Amber India — Restaurant in Los Altos

Horrible Overpriced Buffet, Lack of Options, Lots of waiters on deck, but none of them care.

The buffet is 20$ a pop, and 4$ for a basic drink. They won't tell you that the drink is non included in the buffet, but will keep a menu on the table saying "lunch drinks options" which have no prices listed next to any drink, leading you to believe they are a part of the buffet menu (typical black design pattern) There are no spoons - only forks and knives. On asking the waiter, we never got one. There were 2 potato appetizers, both were decent, but that was all. There was 'pani puri' which had good tasting 'pani' (liquid), but no filling to put in the puri. Paying 20$ for an Indian Buffet, I expect to have at least ONE meat-based appetizer. The waiters kept Naans (hot flat-bread) on our table the moment we sat down. By the time we got to our main course, they were cold and hard. I noticed a table away, someone had the same problem, and asked the waiters to replace the Naans that was kept on the table as soon as they arrived. The non-vegetarian curries (masala chicken, butter chicken, fish curry) were objectively some of the worst curries I have tasted in the Bay Area. Both the butter chicken and fish curry gravy was not at all made well, and you could taste the raw ingredients in them. Everyone on our table left them after a single taste due to how bad they were. The masala chicken looked unappetizing and the taste was in the same ballpark. Vegetarian curries were plentiful in options and I do not have much to complain about them. Overall they were decent in taste and selection, but nothing stood out to me as 'wow' or even slightly uplifted my mood, after everything else that was wrong with this place. The waiters barely cared about what we wanted or needed. They would quickly come to pick up our used plates, or to fill up our waters, but any request made to them fell on deaf ears. It seemed like they were trained to quickly replenish water or clear plates, but not much else. Example, when asked for Garlic naan, the waiters brought out a basket of plain naan, without even bothering to explain why there was no garlic. When the waiter came to give the check, I explicitly mentioned we had a bad experience and it was not good at all, he did not even bat and eye, simply walked away (possibly to pick up some other plates or refill water in a record time) I saw all the comments about the ambience and was hoping to be wowed, but honestly it's as good as any other upscale restaurant in the area, nothing making it worth pushing their lacking food quality under the rug.

This is the first buffet I have been to in my life where I did not even finish my first plate of food. It was lacking in all manners, and their uncouth staff made things worse. Seeing the bills and the additional hidden costs added more salt on my wounds. Nonetheless I gave them a generous tip, hopefully one of the swift waiters will become an athletic runner some day.

TL:DR DO NOT TRY THEIR BUFFET UNLESS YOU LIKE...

I rated it 5 stars only two years ago, but I have to change it to 2 stars now. The reason... let me explain.

I have been coming to this particular restaurant (in it's old and current location) for more than twenty years now. The quality of their food was always good and is still good. So what changed? The price point of their buffet and perhaps some policy.

They were always on the pricy side given the limited spread they offered in their buffet. But they compensated the lack of quantity (limited number of items) with good quality. Last I went there in 2019, the weekend brunch was priced around $20 per person. When I visited last Sunday (July 18, 2021), I was surprised to see that they have jacked their price up to $33 per person. They haven't added anything extra, like sodas or tea/coffee. If anything, the spread was even smaller. There was one fish, one chicken, and a mutton item in non-veg. The dessert situation was pathetic. They had only two options - gulab jamun and ras malai (half gulab jamun in a sweet syrup), if you can call those two different options. There was a live station when I visited last time in 2019 and it's gone this time. All in all a smaller and less interesting spread.

On top of all that, they charged our group (a party of 6 including two kids), a mandatory gratuity of 20%. That's preposterous for a buffet. The end result was a check of $258.59

Full disclosure: I told one person serving our table about my grievances and requested to talk to the manager. The manager was not available, but he directed the staff over phone to give us a discount of around $40.

I appreciate the gesture, however, I won't be back to my favorite Indian buffet unless they change their price and their policy.

Update on 06-Aug-2021:

This is in response to the comment left by the restaurant.

I agree that food cost has increased quite a bit and it warrants an increase in the buffet price.

However, the other point mentioned in the response regarding "bottomless mimosa" is patently false. In fact, after coming to know about the bloated price, a person in our group went to check amber's website and found about the bottomless mimosa claim. When we asked our server, we were promptly told that it's not for all locations, and specifically not for the Los Altos location. So it seems, Amber is doing false advertisement. That's sad.

In hindsight, I should have included this event in my original review. I would request Amber management to verify this with their Los Altos stuff. Again, this happened on...

HAIR on the food!! ( rude server ) I went to Amber india, Los Altos on weekend buffet and it was a very bad experience. I never gave any bad review even though i don't like food but this is different. I found hair in the chats and I politely complained to server that I already read one of the review about this issue and it is repeating again. Instead of convincing me that it was a mistake he replied very rudely that it is the open place and these things will happen in buffet. He just replace the items and rudely said that the hair must be fell from some customer. But I took the hair from inside so how come it fell from other customers and also I am pretty sure that they just loaded with fresh ones a minute back and I was the first or second one to take. I agree that mistakes can happens but the way they are treating customers who complained is very bad. I observed that they are treating Americans nicely than us but everyone is paying the same money to eat. I wouldn’t have write this review if they would have handled this issue lil bit politely. The buffet is also not great rice is not cooked properly and only one starter and no biryani. $27 per person is waste for this kinda food...