tandoori with bread, which typically comes out on a sizzling hot fajita skillet and is bright red and takes 15 minutes or so to make. My wife ordered butter chicken. Both come out in 5 minutes, and the chicken is not sizzling it’s on a plate and looks like it’s a leftover from a buffet. The butter chicken had all kinds of cartilage in it. If not for my wife’s butter chicken sauce this tandoori chicken would have been pretty unappetizing.

I don’t really understand the high reviews of this place. I would recommend Tandur on Kingston Pike or the frozen section at the India Market off Downtown West over this place.

Update: downgraded to one star because after leaving the initial review shortly after eating here I had some pretty bad indigestion. They could give me a free meal and I wouldn’t come...