Namaste by Cake World, Taste of India — Restaurant in Lilburn

We came to Namaste for their Sunday buffet with a group of six, and the experience was disappointing from start to finish. First off, they automatically added an 18% gratuity—even though it's a self-serve buffet. That felt more like a money grab than hospitality. The food itself was bland and far from the "authentic" North Indian cuisine they claim on their website. Most appetizers were cold, and when I politely pointed it out to the staff, I got nothing more than a casual "sorry." The naan was cold and chewy, and overall, the buffet tasted like it had been sitting out too long.

This place comes off more like a business focused on maximizing profit than delivering genuine Indian flavors or hospitality. If you're expecting a true North Indian dining experience, you won't find it here—most of the food leans heavily toward South Indian flavors, which is a completely different profile. Definitely not going back.

To the Owner: Following up to your response:

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I appreciate the acknowledgment, but I want to be clear—saying "sorry" after the fact doesn’t change the experience at the moment it happens. When I brought up the issue of cold food and stale naan, nothing was done to make it right while I was still at the restaurant. Yet, I was still charged full price for a buffet that did not meet basic expectations of quality.

Let me ask—would you pay full price for a meal that was cold and not replenished if you were dining out? As a customer, it’s frustrating to raise a concern and see no resolution in real-time. Hospitality isn't just about offering apologies later—it’s about making the guest feel heard and taken care of in the moment.

Regarding gratuity: I understand it’s common practice in a la carte dining or for large parties that are being actively served by waitstaff. However, in a buffet setting, where guests are serving themselves, this doesn’t make sense. Clearing plates from a buffet does not carry the same service level as managing a large seated order, and there are many buffets in the area that do not apply an automatic 18% charge. I encourage you to research this further and reconsider whether this is appropriate—or at least make it more transparent at the time of billing.

At the end of the day, my experience left me disappointed, and your response—while polite—hasn’t convinced me to return. If you’re truly aiming to offer hospitality with care, that has to extend beyond words and show up in action when issues are...

Tried this place for first time and it had nice ambiance. We got the table right away when we reached on Saturday night. Only few tables were occupied and rest were empty. The food was delicious and the drink was the best. Every item was perfectly cooked, specially the lamb and the spice level was maintained as well. Now they got 2 stars despite having the best food cuz of poor services. We reached there by 7:45pm and we ordered food within next 10 minutes but all food items reached our table by 8:22pm. We had to constantly ask them about our food arrival time. This was probably the first place to serve naans before the curry item. By the time lamb curry came to our table, the naans were cold. It’s common to serve curry item first and then serve naans. We had few naan without any curry item cuz we were starving. We also ordered sliced onions with our food which came to our table after we were done eating. In between we had asked them twice to bring the sliced onion but nothing came. Lastly, when I asked for the only item in their dessert menu which was popular and different; they said it wasn’t available🤦🏻‍♀️ So even though the food was amazing but our experience wasn’t. Wouldn’t like...

We tried the following: Masala chai - did not find any malasa in it, it tastes as if the tea was made long time ago, it was not tasting fresh They served with a small bowl topica chips along with water. 70% of the chips were broken almost to as small as 3 to 4mm, it appeared that it's the last content from their chips storage container. Gobi Kondattam - this is the only item that was tasting great and fresh, however the portion size was very small. Malabar veg korma - they just chopped potatoes, a carrot, few peas and may be 3 small piece of gobi stir fried and soaked in coconut milk which tasted stale/bad, absolutely no flavor at all, 5 parotta - it did not look and taste fresh, was not cooked fully, also very oily Idiyappam - just 5 mm thick, seem like a frozen one microwaved which was very dry, absolutely no taste

Within 2hours of eating, we felt bloating and acidity.

We went to this restaurant by seeing good rating, not sure how they rated so high when the restaurant food quality was so bad, also they took about 45 mins to get our initial order.

Not sure about the non vegetarian items here, I did share my above feed back with the cashier...