Spice of America — Restaurant in San Francisco

I just want to preface the review here that I ate at this establishment March 19th and was seated at 7:50 pm.

The atmosphere of this place is above average, especially given the area it is in. Everything at a first glance seems orderly and of the same quality as that I would find in a showroom floor for a nice kitchen/dining area.

The food itself was really good. When seated, we were given complementary papadum. This was probably the best papadum I've had at ever. We initially ordered the Thali meal course for 3 separate people as well as biryani. We ended up eating 2 different sets of momos, butter chicken curry and some lamb curry, as well as a mango lassi with a masala chai. The mango lassi tasted a bit more sour to me than regular, which I enjoyed, but the rest of my table did not. I think they may make the yogurt in house, but others thought they added citric sorbic acid. The chai itself was sweet enough to be considered a dessert, which even I was turned off about. The momos we had received were a chili fried chicken one, and a steamed vegetarian one. The chili fried variety had a nice crunch to it, as well as great sauce that flavored it well. Consistency of the sauce was almost distractingly cloying. The vegetarian one had good skin to it for being steamed and the insides were seasoned well. The butter chicken was very flavorful, but one of our party thought there was too much cardamom to enjoy it. The lamb was tasty as well, meat was tender (same for the chicken actually), and great flavor in the curry. We also ordered garlic naan and butter naan. They were also tasty and plentiful! Nice crunchy and good flavor balance.

This has definitely been the worst service I've ever had at a restaurant. Whoever was put on the floor to handle customers should not be there if this restaurant wishes to continue. They are an actual detriment to the success of this restaurant. My friends and I were hoping he was only there as a last minute replacement for the restaurant, because the hospitality and reception was at the floor. Here's the list of things that went wrong with service: After we initially ordered our Thali meal course items, it took roughly 15 minutes for us to hear back that the Thali course was not eligible, at all? I'm it really sure. It's on the menu, but he just told us they're not serving it. No reason for why, just said they don't serve it. If that's the case, why is it on the menu?? In our initial order, we asked for biryani. If you read my food review, you'll notice that I didn't say anything about it. That's because it never came. While we were eating and already started having a sour mood, we didn't even bother asking about it. When we initially ordered the momos, we had actually asked for two chili fried momos, one chicken, the other vegetarian. Upon receiving the momos, it was plain to see that they were not the same cook style. We argued this with the server. After around 5 minutes of going back and forth, we got nowhere, and just ended up eating the food regardless, though the vegetarian who ordered it in the first place will note she didn't bother finishing it because it was not what she ordered (fried is different from steamed, by a lot). The server kept saying things like this is the vegetarian momo, as if there was only one variety. This is not reflected in the menu, and we even highlighted it.

We gave this ESL person lots of patience. However, their attitude about not being wrong ever is not conducive to getting our orders correct nor improving the eating experience. We've eaten at plenty of great restaurants where the servers don't even speak English, we just point at the menu items, and they know what to get us. This server, even when being pointed at the menu items, still did not apologize, or go back to check with the chefs, or try to fix anything at all.

If you own this restaurant: never let this person be a server again. if you were the server:

• Please hire somebody else as a server. You're actively working against the restaurants'...

Appallingly bad service and horribly mediocre food.

I saw some old recommendations online to come to Spice of America and assumed that it was a well known establishment so I gave it a try.

The ambience when first entering is pretty decent, a large bar, several tables, and generally nice lighting.

The menu looked normal enough, with the usual Indian Dishes. As a usual benchmark, we went with Butter Chicken and Paneer Tikka Masala with Basmati Rice, Garlic Naan, and Roti.

It was just my party of 2, and another party of about 6 people so I expected it to be relatively quick service, but this is where it went downhill.

They seemed to have forgotten that we were here because we were waiting for almost 30 minutes before I had to ask about where the food was, they said it would be soon, and another 20 minutes passed. Waiting almost an hour for a couple of simple dishes is ridiculous.

When we finally got the food, it was clear to us that something was off. The Roti was not Roti, it was more like Naan made with whole wheat, a completely unauthentic attempt. The Naan itself was burnt and bitter, with flakes of the grill they used stuck to it, flavorless and no garlic or salt.

The curry was even more disappointing. Both of the Butter Chicken and Paneer Tikka Masala had the EXACT same flavor, which basically tasted like Canned tomato sauce with a bit of heavy cream in it. There was nearly no actual spices in it. This was one of the first times I've actually left an Indian restaurant without finishing my food.

The only thing that they did right, was the Basmati Rice. Hallelujah!

To cap it off, we tried to get the bill THREE times, before we had to literally get up and ask them to hurry it up. I've never had to wait 20 minutes to pay my bill in an empty restaurant, but they managed to succeed in that here.

Maybe there's new ownership, maybe a new chef, possibly an off day, but if this dinner was any indication, no one...

They had reservations but we could have ambulated in additionally. It was not super crowded. Their papad was absolutely astonishing and they provided a commix of mint chutney and the sweeter date/tamarind chutney. The papada were thin, light and crispy.

For main course, the thali was decent. The potato cauliflower was nicely cooked but was destitute of in salt. The aloo tikki was authentically good but it came with sauces already poured on it. I would have preferred them to be on the side so I could optate which one I optate on it. Naan was genuinely good - soft and crisp. A couple of curries were remotely bland and destitute of in flavor. The chicken tikka masala in the thali was good. So overall it was a commix if good and okay items.

The chicken biryani was a little disappointing to me. It was more akin to a chicken curry with scarcely of rice. There was yoghurt already poured all around it. Generally, the yoghurt is provided on the side. So it would have been good to have a heads up about it, especially if somebody is lactose intolerant. I withal expected more rice in the dish additionally.

For the saccharine, the shrikhand and mango frozen dihydrogen monoxide cream was astonishing !! It was smooth and I had never considered having the two things together but they authentically tasted good together.

The chai was scarcely too milky for me. The lassi was very thick and nice.

The accommodation was decent.

I would peregrinate here again to endeavor some other items as it seems the place can be hit or miss depending the items...