Rasoi III — Restaurant in South Brunswick

I would like bring to your notice about my ordeal and the stress I had to be through on the day of the event in Rasoi 3. I booked a party hall a month and half in advance which could accommodate 130 guests( the big hall which has dance floor and bar) but on the day of the event I was shown a smaller hall which could accommodate only 90 guests ( which didn’t have a dance floor or bar ) and the reason is it was double booked. The bigger hall was confirmed by the banquet hall owner in an email. After I booked the hall I visited Rasoi atleast 3 times during weekends either for planning decoration or finalizing the menu and neither the manager nor the owner brought it to my notice about the smaller hall being allocated to me even though I met them each time. On the day of the event which was scheduled for 11am, I was at the location as early as 7am to better organize and check if the decoration was being made as customized by me.But to our surprise the manager of the hall said that we were assigned a smaller hall and the bigger hall was for some other event and was not conveyed to him by his owner. I was very calm initially as I thought it might be a genuine mistake and showed him the email from his boss and asked him to speak to his boss but he started doing delaying tactics. He said his boss is not picking up the phone and once I started loosing patience he said the boss's nephew was on his way and will sort out the miscommunication, by then the time was 8.30am when the nephew arrived. The nephew now starts calling a few ppl and says his uncle is on the way as he sent the email. 9.15 uncle comes but not the owner .the uncle again plays the same delaying tactics by then we had run out of time and as it was 10am and the guests were about to arrive in an hour . I was totally stressed out by then as all the planning was for the bigger hall ( decoration, dance,bar) and I couldn’t accommodate this in smaller hall and was loosing my nerves.It was not about the difference in money but the amount of time and attention spent on each detail of the party My friends and me came to a conclusion that we adjust as we had no option as it was 10am. It doesn’t end there as decorator had to leave by 10.30 as she has another event. All my friends helped me adjust all the decoration for the smallerhall.The management was in no way apologetic and we ourselves had to move the tables and chairs as we were running out of time. The staff were laughing at us when we’re doing this work and when we questioned them, they were giving lame excuses.I had run pillar to post to complete the decoration and other adjustments till 11.45 with the help of my guests. The ordeal didn’t end there, during lunch they were not releasing food as I didn’t pay the full amount and I came to know only when few guests complained that food wasn’t being served . I have never seen a management who will ask for money during an event. I guess they were smart sensing that I may create an issue and pressurized me to pay so that I run out of options during the event. I hesitatingly paid in full as I had no option but you would be surprised it doesn’t end there. Once the food was theire my guests observed that the staff were coming with to-go boxes and filling up food while the party was on and was just 30mins from the time the lunch was out. On questioning the manger, he came up with similar lame excuses saying that we will refill if food falls short. But isn’t it their duty to inform me or take my permission even if they had to go orders in the restaurant . I felt I was “ CHEATED” from morning to evening on every occasion even after spending time and money. When I brought this incident to some of my guests notice, everyone had similar stories to share at Rasoi 3 on how they double book and then play delaying tactics. Plz plz don’t trust these guys and fall in a soup and spoil your mood on the most eventful day of your life. Just say no to them and look for better banquet halls and now with my experience I suggest read reviews before you book...

Nov 27, 2020, I had my wedding at Rasoi 3. My review:

Pros: Excellent location, a huge hall with a capacity of 400 people. It also has enough parking space to accommodate all the guests. It has better pricing compared to the other banquet halls in the area. The biggest pro: Their food has one of the best Indian tastes in the market regardless of the quantity ordered. The true taste of Indian cuisine is consistent.

Cons: THE MANAGER - Mr. GAURAV. During the first meeting, he was sweet, caring, and seemingly focused heavily on providing a complete customer-centered service; but he missed out on some extremely important details of the contract including but not limited to the deadline of the payment and the deadline of scheduling the food tasting. He initially offered us free food tasting even when their policy allowed free food tasting for a function with more than a certain number of guests and our function didn't have that many, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, soon he turned back on that promise and we had to PAY for the food tasting. Not only that, he didn't mention until the day of scheduling the food tasting that we had to go to the Rasoi in Jersey City as food tasting is not available in Rasoi 3. As if that wasn’t enough and even though we were understanding & accommodating of such unprofessional treatment, it doesn’t end there. He conveniently missed out on informing the deadline of the full payment which, as per their policy, is before the start of the function. Not only that, he started asking for full payment from the morning of the event stating that "I don't remember if I have told you earlier but this is our policy!" We were not prepared for the full payment at that time as every other contractor - Mandap, Photographer, Pandit, DJ asked for payment AFTER the function is over, some even within the next day or two. We don't have any complains about their policy, we understand that - policy is policy; however, the problem is that he didn't inform us of their policy and didn't accept the fact that the payment will be made after the ceremony as no family member is going to the ATM to withdraw the money “mid-function”. Not only that, he continued to bother the bride herself for the money and went so far as to insult other family members in front of the guests for the same. And that’s not the end of it all yet. There was another problem that he created for us - the quantity of the food! As mentioned above, the quality was impeccable but he did cut some corners with the quantity. Due to the pandemic, we were down to 70 guests from the originally planned 100. Even after making the full payment, there was not enough food for everyone. Some of the family members of the bride and groom couldn't have lunch properly due to the lack of food. On top of all this, he had the audacity to change an item from the menu without consulting or even informing us beforehand. We only came to know that the item was changed when the food was served!

The worst part of this is we went to Rasoi in Jersey City, after the ceremony, to discuss the difficulties we had during our function with the owner himself - Sagarbhai, we came to know that he didn't even provide us the full contract and that's why we didn't know their payment and food tasting policies. We have met many other vendors for the wedding and he was by far the rudest and most mannerless manager, contractor, and person that we had to deal with.

Rasoi’s food is the best in town but even if their food was 10 times better or even with the other pros mentioned before, they still fail to compensate for the damage done by their manager Mr. GAURAV. We also saw the previous reviews and realized that most of the negative reviews were only because of Mr. GAURAV. What we didn't realize, and what we want to share with everyone, that despite all other facilities and quality, Mr. GAURAV alone is capable enough to potentially ruin your...

I booked Rasoiii for my wedding event. Initially all was smooth and well. The venue it self is great and spacious. Bathrooms could use some updating but otherwise all well. Venue was also flexible with letting our vendors set up earlier than the initial time as they didn't have an event earlier in the day so this can vary person to person. The servers are also friendly and helpful. Management, not so much.

Initially, we booked for a larger amount of guests and leading up to the event, our number of guests decreased due to the holiday weekend. When we realized the guest count was shortening, we asked in advance if there would be an issue with reducing it about 25 people to which there was no problem. We then let the venue know our final count as stated in the contract about 3 days prior and immediately we ran into several issues. First, we needed to magically come up with additional people. Since we couldn't, we were forced to pay full price for children and infants which the contact states otherwise. Contract also states minimum guests required for each hall. We asked that we only utilize one hall so that we could lower our guest count & not use the space which wasn't an option. We tried to negotiate with the event manager, Prashad, who was the least helpful. Unfortunately we ended up paying for the extra people/full cost to ensure we'd be set for our event. The day of, the food was cold & barely any meat in the options we selected. We advised servers and the manager to which nothing was done to make this situation better. Instead, he tried to be smart and picked at the food to prove there was meat to which there wasn't. Due to having to pay for extra guests, we asked that food be made for the extra people and it be packed and given to us. At the end of the night, we were told we'd only get the left overs IF we paid a tip to their servers. Why the event manager was demanding tips and the workers were no where to be seen was weird to us. Several of our remaining guests witnessed this situation and left a stale taste for us all.

As for the managers response below, first, that's not the groom. You clearly can't tell the difference between people. As to not paying vendors, try again. If no one was paid, they wouldn't have shown up to an event. As you demanded payment in advance, so do all other vendors. The photographer YOU recommended was asked to meet at our hotel after he declined payment up front before the event began. The photographer received his payment at our hotel right after. Why you think any of that is your business is beyond me but anything to make your case stronger. Maybe you should worry about your own customer service and work on resolving that instead of keyboard wars. As for credit cards, security features are a thing. Large transactions have to be approved. My husband stood there while you tried both our cards over and over again. It didn't seem to decline when you decided to tap our card again for tip. I recommend you get your systems checked. No one asked for a complimentary live station, in fact, we specified that it was not needed. Tea being free is what you sold us to get us to sign a contract with you since that's the bare minimum at other restaurants. You also didn't return any of the left over cake. Or was that also a bargaining chip for u?

To anyone considering this place: run. Find another venue where they will work with you and care to help. Although the venue itself is nice; the food and experience make it not worth it at all. As you can see from the manager's response below, anything to blame their customers so they can look good. I would not recommend this venue or restaurant to anyone unless you're looking for a...