Tangra Masala — Restaurant in New York

Unfortunately, I had a very disappointing experience at Tangra Masala and won’t be returning. From the beginning, things went wrong — my daughter was served water with a straw that had a cockroach inside it. I immediately informed the manager, but instead of offering a genuine apology or taking full accountability, she placed the blame on their supplier. Regardless of where the straw came from, something like that should never make it to a customer’s table, especially when children are involved.

The overall atmosphere also felt off. The staff appeared visibly unhappy and disengaged, which created a tense and uncomfortable dining environment. It was clear that they weren’t having a good experience either, which sadly showed in the service.

To make matters worse, the food quality has really declined. Dishes that used to be full of flavor now tasted bland and carelessly prepared. It was far from the standard I remembered.

What added to the disappointment was seeing a 15% service charge automatically added to the bill — despite the poor experience and lack of basic hospitality. It felt undeserved, especially given everything we encountered during our visit.

I used to enjoy this place, but this experience was truly disheartening. I hope the management takes this kind of feedback seriously and works on improving both hygiene and...

Our friend insisted that she heard Tangra Masala was one of the best Indian-Chinese restaurants and that we must try it. So on to the train to yonder hills as we rode merrily all the way.

The restaurant is another one of the non-descript frontage and interior only with the one function in mind which is to service food at a low cost, no frill ambiance. Found the service to be helpful and friendly.

She ordered an assortment of dishes for the table to try out. To start the Lollipop chicken and Vegetable Pakora and entrée Tangra Masala Chicken, Shrimp and Tangra Masala Chow Mein. The lollipop chicken is basically the drumstick trimmed and deep fried to look like guess what a lollipop! It was good but not sure why the rave. The Pakora another deep fried mixture was also decent but then what is not good deep fried?

The entrée we decided for a mix of the Masala sauce...wet and dry. We found that the preferred sauce was the wet. We all thought it had more flavor and the sauce made was good for dipping bread and top of the rice. As for the food. It was an interesting interpretation of Chinese food which is let's take Indian food ingredients deep fry it or make it greasy...voila Indian-Chinese! Overall, the table much preferred the dishes that was more Indian and less Chinese mainly because of...

Dishonest, cheaters, small portions, not a good choice for vegetarians also, not worth the money !! On the check they include 15% gratuity - tip automatically but they don’t make you aware of it. We were there last week and we didn’t bother to check the details of our final bill - check, who in the world can imagine that you are being cheated at a place where you take your friends and family to enjoy. When we paid the check we gave them extra $$ for the tip but the tip was already included in the final check. They didn’t bother telling us that your tip is already included ! When we called them after 3 days the lady owner tried to cover their bad business practice by telling us that it’s all mandatory by New York State, she said that we can’t tell our customers that there’s a service fee - tip already included in their check and if customers are giving us extra money then why should we tell them no !!

You tell your customers about what you charge them in complete transparency cos that’s the honest way !! I guess people don’t want to believe in honest, ethical business practices cos all they want to do is make an extra $$ by...