Punjabi Tandoor — Restaurant in San Diego

Good The plain naan here is really really good. This place is very popular and must be satisfying local patrons palates, expectations and needs.

With that being said Indian food in general here in San Diego is expensive and lacking compared to what we are use to in Northern California. This place is no exception.

Food comes in a to go container for sit down or to go. You order and pick up at the counter. You basically get meat/vege curries, rice, naan and a thimble sized rice pudding or raita. That's it.

This is not a buffet at any time lunch or dinner. Rice pudding comes in a plastic salsa cup and is watery. Raita was also watery and it didn't have any flavor either, how is that possible?

No typical veges, fruit, chutneys, sauces etc. How does one eat Indian food without these essential bits and sauces. This would be like eating a hamburger with no fresh onion, lettuce, tomato or special sauce. Or eating fresh hot salty fries and no ketchup.

Bottom line we have not yet found another Indian restaurant or eatery that is better than this restaurant in the San Diego area.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INDIAN RESTAURANTS Huge salad bars with all the typical fruits and veges and really nice thick raitas, chutneys, cilantro/mint sauce etc. all you can drink chai tea, all the mango ice cream you can eat, gulab, rich rice pudding with nuts etc. Fantastic rice choices, cumin rice, biryani rice, fried breads, pakoras, samosas and various dals, potato and vege dishes, fried fish, tandoori chicken, goat, chicken and lamb curries etc. And that's just the lunch buffets.

Maybe not as "spice" heavy as home Indian cooking but pretty close and no where near bland, you definitely taste the spices.

It must be good food because these buffets are frequented by those who appear to be from India or in the general region. Definitely a lot of male college students who appear to be Indian as well as a lot customers with turbans. All confirming that the food must be really good.

Our favorite Indian restaurant had to post a sign when the lunch buffet went from 8.99 to 9.99 wow. Now present day I think it's 10.99 but still, it's fantastic. We were warned when friends visited us in Northern California that the Indian restaurants were much better than in San Diego. We are believers now.

There is one Indian restaurant whose lunch buffet on Sunday is $16 but the inside of the restaurant is fancy and has about 8 or so all male waiters in white shirts, ties and dark pants, giving good old fashion service without interrupting conversations, showing the utmost respect and anticipating the customers' every need.

Maybe the overhead in Southern California is so high these kind of restaurants are impossible to setup,...

1

...the number of days I took me to come here on my lunch break after I found out about it. PEOPLE!! this is BIG news. have you BEEN to the original location? I think we can all agree (who say yes) that Punjabi Tandoor is one of the best indian establishments in SD for a quick and cheap meal. That lunch special...that humongous piece of naan bread...now in respectable driving distance from my job. ahhh...the emotions.

the original location is WAAAY down miramar, the size of a small shack, and hosts a few sad patio tables. but does the detour anyone? hell no. because it is good eats. But when you work in torrey pines, and you spend about 20 mins each way just to drive there. yaa...not gonna happen often. this is a dangerous new development.

what a night and day difference in appearance. the space is lovely, tons of indoor dining, and tons of comfortable and pleasant covered patio space. im a #4 lunch special kinda girl (one chicken item, one veggie item - along with the basmati rice, naan, and uh, rice pudding type thing thats delicious). runs you about $8 and should be enough food for 2 modest servings....but who are we kidding, it ends up being one large and indulgent meal.

best aspect of my meal was that the naan was brought out to me after being served the prepared cafeteria-style items and was fresh out of the oven. it was perfectly cooked with that nice chewiness to it. i defaulted to the very popular chicken tikka masala (there were 3 different chicken items to chose from) and mixed veggies (mainly because Im a sucker for potatoes). everything was delish, as i fondly remembered. only complaint was the chicken was a bit on the tougher side. minor complaint, as it had great flavor and hint of spiciness.

plenty of parking and no line at 11:30.

..very very smart business move by punjabi tandoor. with already a loyal following and situated close to qualcomm (on scraton) just before karl strauss / building k...i am sure it is already doing quite well. welcome new addition to the hood!

PRO TIP: overheard as i got my to-go box that you can ask for 1/2 and 1/2 of items if you cant...

The least fresh food my friend, my girlfriend, and I have eaten in a long time. It's probably actually the worst thing we've eaten in years.

We ordered a large variety of food on top of the basic things you'd typically expect to be good from an Indian bread (the naan bread, chicken tikka masala, the rice, etc...). It was actually stunning how every single item tasted worse than what you can expect from a frozen meal and completely bland on top of that...

The rice tasted like gloopy fridge water, and the rest of the food was pretty in line with that. Pretty much tells you all you need to know about their standards to even allow something to be sent out like that. It's not a matter of luck and certainly couldn't be a one time thing (wouldn't make sense for it to be).

I won't and wouldn't recommend anyone waste their time rationalizing how all the other good reviews must somehow outweigh the significance of what was stated here as I further have no agenda and, as a matter of fact, as a local here, am more than disappointed. I actually resent the individuals who would run a restaurant with what can only be described as an assault to any conscious being and a total affront on human conscience (nevermind the fact that the food was clearly also just cooked poorly). This is almost a month later and not at all reactionary. There aren't many other places which deliver here, and with that in mind, I'd honestly further be scared to get poisoned yet alone consider ordering again for the sake of actually enjoying a meal...

For those who still care to try and give these people business and think avoiding what we got might help, we also ordered vegetable samosas, vegetable pakora, lamb curry, and a tandoori mix. Both garlic and regular naan...