Taste of India winchester — Restaurant in Virginia

I was both pleasantly surprised and disappointed by this place. Currently, my favorite Indian restaurant in the area is called Spice Connexion in Martinsburg; they have a lunchtime buffet throughout the week that is absolutely amazing. However, I don't always want to make the trek from Stephens City to Martinsburg for lunch and Winchester Taste of India has been a decent substitution.

If you're into buffets, Taste of India also has a lunchtime buffet during the week. It costs 8 bucks and change per person and consists of quite a spread; I'd say they offer at least a dozen different dishes, not including the various toppings and sauces that are kept cold on the one end of the buffet. I've only tried a handful of things, but it was all very good.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't say that I love this restaurant. It's decent Indian food if you're looking for something convenient, but given the choice, I would probably go elsewhere. The service isn't that great, either. There were half a dozen waitstaff when I was there the other day, but I sat with an empty glass for nearly 40 minutes before one of the servers finally came close enough to our table that I could waive them down and ask for a refill. Both of my companions had empty glasses, too.

I've only ordered off the menu once when I was here for a late lunch on a weekend. The restaurant was semi-busy, but the service was substantially better, which kind of confuses me. I would have assumed that service would be better during a buffet since they're not actually delivering food, but I guess not.

If you're someone who really loves Indian food and doesn't want to travel a half hour to get it, Winchester Taste of India is fine. It helps that the prices are quite reasonable (although Spice Connexion has even lower prices). However, the service is hit-or-miss and the food is only so-so. I can't imagine that anyone would be too bitterly disappointed by this place, but I highly doubt it has ended up on anyone's...

To each their own choice and taste. Someone who's a Blueblooded Hyderabadi, my choice in Biryani is something that's supposed to be authentic and stick to the true recipe. This place defied all the laws of Biryani. I read a few comments on goat Biryani being the best here; with all due respect to the reviewer, this place is a joke. The server (Samrat) was a) egoistic and b) has no clue on customer-service. He believes he's doing us a favor in feeding. The menu didn't have goat Biryani and on enquiring, he said they have it in stock. When I said I can differentiate easily between Goat and Lamb, he was angry and said I don't need to assume that he's going to cheat us. I ordered for Goat Biryani and then he said they ran out of it. I ordered for Chicken Biryani and we got served Chicken curry and rice mixed and served on a plate. The joke was, it has green peas and the chicken was boneless. Who makes boneless Biryani? It wasn't even Chicken pulao. We asked for Salan and we got served the base gravy of some other curry and the lady said (add salt to it, there won't be any). In all this that guy kept giving us those stares like we'd be shivering! Lastly, they charged a default 15% or 17% gratuity! Seriously? When I asked him to remove it, he was upset and instead warned me from pointing fingers and he said he is not worried about getting fired. He was rude while handling the credit cards too. At the end, he said "he wasn't angry at me" and I said I don't care, he his closing statement was, he...

Beautiful decoration. Finger-licking appatizers. But then eventually their colors started to fade. We wanted soups divided in halves as a full bowl would be too much, but the lady said they don't offer 1/2 option, so we settled for the regular amount and shared turn by turn. We didn't mind much and ordered the main course. Another lady came to confirm the menu and in a while she brought the curries and not breads and she says, you should start with the food, but how can we without the breads? The curries were not on par with the starters (aloo mutter and samosa). And every time she brought something, she would hand over the bowl to me itself, without caring if it was too hot or not. They had next to nothing in organisational skill for a simple task as placing curries on the table. After asking for 4 times, we got extra piece of papadam, which was too much. Besides the table itself was quite congested for 8 people compared to booths other people in pairs and group of 4 had. Not planning on visiting again. 2 stars are only because of starters and...