Bhatti Indian Grill — Restaurant in New York

tl;dr Rude treatment of waiting customers. Make sure to obtain a reservation if you think the food is worth it.

Full disclosure, I did not get a chance to eat here, because my party never got seated. My review is a reflection of purely the treatment that seems to be meted out to waiting customers. Consider this review relevant if you do not have a reservation or consider this as a strong suggestion to get a reservation.

I was part of a group of 3 who tried to get a table at around 840pm on a Thursday night. The place is very cosy with little or no space to wait. The reception desk is at the other end of the space from the door, so in order to get the attention of the staff you have to walk across the tables seated patrons.

Upon requesting a table, I was asked tersely whether I have a reservation, to which I said no. The response came back as a curt "Please wait". While it is difficult to convince the reader of the tone of a person's voice but curt is the best way I can describe it. The reaction was weird but the implication seemed to be that they would attend to us shortly. The presence of a small empty table seemed to support this hypothesis. We decided to wait right outside the door because there was a group of 5 people with a reservation waiting all this while to get seated, and there wasn't really any more space to stand there.

Meanwhile a couple with an infant had arrived and the gentleman came inside to inquire about seating. After about 5-10mins, once the larger group got seated we entered the restaurant to wait by the door.

The same waiter who had spoken to me did a hand gesture to beckon the family standing outside. Since we were standing in front of the door, he had to go out of his way to ignore us in order to get the others inside.

At this point (15+ mins) we left. It was not really worth the uncertain and rude wait.

Directly addressing the proprietors of Bhatti, the problem with the entire scenario was this: please do not make customers wait arbitrarily without giving them any timeline for how long the wait is. I would've much preferred a straight up no to this. giving priority to a family with a kid is justified and up to the restaurant's discretion, but show some courtesy and acknowledgement to the people being skipped. although this is highly subjective, it would be much more enjoyable an experience, regardless of whether a person gives your establishment her business, if the staff was more polite and courteous. A smile...

Four of us recently dined at Bhatti Indian Restaurant, and unfortunately, our experience left much to be desired. From the moment we arrived, it was evident that the service was lacking. No one took our order for a significant amount of time, approximately 15-20 minutes, forcing us to actively seek out a server for assistance. This initial delay set a disappointing tone for the rest of our visit.

Moving on to the appetizers, we ordered the Saron Mushroom and Hariyali Chooza. The Saron Mushroom dish was quite underwhelming, both in terms of taste and portion size. To our surprise, it only consisted of two measly pieces. On the other hand, the Hariyali Chooza was decent, but it failed to compensate for the disappointment of the previous dish.

For our main course, we opted for the Dal Bhatti and Chicken Tikka Masala. The dal Bhatti, while enjoyable, was nothing out of the ordinary. It resembled a regular dal makhani and lacked any standout flavors. As for the Chicken Tikka Masala, it was a complete letdown. The dish had a predominant ginger taste that was overwhelming and detracted from the overall experience. To make matters worse, the portion of chicken provided was extremely small, consisting of only three pieces.

To add to the frustration, when we requested a to-go container to wrap up a celebratory cake, the restaurant staff handed us containers with lids but they failed to provide any bags for us to carry the containers. It was a series of missteps and lack of attention to detail that further soured our experience. Finally, after signing the receipt, we were abruptly asked to leave, an unexpected and unwelcome conclusion to our visit.

Overall, our dining experience at Bhatti Indian Restaurant was far from satisfactory. The lackluster service, underwhelming appetizers, and disappointing main courses left us with a sense of dissatisfaction. The inconsistency in portion sizes, overpowering flavors, and the careless attitude towards providing basic amenities such as bags only added to our frustration. While the dal Bhatti stood out as one of the better dishes, it was not enough to salvage the overall experience. Regrettably, we would not recommend Bhatti Indian Restaurant based...

The experience was wrong at so many levels. I wish we could give negative rating.

Let me start by saying that this is not the first time we have eaten here. The food earlier was usually OK; but this time food was bad, the service was downright rude (cannot quite call them racist as it was an Indian restaurant and I’m an Indian) and finally we dealt with an indifferent manager who couldn't care less about our feedback. This was all the more sad because we had a friend from London who was visiting us and we had decided to take her out. The Quality of service: The host seemed to be upset working at his position. He seemed to be looking for an alternate career, and I would sure wish so, because he seemed too arrogant to be in the service industry – leave alone in hospitality. Even when we smiled and tried to be friendly – his expression was “I’m sorry to be in this position of taking your order; I wish you were not here.”

The Quality of food: We ordered a Kebab platter and some masala tea. When the food arrived, it seemed at least some of the kebabs were under cooked. When we brought this to the host’s attention (we did finish off around 30% of the plate), he took away the food and replaced it with 2 pieces of the offending items – the rest of the items were missing. We decided it was all too much, we returned the item, decided to just pay and leave. Clearly the establishment was having a bad day……but that was not the end of it all.

The close: No apologies offered, the bill we got was for the full amount – even after we had returned the dish. When we complained about the whole experience to the (Lady) Manager, we were told that we have to pay for the full amount and that she could not do anything about it. As a gracious measure, we were offered a 25% discount employees discount.

Clearly we will not be visiting this place again, but felt that as a customer we should post this...