I am a long-standing customer at Zareen’s Mountain View and Palo Alto branch. I love the food there and keep going back for more. Today I dined at the Redwood City restaurant for the first time. Inside decor was really cool. Very clean restaurant with plenty outdoor seating. The reason I took off stars - I had ordered my usual chicken boti sizzler that I have been eating from few years now, it’s their signature dish. However, today it had multiple issues. It was extremely salty. It was that salty that tongue felt burnt towards the end. I am still gulping tons of water to kick off that extra sodium. Also, as it was a sizzler, it came on the hot plate. It was that hot that it kept sizzling for the next 5 mins. It looked cool to other costumers sitting nearby, but for us - we started coughing, it smoked for too long. When that got over, we realized with so much heat the chicken got over cooked. In fact the layer of chicken and onions below was completely burnt and had to be discarded. I would say - please serve the regular food - it got spoiled by adding extra gimmicks. Parantha was as usual great, super oily but great. This review was specific to Redwood City branch. I will keep going to Mountain view and Palo Alto ones. 5 starts for them!

Update: the manager reached out to me personally and explained that it was a one-off incident. I am really impressed with the kind of genuine concern she expressed. This shows the strong character to own up and that the restaurant really care about the customers. I wouldn’t expect this kind of courtesy from most of the restaurants. As a longstanding customer of this chain, I already am aware of the delicious food they have been serving from years. She graciously offered to refund for the item that I wasn’t happy with. I would give “awesome” rating to their customer service. I am changing my stars from 2 to 4, all for their excellent customer service!