Amma's South Indian Cuisine — Restaurant in Voorhees Township

Reviewing as a non-Indian patron.

Firstly, very clean establishment. Wait staff seen constantly changing gloves, using cleaning supplies on tables after customers leave. Utensils and flatware flawlessly clean and polished. Good air conditioning during a hot day outside.

For me, a good indicator of ethnic foods is if “their own people” patron the restaurant, and it’s not just random people from the community. This place was packed on a Monday night with Indian patrons — we were the only table of non-Indian patrons. I knew that was going to be a good indicator of authentic flavors.

Wait service was very prompt. We ordered our food, and everything arrived quickly, hot, fresh, and aromatic.

I highly recommend their dosas.

Mango Lassis are perfect — not too sweet.

I ordered the Boneless Chicken Chettinad. I was not disappointed. Fresh chunks of chicken. Gravy was well prepared and did not separate (referencing to how gravy separates with oily layer on top if not prepared right), and was creamy.

I saw they have Hyderabadi Biriyani that they make special on the weekends that I’d like to return to try.

I learned from my waitress that this is mostly Chennai, Tamil Nadu cuisine.

A few things I might offer that would have made my experience even better — though I would say my experience was already an A grade…

The platter they brought out for the dosa appetizer was huge…I felt that if I was eating directly out of that platter, then absolutely fine. If the appetizer was intended to share as we ordered it, then there is no space for the large sharing plates…the space on the tables was a bit jammed. Either smaller plates or perhaps a table extension could have made for a bit of an easier time with the oversized platter being there. Another idea could be to have one of those towers on the table that places some plates on top, while being mindful of table space.

We had the Nutella crepe for dessert, and that was a real treat — highly recommend!

I made a remark to the waitress that the menu that I had and the menu that my wife used, that there were discrepancies in prices. This is an easy fix for them…but I can see how some customers would find that annoying and ask for a price adjustment on their bill. We didn’t make a big deal over it. Just some are newer menus, while they hadn’t updated the older menus is all.

If this place is packed on a Monday night, I can only imagine what the weekend must be like! That’s exciting!

For those who are particularly sensitive to spice, I would say this place is not for beginners. I ordered my food mild, and it came out flavorful and delicious, but to me it was medium, and just under my tolerance of spicy…and I’ve had Indian food for 25 years. I would say they do a fine job for the patrons they encounter 99% of the time, as this comment about spice is probably a moot point for Indians. Should they want to bring in more non-Indian patrons in the future (that’s not to say there aren’t people of all walks of life who don’t like spicy, I’m sure there are!), they may want to have a focus group and realize how they might be able to serve their foods while bringing down the heat. Perhaps it’s fair to judge a chef for how they can control the level of heat when a patron requests “very very mild.”

I would return — perhaps with my spicy...

The worst restaurant experience, when I think of customer disrespect and ignorance- I will always remember Amma's Kitchen in Voorhees. I think this location is the gold standard of where not to go. First we were concerned about the proximity between the individuals- CDC guidelines for COVID 19 were out the door. No air conditioning during a 90 degree weather. Against our better judgment, we decided to stay- after all this was our first visit. That was just the experience upon entry. It was all downhill after that.

The servers chose to take orders from 10 different people who came after us. It was remarkable that they chose to ignore our group and continued to cater to people who were seated after us. As if we did not even exist. Finally one of the servers took our order. Everyone who came after us received their food in a timely manner. My 4-year old started crying because he was hungry and we were about to leave and that's when the servers brought our order out. It took them 45 minutes to bring four things we ordered. We reserved the table in advance but the walk-ins after us were better treated.

I spoke with the manager about the delay and sheer ignorance and lack of respect for our group. He had the audacity of telling me that my orders took longer time to prepare, meanwhile the 10 people who came after us also received the same orders and more. The lack of courtesy and apology is an indicator of what goes beyond the kitchen doors and overall culture of the franchise. Its understandable if a restaurant is busy and orders can take time. But that was not the case here- I would call it preferred treatment towards certain customers and ignorance towards others due to their demographics and or looks. A simple sincere apology would have done fine but excuses to justify the disrespectful treatment is not welcome.

The best part of this whole experience was- we got our check in less than 45 seconds. There was no delay there. I am thankful for that because we couldn't wait to get out of such an unprofessional establishment. This was our first and last visit to...

Absolute joke of a place! We called in ahead of time to reserve our table for 15 people at 7pm on Sunday and upon arriving it looked like no one reserved our table. We waited outside until they arranged table for us and the server came outside and gave us menus to decide what we want to eat. He told us while we are standing and waiting outside that they will close the kitchen at 8:30pm sharp and we need to place all the order together. Once we were seated and started to place order some of the items we picked from the menu were not available. So we all decided to order few appetizers and dosas, again we were reminded by our server that the kitchen closes at 8:30 and no other food will be served. Appetizers came in but no plates and cutlery had to wait few minutes for the server to give us that, after awhile Main course started to come in (Dosas) one by one and we notice that some dosas plates were missing chutneys and upon questioning the server he advice that they ran out of it. I mean come on first you don’t have the items we want from the menu and then when you order alternatives items and they don’t have items to fulfill your order. No one came to check at the table to see how was the food or do we need anything else since the kitchen was closed sharply at 8:30. It felt pretty awkward we just ate and paid the bill and walked out for good. While we were there we also noticed that they turned few people away because they close their kitchen at 8:30. Disappointed that we drove 45 mins to come to this restaurant and not get the proper service and food. Restaurant was busy but looked understaffed. We have never visited a restaurant that tells a seating customer they would not be able to order anything else because their kitchen closes at certain time. A big mistake we made that we chose this restaurant but anyways good luck with your operation and hope that the management understands paying...