Bombay Cafe — Restaurant in Mesquite

Bombay Café is a tiny chain of two regionally owned locations (Cedar City, Utah and Mesquite, NV) serving traditional Indian food. I live in Northern Utah and was traveling to Mesquite, NV for work. I was craving Indian food and found this little restaurant hidden away from the casinos in a small strip mall. Usually, these hidden gems don't disappoint, but this time was different and this is why:

The Ambiance-- Upon entering the restaurant I was greeted with a very faint aroma of Indian spices, which surprised me as I am used to smelling those aromas strongly in this type of establishment. This location is a tiny place with indoor seating for approximately 15-20 at max. The dining room was kind of dingy, but not dirty. In one corner of the small dining room, there were some items of Indian and/or Pakistani origin for sale which I found a bit odd given the size of the restaurant.

The Service-- Upon entering you will find a small counter with a digital menu board above it. There were no employees immediately visible to greet you, and after waiting a few minutes someone came to the counter. At this restaurant, they skipped the niceties and got straight down to business. No "Hello!" or "How are you today?" Not even a "Go to Hell!" Just simply, "What do you want?" He appeared to be the only one working, so it was fine, just a little unexpected. My order was placed with the usual question of "How spicy do you want it; mild, medium, or hot?" I replied that I would like it Indian medium, as opposed to American Medium. With that, my host-cashier-cook-server headed to the kitchen and (after washing his hands) prepared my meal.

The Food-- About 15 minutes later my food was brought to my table and that was the last I saw of the employee. I did not even get a response when I yelled back to the kitchen to thank him. I ordered the Butter Chicken with medium Indian spice level and a piece of cheese Naan. All of the food was pleasantly hot temperature-wise. The basmati rice was light and fluffy and the Naan was soft and pillow-like with perfectly melted cheese. Unfortunately, that is where the compliments end. The Butter Chicken had virtually no aroma that I could detect. My suspicions were confirmed when I tasted it, for it had hardly any flavor. The sauce was riddled with grease patches everywhere. The big, bold Indian spices I was expecting were just not there. The chicken was tender, but it did not matter because there was no spice to enhance its flavor.

Overall Bombay Café ended up being quite a disappointment. When you round out the fact that you had only one grumpy, non-sociable employee running the joint, I will give credit where it is due as is reflected in the scores. There is a ton of potential here in markets that don't see a lot of diversity in food options, as long as upper management can step...

Incredibly abysmal service. Put in an order on Mother's Day. They quoted a 40-minute time for pick up, busy holiday totall understandable. The quote time for pickup was 3:15. I arrived at 3:25 for pickup. Upon entering, I could see someone sitting behind the curtain watching some show and just figured they were on break, there is a sound when you entered, so I waited for service. After about 5 minutes, I noticed a countertop bell and rang it for service. The person sitting came out looking bewildered. I told him I was here for a pickup, which queued another bewildered response. Her ran to the back and had the pick-up order ticket in hand. There were some language barrier issues, but eventually, I understood that it was going to be 10 more minutes and that they couldn't make the aloo-gobi, so he was going to take it off. At that point, i felt better because i thought maybe the tandoori chicken was taking longer because it has at least 20 minutes of cook time according to their posted signs. So I went to my car to wait and then about 10 minutes later he came out to my car and informed me it was going to be 30 minutes longer. I came back after 30 minutes and still waited in the lobby for at least another 5. At this point, I find that instead of taking off the aloo-gobi, he substituted it for "mixed vegetables," which isn't on the menu, but I guess I paid $15 for it and i couldnt really explain I didnt want the substitution and was fine with taking off the aloo-gobi. Also, the rice was suspect. We ordered 4 portions of white rice and 2 of the vegetable byrani. We got 1 big box of white right and a small box of the byrani with 4 portions and 2 portions written on the side.

The food did taste ok, but the service was absolutely...

We went to the Bombay Cafe last night because we love Indian food. The restaurant was empty. That made us a little nervous, but we tried to order anyway.

The person taking our order seemed very angry. My wife ordered something and I ordered something and we ordered some garlic naan and then ordered two cups of chai tea. My wife asked me how much the chai tea was, and I told her $5.50 a cup. She thought that was too much, so we asked the man to take one of the cups off, and we would have only one cup of tea. He kept stating something, and we didn't understand what he was saying, so he used Google Translate to tell us that once we ordered two cups of tea, we could not change it to one cup of tea. We had not paid yet at the counter, they had not started preparing anything, and we darn well felt we could change our order if we had just finished telling him what we wanted, and we hadn't paid yet (you order and pay at the counter before you sit down). We told him so, and we walked out.

So I can't say how good the food is but I can say the person taking the order is angry and the restaurant is empty on a Monday night. Note: I had no problem with him using Google Translate. I think that was a good idea, and I fully support immigrants, but I do not support rude staff, and I would have been very uncomfortable eating food there.

After we left, we went to another ethnic restaurant nearby that was full, and we had to wait 20 minutes to get a seat, so Monday night does not seem like a slow night...