Cafe India Indian cuisine — Restaurant in Lynnwood

I have been faithful customer of this restaurant for over 30 years. 30 years ago my daughter and I used to belly dance in this restaurant and knew the owners. It was once a warm and welcoming atmosphere. It has changed ownership several times, and although the recipes very slightly from ownership to ownership, the food has always been good. Tonight I placed an over the phone pick up order for palak paneer, and garlic naan. I specified that the polack paneer needed to be zero spice. I’ve had stomach surgery twice, and cannot tolerate spice in any way. It’s one of the many reasons I like spinach dishes. I drove to Lynnwood from Mercer Island to get this food. There are several Indian restaurants along the way… All of them quality. I like to frequent this location, because I like to support them. That support ended tonight. My order of “zero spice“ paneer was VERY spicy! I took one bite, and I am now in pain. I called the restaurant to talk to them about this. And I received “but I wrote zero spice on the receipt, you can check it yourself and see“. There was no responsibility taken whatsoever. There was no discussion about the lady who answered the phone talking to the cook, or the person who put the order together… None of this. When I told her I had a medical reason for requesting zero spice, and that I now will be sick for two days, the only thing she had to say to me was “sorry”. That’s it! Not “I will investigate this matter further”… Not “I am so sorry that happened to you”… Not “let me investigate and make sure this never happens again”. All I got was,”I wrote zero spice” and “sorry”. That’s it. I wasn’t even offered a refund for the food I cannot eat! 30+ years of patronage and I received no apology, no empathy, and no refund. I just spent $20 on food that I threw down the garbage disposal. So here’s the story… I will never order from this café again! And I don’t recommend that you do either! Especially if you are on a special diet, or have a medical condition which forbids spicy food. it’s really a shame… I have a lot of family history in this restaurant. There were a lot of happy memories here. Those days are gone apparently. The other thing that happened tonight? When I went to pick up my food, the two women behind the counter were engaged in a conversation and not paying any attention to me, one of them grabbed my credit card and started charging it without even telling me how much I owed them or what she was charging me! This was a little disconcerting… I had to specifically ask… Quite loudly “how much do I owe you? How much are you charging me” before I received an answer. My credit card was already in their machine and had already been charged when I received an answer to...

Great little spot for some authentic tasting Indian food. A little worn down but the food is tasty nonetheless. No lunch buffet anymore.

Was in the mood for some Indian food on a Sunday evening and this was one of the only options open. It’s located near I-5 and 99 so it’s not too hard to get to. There is plenty of parking out front. When you enter you notice that the restaurant is definitely more aged and in need of some TLC (old looking furniture, holes in chairs, popcorn ceiling, etc.) but the food is the important part. There are some nice big windows that let a lot of light in, which can be bright on a sunny day. We tried the chicken tikka masala, tandoori mixed grill, lamb curry, garlic naan, badami naan, and family naan with spinach. We also got mango lassi, which was savory and not too sweet. I highly recommend all of the naans as they were toasted to perfection and very savory. The family naan felt like a nice spinach toast almost. The badami naan was pleasantly tasty and had almost a sweet pastry feel to it. I definitely recommend the lamb curry and tandoori grill as both had plenty of flavor and were not too salty. I only wish the curry came with more meat. All the meat dishes came with a bowl of rice which was also very nice to pair with. The dishes take about 5-10 minutes to cook, which isn’t a bad thing, but plan to order all at once if you don’t want to wait. The staff are nice and good about making sure you are taken care of. Overall I felt I got more than enough food to eat and enjoyed all the dishes I tried. The prices are slightly more than most places but I think it’s still worth the value. I will definitely be back again and recommend it for some tasty, casual...

The only positive thing i can say about this place was that the staff was friendly. Kind of. There was obviously language issues. We were seated right away and when I told the hostess that the place smelled fantastic (and it did) and asked how the food was, she gave a little noncommittal smile and shrug. We should have left right then but I thought it was a language barrier thing. We didnt know how to pronounce the names of the food and neither did the waitress who finally came to take our order about 15 minutes after being seated. This was much too long since there were only 6 other patrons and they were already seated when we got there. Then we waited forever for the food to come. I ordered something seafood that was suppose to have lobster, shrimp and scallops, my companion ordered chicken, both medium hot and an appetizer of fried bread with fenugreek. Both entree's were supposed to come with rice and mine in particular was supposed to come with saffron basmati. We got one little bowl of plain basmati to share. No saffron and my food had an obvious large chunk of whitefish in it and something that appeared to be crab, oh, and two shrimp with what seemed to be some of the shells still intact. That ended the meal for me. The appetizer came out after the entrees were served. Overall this was a terrible experience and we would...