Bombay Bistro — Restaurant in Rockville

Although I've never lived in Rockville, I'm basically a Rockville transplant given how many times I used to come here for dentist appointments, piano practices, Chinese School, and more. I still cross the VA-MD border more than anyone I know for authentic Chinese food that's more plentiful Maryland than in Virginia. I was in Rockville again last night to visit a friend, and we went to Bombay Bistro for dinner. I had never heard or seen Bombay Bistro in my 20+ years of visiting Rockville, despite it being fairly close to the Town Center. Off of West Montgomery Avenue, Bombay Bistro is a family-owned restaurant since 1992. The restaurant has an open kitchen concept, which is very unique for an Indian restaurant.

I ordered the chicken tikka, aloo ghobi, and garlic naan as my usual Indian food favorites. The chicken tikka came on a huge plate with rice and a side salad. Chicken was a bit dry but still had that chicken tikka taste. I should have ordered chicken tikka masala instead. The aloo ghobi came in a small dish and another plate of rice came with that order. Aloo ghobi was pretty decent; I mostly ate that, but there wasn't too much of it for $11.95. Garlic naan was enormous and it tasted good but it was oilier than other garlic naans I've had. Overall, the food was fairly decent.

+Chicken tikka: $12.95 +Aloo ghobi: $11.95 +Garlic naan: $2.95

Service was polite and prompt, especially with the manager on duty that night. We did get a little bit of a brow raise from a server when we requested separate checks, but the manager thankfully straightened it...

Was hesitant about coming to this restaurant as the reviews made it seem either REALLY GOOD or REALLY BAD, but the general consensus from my three friends and I was that it was "just ok". Even though the atmosphere and service are 4 stars, the food is most important to me which is why it's overall a 3.

The Good: service was friendly, restaurant was bright, clean, and cute with a nice volume of music, food was served quickly, none of the food was bad. I personally liked the lamb curry that came as part of my thali set and one friend really enjoyed the garlic naan. The lemony(?) pickles were AMAZING (I would buy those separately to keep at home if offered). The Just Ok: while the servings are decently sized, none of us were wowed by the food itself which made it hard to justify the price. One friend said she had made better garlic naan herself, another friend who tried the saag paneer in my thali set said she had tasted better at Trader Joe's. Only one of the 5 dishes to my thali set was good enough to eat without pickle or chutney to enhance it. All of us agreed we had eaten better Indian cuisine at other restaurants for a better price. The Bad: we were offered a sample of the seasonal soup (pumpkin) - while this was super thoughtful and we appreciated the gesture, the soup itself was terrible, just the taste of salt and nothing else.

Note: three of the four of us have lived abroad all over the world, enjoy both Americanized and original cuisines, and have many South Asian friends whose home-cooking we all enjoy...

I've been to BB a few times but grabbed food here recently after not eating here for a while (about a year?) and remembered how much I love it! My family especially loves the chicken tikka makhani, chicken tikka tandoor, and garlic naan. In our most recent order, we also got the chicken biryani and tandoori chicken. With our four entrees, we received ample rice and our two orders of garlic naan were quite large. The only issues we have with BB is that parking always seems to be limited when we pick up our orders (but this is minor) and we were given a 45-50 minute estimate but ended up waiting about 75 minutes. I even showed up 10 minutes late in hopes of not having to wait in the crowded restaurant. I don't mind waiting 75 minutes but would love if they overestimated wait times rather than underestimated them, so I can spend less time waiting around. For my most recent visit, I attributed it to the pandemic and the chaos of trying to get out all the orders. Other than those two bits, this place is wonderful and my go-to place...