Bay Leaf Indian and Himalayan Cuisine — Restaurant in Oakland

Food is good, but the management is the most dishonest management that I have ever encountered. It's probably a non-issue for dine-in / takeout, but DO NOT get catering here.

The manager, Raju, promised my family a 15% discount for a big first-time catering order for 30 guests. We met with him the day before when he asked for 100% of the payment upfront, for the agreed upon price of $925. When we asked about the discount, he changed his tune and said that they couldn't offer discounts for cash, but could increase the order of the food - by increasing two dishes from a 1/2 tray to a full tray, he'd effectively be giving us the discount. We agreed and decided to give him $800 upfront, and give the rest upon delivery the next day. We took a picture of the receipt of the downpayment with our handwritten copy of the order, which we verbally agreed upon after sitting down with Raju in the restaurant for 20 minutes. Raju said he couldn't get us an official invoice because it would take time to create. I believe this is a lie because they use Square as a POS, but it gave Raju some wiggle room for shenanigans down the line.

The delivery was made on time, and here's where I made a mistake. My family and I miscommunicated on what was in an envelope that had cash for the order. I thought it was just enough to cover our bill with a tip, but it turns out there was $400 in there. I gave the entire envelope over (again, my mistake), but asked Raju if he wanted to count it. He said he didn't need to because he trusted us. Mistake number 2.

The food was good - we even had guests asking us where we got it. But when we realized our mistake with the cash, things went downhill quickly. I texted Raju asking if we could get the money back. He immediately started lying to me, saying that he counted the money in front of me and that there was only $225 in the envelope. Of note, he mentioned there were $50 bills in there, when the bank ATM doesn't give those out. So already, looking at two lies. We were also seeking an itemized receipt. He first tells me to come in on Monday, and then shifts to Tuesday. The whole time he is asking us about the menu that we agreed upon, so of course he was stalling.

I go in on Tuesday at the agreed upon time. He makes me go through an exercise where I add up the scan he has of our handwritten copy of the order. No surprises there, the total is $925. He starts going back on everything we agreed upon the first time we met, saying that he can't give discounts on the amount of food provided and denying that we ever agreed on the $925 price. He then insists again that he did count the cash in front of me, doubling down on his lie. He then says he won't give us any discount and gives us a total of $1080, effectively making it so we owed him an additional $55 on top of what he said was in the envelope ($225), even though he had already effectively stolen $175 from us already by denying that there was $400 in the envelope.

Raju is a person who acts very nice but also uses weaponized incompetence and gaslighting to steal money from customers. The most dishonest person I've ever interacted with personally in my...

The food was outstanding. We had Chicken Fried Momo, Butter Chicken, and Chicken Korma with both regular and garlic naan. 10 out of 10, would recommend.

The service was polite, but inattentive/absentminded. We ordered the Momo to come as an appetizer and requested the naan to come with the curry dishes. We also ordered two drinks. The momo came about 2 minutes before the curry dishes. It was about 10 minutes before the naan came. After a few more minutes we asked about our drinks. The drinks came as we were nearly done eating. We asked for boxes three separate times. The restaurant was not that busy, and the waitstaff was able to tend to side tasks such as rolling silverware and putting away glasses while we were waiting for our drinks or to-go boxes.

The atmosphere was pleasant. The music was not too loud, nor too off putting. We were able to enjoy conversation whilst...

Had dinner here with some friends before catching a movie at Grand Lake and we absolutely loved the food. The fish and chicken tikka masala were very flavorful, the lamb saag tasted very fresh and we liked that it wasn't too mashed up (you can actually feel the texture of the spinach), and the chicken biryani was HUGE in proportion and the chicken was very tender. Mango lassi and the salted lassi were delicious and the service was great. We didn't try the momos this time but will definitely come back to try in the future.

I don't think restaurants should be docked stars for lack of attentiveness as it's not difficult to get their attention when you need it. Food was delicious, portions were massive, and the...