Mawa Bandi — Restaurant in Princeton

We stumbled upon this place while visiting the area—it looked promising with mostly positive reviews, though not many yet, probably because it’s a newer spot. The setup is decent: an open space shared with a few other food trucks, some tables, and plenty of parking.

We ordered chicken fried rice and chicken noodles to start. The fried rice was okay—plenty of egg, finely chopped veggies, and a familiar Indian restaurant-style flavor. However, the chicken on top seemed deep-fried and was extremely salty, with a heavy pepper sprinkle that overpowered everything.

The chicken noodles, unfortunately, were one of the worst we’ve had. The sauce was odd and flavorless, and the noodles were sticky and unappetizing. We couldn’t eat them and ended up throwing them away.

We gave it another shot and ordered punugulu, but after waiting over an hour (during which their payment system also stopped working), what we received was disappointing. They were over-fried, burnt-looking, and incredibly oily—nothing like proper punugulu. It genuinely felt like we were just biting into fried oil.

We love supporting small and new businesses, and we rarely leave negative reviews, but this was one of those experiences we couldn’t ignore. The food felt unhealthy, not thoughtfully prepared, and definitely not worth the money. Sadly, I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone in its current state.

Update in response to the owner’s reply:

I’d like to respectfully clarify a few things, as some of your statements were not accurate.

First, I did not make any false claims, nor do I have the time or interest to write misleading reviews about any business. I simply shared what I personally experienced on Friday, April 11th, between 9–10 p.m. If you check your order records for that time, you will see that an order for punugulu was indeed placed and served. I would not have commented on the food if I had not received or tasted it. I specifically mentioned the punugulu because they were overly oily as if they were soaked in oil.

Regarding the wait time, it was indeed around an hour that night with the delay of food and payment machine issues, and I encourage you to review your camera footage to verify how long customers were standing outside waiting for food which is definitely more than 30 minutes.

As for giving feedback at the counter, my friend was the one who picked up the food and we were sitting in our vehicle as it was chilly outside, and I had asked him to share our concerns with your team. He later told me he didn’t feel comfortable doing so because of the crowd around the counter. I wasn’t aware of this at the time, otherwise I would have communicated directly.

Lastly, I do support small businesses and I believe honest feedback is part of that support. However, accusing a customer of falsehoods instead of acknowledging their feedback respectfully is not the best way to handle criticism. If you welcome feedback, it’s important to be open to hearing what customers actually experienced, even if it’s not favorable.

This will be my final message, as my intention is not to argue but to stand by the experience I had and the...

Dang, I really wanted to love this place! After reading so many positive reviews I had high hopes, but unfortunately we weren’t happy with our meal. Let me start by saying that I very rarely leave negative reviews, because as a fellow small restaurant owners I know how difficult this job is, but because I literally couldn’t finish my food I feel like I need to be honest.

Let me start with the positive: The aloo samosas ($5.99 for 2) are delicious, we loved those! My husband’s chicken fried rice (&12.99) was a generous size which was appreciated. :)

The negative: I ordered the butter chicken (see photos), and I assumed for $13.99 it would come with rice or naan as a side. I ordered naan ($2.99) just to be safe. The butter chicken came in a small container and didn’t include a side of rice or naan, which seems like a misstep if you’re charging $13.99 for ~1 cup of food. The butter chicken was truly swimming in grease, I actually couldn’t finish it because I started to feel sick from too much oil. I also bit down on a chicken bone. The naan was $2.99 for 1 piece of naan that was incredibly hard around the edges and stale. I for the first time ever, didn’t enjoy naan.

Conclusion: We unfortunately won’t be back. I should have listened to the lower star reviews. :/ There are other Indian restaurants nearby who give you huge (delicious) portions for the same price. I highly recommend the owners take a look at prices and portion sizes nearby and make some adjustments.

*I attempted to find a way to contact the business privately before posting a negative review, but was unable to find an...

I ordered the following: Chicken Noodles, Poori & Chicken Curry, Chitti Punugulu, Gun Powder Chicken (dry), and Mango Lassi. Sadly, this turned out to be a disappointing experience overall. Chicken Noodles: The only dish that was actually good. Flavorful and well-prepared. Poori & Chicken Curry: Poori was okay, but the chicken curry looked more like a dry appetizer and tasted like tomato & chicken Chitti Punugulu: Extremely hard and nearly impossible to eat. Gun Powder Chicken (dry): tasted similar to air fried shredded fried chicken with no flavor. Nothing close to what I expected. Mango Lassi: This was the worst of all. It seemed like yogurt straight from the container. I have no idea how it had the color but there was no mango flavor. Trash. Service: poorly timed. we were served the main course first and starters at the end.

Bottom line: Not worth the time or money. I’ll not...