Taste Of India — Restaurant in Virginia

Never order a "Indian Spice" dish. We were five, just finished a hike on Shenandoah and were really tired. Thought we would go to a Indian place on our way back to calm our appetites with a touch of home food. And the restaurant was right next to highway. We ordered 2 chicken and 1 lamb biryani, chicken and lamb curry. My friend thought, as most of the restaurants' spice levels are lower than actual Indian spice levels, it will be alright to order Indian spice level. That is a terrible mistake. Around 30 min later our food arrived. I took a bite of lamb biryani my palette blew off. It is so hot I never ate something that spicy in my life. I swear to God, this is so hot it kicked me out of my senses. Finally a glass of mango lassi brought me back to life. This is not Indian spice, I knew it on first bite. This is Jalapeno pepper spice. If you have ever tried California Tortilla's Ghost pepper hot sauce, that's the level of spice I am talking about here in all five dishes. Fortunately waiter(nice guy) gave us a normal dish in exchange for an untouched one. We had to mix white rice with little biryani rice with yogurt to satisfy our hunger. Man, it was so terrible. I wish we never stopped here. Fun fact is waiter and cashier/server both know it is going to be inedible hot. Apparently their reasoning goes by, there were some customers who were not satisfied with previous spice levels and they had to up it to the Ghost pepper levels. I had a chance to talk Chef, he is also a nice guy and asked him to show the peppers he used to create "Indian Spice", yup they are Ghost peppers. Well I told him how hot it is and the situation I am in , he listened but said he followed his recipe. Everybody in that restaurant were nice, they served us well (even though food was terrible). But what infuriates me is every one from chef to waiter know its too hot for a normal human being to consume "Indian Spice", there was no caution or advice on spice levels. We had to buy couple more lassis and raithas to calm the hunger. Finally I am going to finish by saying we felt like we were cheated on. We paid like 150 USD for this horrific experience and...

Never having been here before, u casually strolled in and the guy at the front counter was nice enough to greet me. I expressed interest in takeout and after telling him I like chicken and lamb, asked what dish I should order if I was to judge the restaurant on it. He suggested the lamb boti kebab masala. I enjoy my food spicy and he listed the levels of spiciness available and settled for extra spicy, which is one notch less than what they call "Indian spicy." I figured this would be a safe bet as I wanted to see how heavy the heat hands are of the chefs... The wait time was short, probably five minutes. Don't be put off by this, as I half expected this to be a prepared dish in the kitchen as the lamb is marinated overnight and somehow they took my order during midday closed hours... ??? I didn't even realize until I read the times open online and on the business card. The guy was apparently cool about it! Food came out in five minutes and I drove home excited to try out a new dish.

I just finished eating, and may I just say a huge thank you, A Taste of India! The suggestion was satisfying! The spiciness is perfect, but I have a high threshold for heat, so others may want to step it down a notch or two. The sauce was very tasty and well balanced; the tomato and cream don't overtake each other. The lamb is very delicious, though it barely made it over the threshold of perfect tenderness. Lamb is difficult that way though; if you want it tender you either cook it just to medium or for hours to just before the breakdown point. None of the pieces were at all tough to chew, so kudos on the perfect cooking! Price for this dish is fair, given the prep time and cost of lamb in this country. I'm truly looking forward to bringing family and friends here and trying...

Overall: Will go back again - This place can also be recommended to people new to Indian food, and those who have been craving it, alike.

This is a fairly new restaurant the husband and I went to check out for dinner. Note: The people running the restaurant are not new to the business, we should be in good hands :-) The menu: We loved the variety of pan-Indian dishes offered on the menu. To find some of the items you would usually have to visit another regional restaurant. The service: Attentive, never had to ask for my water-glass to be refilled. The food: We ordered an appetizer and two entrees (chaat, lamb biryani and pistachio chicken korma). The appetizer was presented beautifully, as were the two entrees. The food arrived in individual, beautiful hammered copper pots.The dishes were sized well for family-style dining - we ate till we simply couldn't and still had some to take home for a mid-night snack. The food was cooked and seasoned well and very tasty...we ate beyond feeling satiated and beyond feeling full. We didn't have dessert, but the dessert menu looks promising and will be tested next time.

For those interested in the setting: Linen tablecloths, and linen napkins, dimmed lighting, comfortable feel. Until someone turns on fast-paced bollywood music, that is...Beautiful Indian carved sculptures (the modern pendant lamps from the previous restaurant somewhat clash with this more...