Agni South Indian Cuisine — Restaurant in Sterling

We’ve been to this restaurant, probably about 4-5 times. Three times when the previous management owned it, and this is the second time under the new management. The previous time under the new management, and the most recent time as well, the service is abysmal. Very very slow, I cannot emphasize how slow the service is. This most recent time (a couple of weeks ago) it was so bad, that every single guest at the restaurant is was visually irate. One couple walked out after almost two hrs of waiting. Many families, including two tables that has young kids, didn’t get served for almost two hrs. My party of four adults & three kids (7, 6, 4) didn’t get served for almost two hrs. To add to the misery, they forgot to bring one appetizer. And, we learnt later that they billed for an additional entree, where we received only one. Two bits of positive feedback though, some of the entrées tasted fine, not all dishes though. The waiting staff were cordial, but they hardly have any control on the happenings inside the kitchen. Now, the kicker. The best morning after our meal, our 7-yr old started throwing up. We wondered what the cause was, and provided the care we needed to. We also reviewed what she ate the previous 24 hrs. She just ate our regular home cooked meals, and there was no experimentation in the kitchen, and we too ate the same food. The throwing up didn’t stop until almost the afternoon. We worried if it was something to do with the food. Early afternoon our friends called us to inform that their 6-yr old was throwing up. And, inquired our child’s situation. Both the kids are the same dish (Poori). Their 4-yr old didn’t eat the poori. We understood that their family also had regular home cooked meals that previous day, so they were also worried that it was something to do with the food at the restaurant. I reached out to the restaurant that evening, and had a conversation with the owner. I first provided the feedback of the service, followed by the wrong billing, and finally about the throwing up to that specific dish. The owner came up with some lame excuse for the delay. The excuse was that they had new wait staff. That was laughable. 😁 Wonder what control the wait staff will have on the preparation of the food, except for delivery of it. About the billing, she said she would do the refund, but we discovered that the wrong billing was not for the appetizer that wasn’t delivered, but for an extra entrée that was never provided. They never gave me a call back or refund, despite my follow up. About the possible case of bad food - The moment I brought it to her attention that both my child & our friend’s had the same Poori dish & developed an upset stomach + throwing up continuously, the owner so vehemently denied delivering any bad food & became rude. She is such a bad listener, no empathy whatsoever. I’m not saying they have to take the blame, since it isn’t easy to prove. But, at least be a good listener & show some empathy 🤷🏽‍♂️ Certainly never going back to this...

Visited with a friend for dinner couple of days back, owner and receptionist received us well. Our first order was egg bajji and coffee, and was completely disappointed that egg bajji was served with tomato ketchup and the bajji was bland too, literally a boiled egg, so we shared our feedback with waiter and we were served with something like a spicy chutney which is actually a masala used for mysore masala dosa and we were told by the owner that bajji is served with tomato ketchup by default it seems, not sure which part of south India the bajji was/is served with tomato ketchup and neither remember my grandma ever did that, lol, as Agni claims "Our recipes are everything from grandma's home made to contemporary South Indian". Coffee was good, but the quantity was too less, so my friend had to order another cup of coffee (2 cups for $7).

Then we ordered malli chicken curry and kerala parotta, as the bajji was bland we told to make malli chicken curry spicy, and it was served spicy, the gravy was ok (not extraordinary though claimed as Agni special) but the chicken was either old or not cleaned properly as tasted/smelled bad, and the parotta does not appear/taste to be an authentic kerela parotta and more tasted like kawan/frozen parotta. The owner and receptionist who were talking friendly until we shared our feedback for bajji have started avoiding us post our feedback, so did not share feedback about chicken/parotta in person. Anyways based on my first/one time experience, this is definitely not a place if you are looking for authentic south Indian food, and you may visit if you are just looking for some Indian food for a premium price (yes they are really upscale from pricing perspective), and keep your expectations very low when you visit. Good luck! Saran

Thank you Owner for your response. Yes, of course we provided our feedback in person to you immediately, but in turn we got a rude response from you (completely contradicting with your goal/claims) instead of considering our feedback positively/constructively. We do understand its not easy to establish a business and sustain especially in food industry, and of course we want you to be a successful one. We just request you to be sincere to your claims and focus on meeting your goal by delivering quality products to the customers. If the product is good, customers will make it successful, so please respect and react to the feedback constructively.

P.S. In response to the other customer's review (re-posted as response to my review by the owner earlier), I would not expect $2+ french fries to be served with chutney from McD but ofcourse I would expect $8 egg bajji to be served with chutney by default especially from an authentic/upscale south/north Indian restaurant and NOT JUST WITH TOMATO KETCHUP, come on please be realistic and do research, keeping...

We went as a family 2 weeks ago Saturday (10/05/2019)for lunch. Initial experience itself was not too good as we were unattended and standing there for quite sometime and again asked to wait for 10 minutes though there are empty tables around and after ordering the thali’s we were waiting for 20 minutes to get our cold thali. And while standing I noticed a couple exiting from the table without eating saying the same reason that no one was there to attend them. Regarding the food it was a big let down, the only reason we were there was because couple of my friends suggested them. But almost all the food items in the thali are cold and tasteless starting from pongal, dry chicken(Never seen chicken 65 is cooked with fish sauce, it was giving a weird and strange smell)and sambar. Also we have ordered a chicken 65 Biriyani and it turned out to be they took the chicken65 pieces from the thali they served on that day and mixed it with some yellow rice, first time in my life I had tasted such lifeless Biriyani And they charged $15.00 for that chicken Biriyani which is ridiculously expensive(as the normal rate in most of the restaurants are $11 or $12.00 for a chicken Biriyani) and I was laughing in my mind. And on that day I was told they will serve Mango Custard as dessert with the Thali but they didn’t give that with the 3 NV Thali’s we ordered, when I explained this to the waiter there, he went in and checked and told me they ran out of it. For the matter of sake we were there at 2 PM and the restaurant closes at only 3 PM. No apologies, no regrets, no courtesies for the mistakes they did and they took everything for granted. I felt I was robbed $65:00 from my wallet by some undeserving people. Such a worst experience in my life and I’ll never ever visit that place again. As a South Indian I felt really bad that someone is running a restaurant and focusing only on pulling money out of customers wallet but not good food. I have no option to give a negative 👎 since I’m forced to give a single star. It’s such a rip off and will stay in my mind for a long time as I’m a foodie. Also there was one attendant( Fair without moustache) who was very courteous and trying to contain the damage, so I wanted to tip him because he was trying to swim out of the odds but I was told the tips also goes to the owners even if I give cash(??!!) I felt shocked and surprised and left without writing a tip and felt bad for him. When you guys say it’s a contemporary and authentic food, please try to prove it and don’t serve cold food to the customers and charge ridiculously high.

Note: Not many will write a lengthy review like this instead they will keep quiet and stop coming there. Hope you will take...