Spirit of India — Restaurant in Lexington

Spirit of India. It’s in a strip mall, but don’t let that fool you. The flavors, here, are of the finest—a cooking staff that has what it takes to produce great cuisine. Over the past decade since my return to the US (Nashua, NH), local Indian food had disappointed me. Nothing “terrible”, but nothing to get excited about, either. These guys, at Spirit of India, are different.

I started with a superb Lentil soup—just this shy of too peppery for the average American WASP. “This shy of” means, it tasted great. The waiter had asked me, on EACH dish, if I prefer mild, medium or spicy. I chose mild, straight through. The flavors are so tasty and complex, that one does not need lot’s of hot spice nor salt to cover up any mediocrity from the kitchen. Just plain delicious dishes. The waiter asked me how much I like garlic. Then, brought me the best garlic bread I’ve eaten, in my life. The cooks adjust their recipe, to the customer feedback, from the waiter’s inquiries. That’s some old-fashioned, personalized attention, there! I had the Goat Saag, which could NOT have been prepared any better—perfect. I also ventured into Spirit of India’s “Indo-Chinese” menu section, to order Haka Noodles. I haven’t had noodles that good, at any Chinese restaurant, recently. I am almost never satisfied at restaurants, any more, these days. Quality food and service are not so easy to find, any more. Who would have guessed I’d find both—and how!—at a strip mall in Lexington, Massachusetts area. It’s close to RTE 2–thereabouts. This is my new “secret place” to bring family and friends, from back up NH way, and out-of-town guests. I would give the food and service more stars, if allowed.

Note: I ate my food hot. I do not know how the Take-Out experience might be different, if food is delivered cold.

Definitely heat the dishes up, before...

Ordered delivery here one evening from their online portal to pay for food directly and the restaurant accepted the order. I was provided a delivery time in my confirmation. Twenty minutes after the order was supposed to arrive, I called the restaurant to ask what happened and they claimed “your order is on the way and should be to you soon.”

Well, the order still took 25+ minutes after that to arrive (45 minutes late) from an Uber eats driver, which was not where I ordered from. When I asked the driver what happened, they said that the restaurant miscommunicated to me what was happening. I immediately checked the food and it was room temp at best.

I called the restaurant again and spoke to Harmon who finally confessed to the fact that they didn’t have a delivery driver that night and had to call uber eats. I expressed that was something that should have been communicated from the very beginning when I placed my order by calling me right away. But to have not even told me when I called the first time to ask where my order was unacceptable.

Harmon offered to replace the order the next day, but I was clear that wasn’t an acceptable outcome and wanted a refund. I was put on hold for nearly 10 minutes and felt like he was trying to stall me out to give up. He came back on the line and after some back and forth, he claimed that I’d receive a refund and he was sorry for the situation. Well, the refund never came and I’m disappointed with the lack of honesty from the restaurant. Had I known they didn’t have a driver that night from the beginning, this could have been avoided. Would not consider ordering...

We did takeout from Spice Box in early May. The food was really good, but the service was poor and the restaurant lacked basic COVID-19 safety protocols. This was a huge negative, given the times that we're in.

The good: We ordered two Indian pizzas - a gobi manchurian pizza and a paneer tikka pizza. They were both tasty and enjoyable. I've had the chicken tikka pizza in the past, which was a tad too sweet for my palate but otherwise fine.

The bad: I was told that not only could they not take my credit card over the phone, they were too busy to even tell me if my order was ready for pickup. They seemed understaffed, with one person answering the phone and handling the takeout customers. I found myself waiting several minutes to speak with anyone about my order, along with several other customers in the store.

Last point - almost none of the staff were wearing masks. I saw one of the cooking staff with a scarf, but it was only covering his mouth not his nose. I recognize that masks don't protect much, but it didn't make me feel good about getting food there. We probably won't be going back until they've improved their operational and...