Sharma's Kitchen — Restaurant in Lafayette

Unless you were raised by wolves, comfort food usually consists of tasty home cooked meals from the kitchen. Our most recent lunch definitely fit that description with incredible Indian cuisine from Sharma’s Kitchen. The warm aroma of onion, saffron, turmeric, ginger and coriander met our senses at the front door.

Included in the price of every meal are hot naan (Indian flat bread) and freshly grilled paneer (soft, fresh Indian cheese), shish kebab and/or chicken. They take your order as you are being seated and before you know it, is delivered it to your table, sizzling hot.

As is true of most Indian restaurants, Sharma’s Kitchen offers both a buffet and regular menu ordering options. Being fairly new to the restaurant, Kay and Jo decide on the buffet so they can try more than one dish. The rest of us know the bounty that awaits us at the bar so we all quickly form a line to the buffet.

The buffet today includes; Vegetable Samosa – crispy pastry stuffed with potatoes, green peas and deep fried; Goat Curry – goat in traditional Indian spices and a saffron flavored onion sauce; Lamb Shai Korma – tender lamb in a rich creamy sauce; Dal Bukhara – whole black lentils simmered until tender, seasoned with ginger, garlic and herbs; Palak – spinach with mushrooms; Aloo Jeera – fresh potatoes with Indian spices and cumin seeds; Jeera Rice – long grained basmati with cumin seeds; Chicken Tikka Masala – chicken in a creamy onion tomato sauce; Vegetable Jalfrazi – mixed vegetables cooked in Indian herbs and spices; Chana Masala – chickpeas in a spiced tomato sauce; Paneer Makhani – paneer in creamy onion tomato sauce; Vegetable Jalfrazi – mixed vegetables cooked in Indian herbs and spices

Starting with our newbies (to Indian food) Jo and Kay:

Jo says “Everything was very good. Lots of vegetarian choices with flavors that are very unique. I really like the pickles but they’re a new flavor to me so it takes me a while to get my brain around it.” Vegetable Jalfrazi is Jo’s favorite!

Kay warns “Don’t be put off by goat. It’s amazing.”

Margy is the only one to visit the dessert bar which includes Kheer (cold rice pudding) and Gulab Jamun (deep fried dough balls in sugar syrup).

One of Dan’s regular favorites is the Samosa but today his top choice is the Dal. We learn from John that dal is high in protein but not as calorie rich as it tastes. “Mr. Sharma soaks the lentils until they literally fall apart then adds tomatoes, a small amount of cream and spices.” The results are wonderful.

Like Dan, John has his regular favorites and loves the shish kebabs. The treat of the day though is the lamb which isn’t on the buffet very frequently. John describes the dish as very lean and tender with a wonderful sauce, hands down his favorite item on the buffet today.

Bev’s standby favorite is Baingan Bharta “I couldn’t remember what it was called for a while so I called it ‘bargain basement’ but it’s a wonderful eggplant dish”. Sadly, Baingan Bharta wasn’t on the buffet so Bev helped herself to the hot paneer and naan (she dipped in tikka masala sauce). But today’s top contender? “… the spinach! Sometimes it has the most tender chicken in it, sometimes paneer, today it has mushrooms.” No one goes home hungry, guaranteed.

For those unfamiliar with Indian cuisine but open to new tastes, it is worth trying. Indian food uses SO many spices and the flavors are complex. To many American taste buds this is unusual but the food is wonderful and the buffet is a good way to figure out which dishes you like — then follow Dan’s lead and go back for more!

Prepare to be impressed by Mr. Sharma’s credentials as a world class chef. Following three years of training at the Culinary Institute in New Delhi, Mr. Sharma spent one year training in Tokyo. In a national competition among five star chefs in India, he placed third receiving a bronze medal in Japanese cuisine. Suffice it to say, this man knows his way around a kitchen and you will not be...

This review was long due. Few months after moving here from Chicago, I was craving for some good spicy Indian food. I found few on the Internet and we went to this place with big hopes as it had the best rating amongst all the other Indian restaurants in the area. Once we were seated, I realized something was missing; the warmth and the music. All I could hear was the sounds of people chatting and the clatter of silverware. It seemed as if I were in an office canteen. The buffet was not exceptional. Very few items were worth the value. Not to mention, the buffet was much more expensive than Indian restaurants elsewhere in the country. Facing me on the adjacent table, a person was choking on his food and he coughed it out. The ambience became from boring to disgusting in a second. The lack of music made every sound quite audible and hard to ignore.

This was the only Indian restaurant in Lafayette and also the closest to our place. Rejecting it the first time itself didn't feel fair. So, we gave it a second chance. We took our friends who were visiting us during thanksgiving last year. They wanted to try something Indian after a weekend of having thanksgiving food and leftovers. We were a group of six adults and two little boys, aged 1 and 3. The lady on the front desk didn't even smile and it seemed like she was having a bad day. Her annoyance on seeing us was clearly reflected on her face. We wanted to order from the menu and she said rudely, "It's not allowed. We are only offering buffet tonight". We had no other choice but to go for the buffet. We saw the tandoori sizzlers that come along with the buffet, being taken to other tables. But we kept waiting for ours. On asking later what's in those sizzlers and why we didn't get it with our buffet, the staff replied, "It's nothing, it's already there in the buffet over there. I just heated it up for that table." We wondered why we don't deserve the food at the right temperature while the other tables do.

Then the staff brought the rude lady to our table, and she asked in her annoyed tone, "What's the matter? They had ordered for extra. That's why we gave them. You already have it in the buffet." I couldn't help but remember the last time when I had visited the restaurant. We got the complimentary sizzlers without asking for an extra order. And so did every table that was choosing the buffet. Then, why were we being discriminated this time? The little kids ate whatever little they could but they had spilled some food on the ground while eating. We saw the rude lady pointing to our table repeatedly and talking to the staff with an angry face.

We had to pay a huge gratuity in the end and we left the place feeling disappointed by not only the food but also by the behavior of the staff. We felt sorry for our friends and decided that we will never ever step into that...

the lady at the checkout ruined this place.

Edit: this response is very funny and what you said just show what kind of attitude you have as the owner of this restaurant.

Here is more details: our family was a frequent customer of this place for couples of years before globe pandemic. Every time when there was a friend who asked or show interest in Indian food, my family will say go and try Sharma kitchen! The food is better than the ones that were located on campus and that’s why we visited very often. However, the particular person, the lady who’s at the checkout made us stop going. One time, my boyfriend and now husband was ASKED while we were eating that he should put the food scrap on his plate not on a napkin. I felt extremely embarrassed and this had never happened in any other restaurants ever. I do not think this is normal for someone works in a restaurant to do. Even though we were regular customers but we’d prefer not to talk about anything personal. Every time we just went inside and sit down for buffet. Pay and tip after eating, then leave. I even helped clean the plates by putting them organized for the waiter to collect, and prolly save the waiter some time when possible. however, the lady told me that a lotion from my home country smells good. I felt kinda awkward but I did say that if I had chance I would help her find them. That’s all the conversation. Long time passed, I had an emergency trip and I needed to travel overseas within a month or so. The next time I came back to eat, she said she haven’t seen us for a while. I said I went back to my home country for a short time. She asked” did you get the lotion for me?” Well......this really makes me feel embarrassed and I didn’t know what to say. We did continue to go when my husband wanted to get Indian food until they charged extra for naan in buffet and later on the quality of food was decreased. Basically u can only eat rice after 1 piece of naan in the buffet. The last time we went, rice was full of clumps and oil floating on the chicken and the food didn’t taste as good as last years. The worst was the food became more salty and we did not like that. That’s the moment I felt it’s time to say goodbye to this place even though my husband is a super fan of Indian food. Later on, we tried different Indian restaurants in Chicago, Indianapolis and Champaign area. All I can say was that this place was better than the economic buffet on purdue campus but below average of a great Indian...