Masala Indian Kitchen — Restaurant in Lafayette

I have to say that I was impressed with the food. Specifically because Lafayette is a small city and not a melting pot like Houston, LA or NYC where you can find so many choices.

I mentioned that the chef had to be from India, and my guess was right. When I tasted the food, I knew the ingredients were balanced in a way that whoever is cooking, he is someone experienced and had to be born in the Indian region where he can tell the exact taste and balance the spices that makes it delicious.

Our waitress Allie was very nice, knowledgeable and helpful. She is a great listener and willing to learn.

Lamb Biryani: The lamb was cooked to perfection. Very tender, great portion with respect to rice. Many places put 3 pieces and fill the whole plate with rice to save on cost and take away from the quality of the dish. My only comment is the riata should not be in a plastic cup. It took away from the presentation of the metal bowl.

Butter Chicken: Sauce was equally balanced in respect to flavor. The creamy sauce was not too much buttery to the point where you can taste the butter and not too watery where you don't taste the main ingredients of the sauce. Chicken was soft and also cooked right. Some places you will eat the chicken and it has that little hard bite as if you're biting an undercooked steak fries.

Samosas : Absolutely amazing, with the Tamarindo.

Nan Garlic Bread: Delicious, dipping it with the butter chicken sauce was amazing. I would add the crispy bread Pappdum as soon as guests sit on the table.

Ambience: I would invest a little bit lighting bulbs, decor here and there, some Indian music in the background to give that full experience.

Entrance: Can be decorated better with Indian sari, vase, and accents.

Overall, loved the place, keep up the quality of the food. Invest little more in the place and start working on some marketing strategies. This place has lots of potential.

Highly...

I have posted favorable reviews in the past of Masala. This year, Dec. 2018 I'm updating the last review because this place has changed. We went on Christmas Eve and we were fully prepared for a long wait and very busy staff. I'm a very even keeled dude when it comes to this stuff. First, the host, was put off that we didn't make reservations. It's about 6-ish, the place is not that full. So, we're told 30 minutes at least. That's all? No worries. To the bar! The young lady behind there was overwhelmed. But it only sat 4 people. But, she did have to answer the phone too. It took about 15 minutes to get 3 drinks and boom, our table is ready. OK! I send my wife and sister-in-law to the table, I spend the next 10 minutes trying to get my credit card back and pay up. I give props to the bartender because she did apologize for the craziness. That goes far with me. We sat at our table for 10 minutes. No acknowledgment or eye contact from anyone. 15 minutes. We're thinking, is it because we have drinks on the table and they think we've got a server? Almost 20 and we try to flag one down in passing. Nothing. We get up, leaving our drinks and as we walk by the host who sat us, he says, "Have a nice evening." I guess he thought we had been seated and served in about 20 minutes. I saw no management, no one helping and the biggest kicker, it wasn't that busy. The biggest fail in dealing with customers is ignoring them. If you train your staff to simply greet and say that help is on the way, just give us a bit of time, if the customer gets upset, that's on them, not on the establishment (within reason of course). Epic fail, Masala. I wish you luck. Would have loved to hang and enjoy the cuisine but ended up at Legends Sports bar where a single bartender epically took care of a Christmas Eve crowd. She...

Masala has been my unwavering favorite restaurant for over two decades, with no real competition. Sadly, that remarkable streak has ended—evidently due to a change in chefs. After several months to a year of absence, owing to my wife’s and my dietary restrictions, I chose to celebrate my birthday by revisiting our longstanding favorite. We ordered all the classics: garlic naan, lettuce and papad chips, chicken 65, and butter chicken. To our dismay, none of them bore resemblance to the original renditions.

The cumin seeds once present in the chips were absent. The naan arrived undercooked and dry. The rice, similarly bland and desiccated, lacked the aromatic quality we had come to expect. The chicken 65, once a vivid and tangy highlight, was unrecognizable in both flavor and appearance. The butter chicken was noticeably watered down, lacking its customary richness—and the portion of meat had been markedly reduced, as had the turkey in the lettuce and papad chips.

Still clinging to hope that this was merely an anomaly, I returned shortly afterward and ordered another favorite: the vegetable Manchurian. While the dish remained enjoyable, it too had lost its characteristic flavor. The spice level far exceeded a “mild” request, and the vegetables, rather than being properly stewed, were noticeably undercooked.

It’s disheartening that after twenty years of culinary excellence, the restaurant couldn’t maintain its standards through a chef transition. That said, I’ve heard the local Indian food scene has grown—perhaps it’s finally time to explore...