India Mahal — Restaurant in University Place

DO NOT VISIT! Absolutely horrendous experience, unprofessional service, RUDE OWNER and completely TASTELESS stale food ! Well! I visited this restaurant on our trip to Washington state with my family. Unfortunately, didn’t have time to go through all the google reviews, but god how much I wish I should have!!! Our whole experience from start to end was absolutely scarring! Never have I ever seen an restaurant owner with this kind of weird attitude. He was rude, unprofessional and highly disrespectful during our whole time at the restaurant. To begin with, we asked him about our meal options during which he was not at all helpful. To add on he even made a comment, “drink water and leave if you don’t want to pay money!!” Wow! Is this really how you treat customers ???? When we asked him about quantities of food in a certain dish. Since we were too tired and new to the city we thought we should stick around and compete the meal. While placing the order he said, “sharing meals is not allowed by law” and I was like “Wow! This guy is really over the limits. Where does he think we have come from?? And what kind of superiority complex does he have? And how is he surviving in the customer service industry with this attitude? Omg! So many questions! But still didn’t want to pick a fight so placed the order anyway. Retrospectively I think we shouldn’t have 😡 After all this drama, whatever we ordered was tasteless and/or stale- Palak paneer (no salt), chicken dishes (chicken was stale and curry had no flavour), naan bread (half cooked and horrible), rice (no good, felt completely stale like it was made a week ago), to name a few. THE WHOLE ORDER FROM APPETISERS TO DESSERT WAS A COMPLETE GARBAGE! Just to clarify, we are Indians and this is not INDIAN FOOD! The owner would not even get a single customer if he was running this business in Vancouver, BC 🇨🇦

Apart from this, the owner was serving us as if he is doing us a favour! On the other side he was talking nicely to other customers. I am not sure if he doesn’t want Indian people to visit his restaurant. Not expected from a person of Indian origin or for that matter anyone should not treat anyone like this. ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE SERVICE! HIGHLY NOT...

I would give more stars BUT the owner’s attitude I can never give more stars.

I guess the owner doesn’t like Asian people or something. When we entered the restaurant he said “two? Sit over there” and point at the table in the corner. at this moment we were just fine but after that other customers (Caucasian) came then he started to greet them with smile and saying “how are you?” and guide them to the table. Not like point at the table.

After that, as you know there is no table service at all(you can call it water is service then well) I had get my own Togo box not like he offered it to other tables.

I really don’t want to say discrimination and racism but that’s what we felt like being there.

Well, I don’t care he likes Asian people or not but at least being professional as restaurant owner. And he should know his country is part Asia.

I would not recommend Asian to visit here because I don’t want them to feel same way as we did. There are better Indian restaurant out there with better taste and nicer people. BUT not here.

여기 가지마세요. 동양인 싫어하는 행동과 표정을 짓는데... 이런곳에서 인종차별적인 느낌을 받으니 기분이 정말 좋아 않네요. All...

This is perhaps the best Indian food I have eaten anywhere in the Pacific Northwest.. I should have given the decor a 1 (but wont, so not to lower his review rating), but as another person said, it is a hole in the wall with not the greatest ambiance. However, I would take good Indian food in a dingy hole in the wall building then crappy Indian food in a palace. You will simply not find better Indian food than this place. The owner is an old Punjabi guy who is also the chef. I'm looking forward to going back again to try the buffet, but it is a bit far from me in University Place. The prices are not super cheap, but not overly expensive either. The portions are quite good and they don't skimp on the meat. I'm hoping this guy can get some visibility, since his food really blew my mind!

Another great Indian place to try is the East India Grill in the mall in Federal Way. I'm a fan of both places, but have to say the edge goes...