Spice Village — Restaurant in McNair

Celebrations are always special when it comes to birthdays or anniversaries. We are celebrating one such occasion today and chose to visit Spice Village in Herndon, Va. It will be criminal of me if I don’t write an elaborated experience. (For folks who doesn’t like long reviews please skip to last paragraph).

I once wrote, I put restaurants in two categories, one which takes you back to flavors that you’ve craved for years and the others who create their own unique flavors for you to visit them again. Spice Village is the one where you will visit them again and again for their unique flavor.

We called ahead for reservation and requested and we’re assured a spot far from everyone to avoid crowd near us due to pandemic. The entrance has two signature piece of art, a small fountain and a frame where a man is capturing a black leopard, which gave me nice feel, like today I will conquer my food. As we walked inside the restaurant, we got this open and aesthetic feel of modern mixed with contemporary. A statue of horse on its two hind legs on the right and a beautiful mirror on the left along the glass wall. It definitely got me in the celebratory mood once again. We were greeted and walk past the lush looking seating arrangements at one of the corners. The sitting booth didn’t have regular chairs but luxurious arrangement like how you would find in a lounge and every table had sanitizers.

The wait staff handed us beautifully designed menu, whose cover page was made out of wood like material. The owner stopped by at our table and explain us that they currently opened two out of four concept menus. We could order anything from Peri Peri and steak sections, while Shinwari and Chinese menu will be available in a few weeks. We ordered ourselves some drinks, which included Pina Colada, Oreos Milkshake, Mango Lassi and sweet Lassi, while we continued to explore the menu.

The wait staff got our drinks along with complimentary chicken corn soup to our table. In the mean time we decided on what we would get and ordered Fillet Mignon, New York Strip, Ribeye Steak (we like our steaks Medium Well), Mushroom Chicken, Peri Peri Chicken, fried chicken wings, along with sides of Mash-potatoes, Asparagus, French fries, garlic Bread and onion rings.

I added spicy red sauce and vinegar with green pepper in my chicken corn soup, and had a sip and loved it at first slurp. The first sip of Pina Colada was perfect, juice at the end, crushed iced in the middle and whipped cream on the top, with perfect blend of coconut and pineapple.

By the time we were done with our soups, steaks came out. Since BK Grill closed, we’ve never had steak at a place owned by Pakistanis and were curious. The steak knife cut right thru and I had that first bite. OMG. The steak was perfectly done and was seasoned to perfection and melted right in my mouth. I got their house sauce and mushroom sauce and both were delicious. Definitely the chef knew exactly what they were doing. Friend chicken wings, onion rings, and garlic bread were all flavorful as well. My dad, who is not a fan of American food, loved the mushroom chicken he got. The chicken was grilled to perfection and was moist and juicy. My wife and mom enjoyed their fillet mignon while my older son finished his ribeye in no time. Every steak was grilled to perfection. My younger son made sure he finished his mild peri peri chicken.

The wait staff ensured that we were taken good care of. Once we were done with our dinner, two of the owners stopped by at table to see how our “experience” was. We had nothing but praise for the entire experience.

The Spice Village is the next level restaurant. The food, the ambience and service, everything was amazing. I would definitely visit them again and soon. I can’t wait for Shinwari and Mandarin to open up there. The owners know what they are serving and knows their speciality. They are not experimenting or learning on job. Spice Village will not only give good competition to Desi restaurants but most of the American restaurants....

TLDR: Worst experience ever. Bad Quality food and Expensive. Bad Service. Bad Management and Poor Handling of Rush Hours. Long wait time. The food goes cold easily and is undercooked and it'll break your teeth.

Basically, I went here 2 days ago. I left a review but I don't see it and reposting since everyone should know the truth.

I went to this restaurant twice. This second experience was horrific. We called them an hour before arrival and they said to leave our names on waitlist once we arrive. The person on the phone did not write our names down over the phone. After an hour, we arrive and see a huge line outside. I went inside and after 10 minutes, left my name on the waitlist. They told me to just wait 30-45 minutes and they'll call us over. I waited an hour before calling them again, asking how much is the wait time. They said," We're cleaning the tables and we'll give you a call back in 10 minutes." After 15 minutes, I called again and they said,"We're ready. I'll show you a table for your group." I walked in with my family and we waited in their long line once again. Then, talked to the person who was managing the dine in and he said,"There's still a family in front of you." I asked him why he called me over and said they have a table ready for me. Then he shows us a table that can not accommodate our family and we had to wait again. Then we see for 10 minutes that 3 TABLES ARE CLEANED UP BUT THEY STILL DID NOT CALL US OVER. I talk to him again and he says wait 5 minutes. He then calls us over. The waiters don't give out menus either. I had to get up from my seat after 10 minutes to ask them for menus. We made our order and they tell us Chinese is closed because its 30 minutes before they "officially close" the restaurant WHICH was disappointing since we spent so much time waiting. The waiters didn't even ask for water. We had to call them over several times to ask for water. One of our orders arrive 45 minutes later. Then, they give us seekh kabobs without the naan. We told them that naan didn't come with kabob. They took 15 mins more to give us naan and kabobs got cold by then. We asked if we could add something to our order and waiter shouted that everything is closed. (AH but our orders didn't fully come?) Steaks came. They didn't give us steak knives. We kept waving our hands for waiter to come. They saw us, but ignored us. We had to walk over again to ASK FOR THEM. I've eaten well done steaks before. THEY WERE UNDERCOOKED FOR WELL DONE. They didn't want to admit their fault. The cornsoup didn't even come. We asked for it to be packed along with steaks. We warmed cornsoup at home. There was something hard like rock in soup that my dad chewed on and ended up breaking his tooth off. Now imagine we paid for bad quality expensive food. They charge for dine in service (18%?) which I wouldn't call proper service. Then, we have more of a loss by having dad go to dentist to get a tooth replacement. Unbelievable. Never experienced...

I came to eat here last night and needless to say, being disappointed would be an understatement. I'll start off with the positives first. The decor was nice and gave the place an elegant feel. The concept of having 4 different types of cuisines is also appealing, particularly when dining with a larger party. To be honest, those are the only positive things to say about this place, and the negative features greatly outweigh what is positive about Spice Village. First and most importantly, the staff members, particularly the wait staff were NOT wearing their masks properly. Being that we are in the middle of a pandemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people, you would think a new restaurant would follow the legal mandate by the Governor of Virginia where all employees of restaurant establishments are legally REQUIRED to wear a mask at all times, and properly. There were two servers in particularly who came to our table and their masks were sagging below their nose. In addition, there were patrons circling throughout the establishment, passing between tables as they were not yet seated, and they did not have a mask on. Masks are required at all times unless you are sitting at a dining table and eating/drinking. Second, their menus -they were beautiful but during covid-19, they should be utilizing disposable paper menus or QR codes. I know for a fact that they weren't sanitizing their menus after each patron because they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off. Also, they advertised the Indian/Pakistani food in the menu but said it wasn't available yet. Given that the majority of their clientele is Desi, they should post on their website that this menu is not available. Third, the food was extremely lackluster. Our order was wrong, but even when the correct order arrived, the food was bland. The Peri-Peri food seems like a cheap knock-off of Nando's Peri Peri and their Chinese food is worse than $5.00 food court Chinese. My sister-in-law ordered their Manchurian chicken and it was NOT true Manchurian chicken. In fact, it looked and tasted identical to Chicken Jalfrezi - the boxed version. Take a look at the Google image of their tacos - Spice Village's image vs. an actual customer's image. They look nothing alike and the shrimp in the actual customer's photo is exactly what their shrimp looks like in person. We even ordered fried rice and it tasted bland and unappetizing. Needless to say, we won't be returning. Also, beware of the many 5 star reviews posted here. As another reviewer said, they are coming from friends and family and are not a true reflection of Spice Village. I highly recommend that management reassess their operations if they want to be successful. They've only been open for 2 months but seem to have...