India Garden — Restaurant in Tacoma

India Garden is not perfect, but it is also brand-new, and I give it five stars for the high quality of its food. We ordered samosas, mutter paneer and chicken tikka masala. All were fresh-tasting with rich and subtle layers of flavor, certainly at least as good as any Indian food I've sampled in the PNW.

Note that although the restaurant is take-out only, at least at this early stage of its existence, it is not "fast food" but restaurant quality. And it is priced accordingly.

It may take a bit longer than promised to get your order. The guys are trying hard, but their routine is still shaking down, so be prepared to be patient. In our case the freshness of the food made the wait worth it.

One thing we missed: small containers of Indian sauces/chutneys as typically included in Indian restaurant orders. Please give some thought to adding these, folks. A taste of tamarind, for example, would have been welcome.

We didn't try the naan, but India Garden obviously considers it a specialty, and has a large selection of flavors available.

Hint: Although the restaurant fronts on 6th Avenue and there is a large entrance with signage there, that entrance is closed. At this time access is only through the back of the building, which fronts on a parking lot accessible from Union Avenue just south of 6th, or from 6th just east of S. Washington St. Seems to be plenty of parking.

Further hint: The menu on the website badly needs updating. You are better off just calling and asking about specific dishes, or going there and ordering off the white board.

And finally: I realized only after ordering that we were not asked how spicy we wanted our food. Perhaps that isn't possible. The apparent default we got I'd estimate at about 2 to 2.5 on the usual 5-point scale, which is just fine for us. If you want something different,...

I just visited southern India this summer for the first time and was super excited to see a South Indian restaurant open up in Tacoma so I could introduce all the yummy food to my sweetie.

We got the vada, idli, masala dosa (which all came with sambar and coconut-peanut chutney), veg manchurian, and the dal tadka. It was all super delicious—brought me right back to the many incredible meals I had this summer. Our favorites were the veg manchurian, the vada, and the dosa. The vada the masala dosa, especially, were both fried perfectly and had excellent flavor.

The owner was also very kind and welcoming—he asked us to let him know if we had any issues with our order, including if it was too spicy and he would personally fix it for us. (It was great spiciness for us—could have used a little more, but we like spice! 😂) I do wish the curry dishes came with rice, or that we could add rice to our order—but they do have roti and naan if you’re looking for something to eat with your curry. (Selfishly, it would also be amazing if they had like a sampler of the South Indian menu—like one each of an idli, vada, and uttapam—just to get all the flavors I want into one meal. 😂)

I rated the atmosphere low, but I expect that to go up, as they just opened a few months ago. It is a take-out/delivery place only—so I recommend putting your order in before you head over so you don’t have to wait. The waiting area could use a little love and intentional curating, but we didn’t have to wait very long, the waiting area was clean, there were chairs to sit in, and there were some high counters to lean against.

We loved the food and the restaurant owner and will most definitely be going back—and inviting...

If I could give this place zero stars I would. They gave us the wrong order (we had it for an hour) then asked us to bring it back to them to give to a door dasher! When we got home after picking up our order, it was wrong. We called to tell them it was wrong and they said to come back for the correct order. After picking up the correct order, they asked if we had opened the food, then said we needed to bring back the wrong order so that it can be given to someone delivering it for door dash.. this was an hour after we had driven back and forth for the correct order. They wanted us to drive back for a 3rd time to bring the wrong order back to them. So they tried giving food that was in our possession and home after an hour, to a door dasher that was waiting to deliver it. We still weren’t offered a refund after 2 round trips there, almost taking a 3rd to bring the wrong food back, and paying 70 dollars for our food. Be aware of the integrity of this place....