Tarka Indian Kitchen — Restaurant in Sunset Valley

This is the absolute worst Tarka location. If you or your family have any kind of dietary restrictions where you need the most basic cooperation, skip this one!

Today is the second time we have visited this particular location. We usually patron the restaurant near the Cedar Park mall and have never had a poor experience. The first time we visited this specific location, there was an obvious difference in the demeanor of the employees and my dish was wrong. No biggie. It happens. They fixed it and we moved on. Well, they just happened to be closest to my husband today, so he decided to grab dinner to go for the fam. We have a child with food allergies, whom has safely eaten their coconut curry chicken. We wanted to let her try the garlic naan but needed a little clarification as to the type of oil or butter used with the garlic. My husband asked the manager Kahlane (I'm sure that is misspelled, they don't wear name tags). Kahlane is an older woman with zero regard for customer relations. My husband asked her if she could verify if the the oil or butter used on the garlic naan is oil based or if it has milk in it. We understand naan is not dairy free but due to the complexity of my daughter's allergies, she could safely eat the naan due to the contents being cooked. It was only the raw portion (assuming it has a dairy based butter) that we would need to verify. Upon my husband's inquiry, "is the naan topped with a dairy/milk-based butter or is it oil/plant-based?" Kahlane responded with, "Sir. It's just butter." As he tried to help her out a little and educate her on the variations of the very commonly used oil-based butters that we have found most restaurants use, she replied with "I don't know what to tell you. It's plain ole butter. I don't know how else to describe it." My husband, again, tried to explain that butter could vary and asked if she wouldn't mind just checking. She blankly stared at him, with zero give af's and responded, "it's butter."

If that wasn't frustrating enough, my husband drove all the way home (nearly an hour and a half), just to find out they messed up my order...again. not surprisingly at this point. Now, I'm worried they may have made an error with my daughter's dish --- who has food allergies. I'm not even comfortable giving her the meal. So, while the rest of the family eats Tarka for dinner, she is left to whatever we happen to have for leftovers. I get it. No big deal to most people. At least she has food, right? She's 8. It's the principle of the issue and just down right insensitive. Such an exhausting and unfortunate experience and to top it off, a huge waste of money. It's not like prices are inexpensive for these meals. I'm shocked that around the Austin area, people are still so flippant about food allergies. It's not uncommon people. Get a new manager and hold a sensitivity...

This was one of my worst experiences in a restaurant ever! Are usually do not write reviews and if I do it only to rave about a restaurant. The restaurant scene in Austin so big I definitely would pick another place to eat the supermarket for example will be a better choice than this establishment! Compared to this restaurant HEB will give you a five star course! ‏ upon entering the restaurant was greeted by friendly staff and kindly took my order to go so I thought it would be a good experience soon there after I realize that there was a huge ruckus going on behind in the open kitchen workers were eating not wearing gloves texting feeding each other and eating meals this is the most unsanitary condition I’ve ever seen in my life after waiting for it to go meal for over an hour I decided to leave without my food and without my money horrible experience will never go back definitely not sure about the sanitation of this establishment and how they pass the health codes! would not go here Well don’t go here unless you’re willing to risk getting food poisoning never been to such an unprofessional unsanitary...

As another reviewer shared, this location (sunset valley) is horribly inefficient at prioritizing dine-in orders. We arrived and ordered quickly with no line and did not receive our food until nearly 30 minutes later. (27 minutes since I started counting, so it could have been more, idk). Having been to other Tarka locations in Austin and Houston, I was excited to try it again after a few years without one in my city. For the amount of time it took for the kitchen to bring our food we could have ordered at a premium Indian restaurant and gotten our food delivered, or we could have simply driven to another Tarka location and been served probably. There were only about 10-12 dine-in parties (mostly 2-3 people) however there were DOZENS of to-go and delivery orders that folks were waiting on and that we saw going out the door constantly. Dine-in should be prioritized otherwise why ask us if we were dining in or taking out when we ordered...? We unfortunately won't be back to this location, ever.

tl;dr Pros: the food IS tasty, expected spice level and it comes out piping hot Cons: wait time...