Dhamaal — Restaurant in Montclair

Bad experience.

We walked in at 9:37pm (they close at 10:30 from what it says online. Okay great, but we were then told that kitchen closes at 9:45 (umm, okay) so we were told that we have to place our order in the next 1 minute and can’t add anything else to the order. I was with people that don’t eat Indian food and had to literally make in instant decision. She just set an iPad down (1 iPad for 3 of us) so I couldn’t even look at a menu because it would have taken me too much time to figure out how their iPad menu works, and that was clearly not going to work , so basically no questions. Just hurry up and order. Kind of rude in my opinion. And then once we ordered, the food was ready within probably 4 minutes, I don’t think I’m exaggerating, which is a bit concerning for 3 curries and 2 naan’s, and tells me that it’s probably all made earlier in the day and reheated. Like why were we being rushed so badly? You don’t close for another 45 min. It’s not like I’m walking in 10 min before closing here

I’ve had Indian food all over the world, not to brag, it’s just the truth. I mean, it’s pretty good, nothing out of this world, I got the Paneer Lababdar, I’ve never had this curry but I’ve have had Paneer cheese more times than I can count, and never has it been chewy, it’s not supposed to be. And I’ve never seen it thinly sliced, it’s always cubed. So that was very strange to me.

The prices are laughably ridiculous. So be prepared for that.

Not a good experience and wouldn’t go back based on how we...

Saw this restaurant mentioned on one of the social sites and thought to try it out. I would say it is overhyped. Do they have the best indian food? No, There are many other indian restaurants much better than this one and it would be unfair to them to rate this one 5. Is it affordable? No, I could not really justify the prices for the taste and quantity. Eg. Khichadi costs $25. What??? I would rather go and eat in the New york city from much acclaimed indian restaurants. I am shocked there are so many underrated indian restaurants that serve much better food. For drinks, All they had was sugary mocktails. From food, We ordered Heirloom Chicken tacos. It was stuffed with tikka flavored chicken and came in small portions. The Kolhapuri murgh tikka was not anything special but above average. The peanut paste it came with was good. The Chicken tikka pizza was the best among all, but we could get it from any indian restaurant as well. The price was not bad for this one.

We felt hopeless and did not feel like ordering any Entrees. We decided to rather go to some other restaurant to finish our dinner.

I am shocked because all reviews are 5 star reviews. But not many expert reviewers. I just hope they are not paid reviews. Would like to see what people see in long run. In my opinion, just a one time visit.

Food : 7/10 Service :...

This is probably the first time I’ve had Indian food in the US and it was actually really good. There was one other restaurant but they closed recently.

The food is authentic as hell. It’s the kind of meal you’d get served in India or you’ve grown up eating and isn’t catered to the general white population which makes it so good!

We had the brunch menu and it was worth the $$$ Everything was seasoned perfectly. I have hated eating Indian food out because it’s always terrible here and I cook better than what’s served but Dhamaal is pretty darn good. Those chefs know what they’re doing. Even the drinks are so good! Cheers to the bartender. 🥂

Now, if they had some decent music it would have been so much better! The music is loud and obnoxious and gave me a headache. It’s some kind of Indian fusion techno sounding crap. Not to mention the guy at the beginning who was performing, I don’t mean to be disrespectful but it was horrible! He was off key, loud and you can barely speak to the person beside you. We almost went away because of it! Even the wait staff had to take us to the side to speak to us because we couldn’t hear each other.

Come for the food by all means but if you like to actually talk to the people you’re with, it might...