Chali Kitchen — Restaurant in Warren

So, to be absolutely fair, I started today with a bit of disappointment, in that my favorite Indian restaurant in the area, Royal Bengal, had closed. This put me in a critical mood to start with. Take my critique here with a grain of salt.

Chali Kitchen is nothing special. The food is legitimately and authentically Indian in preparation, but nothing about it speaks to the inspired and unique ways of cooking I have encountered in simple dishes like Paneer Tikka Masala or Chicken Tikka Masala. The sauces are thin to the point of being watery. The rice is simple, unadorned long-grain rice without any attempt at flavoring. The chicken is moist (though for the tandori cooked chicken in Tikka Masala not to be moist in a watery sauce like this would have been legitimately shocking). The spice mixes for Tikka Masala lack any of the creaminess or sweetness one expects of the dish (mostly because I highly doubt there is an appropriate amount of coconut or other cream in this dish, which would explain the watery texture). Their naan is closer to a pita consistency, not really cooked traditionally and tastes more like what one expects out of garlic bread at a local "Italian" restaurant. The vegetable samosa was edible, though swimming as it was in a seabed of unappetizing chickpeas, it took on a soggy texture of its own that does not match what is, again, to be expected of the dish.

If you want competent, basic curry flavors that have the semblance of Indian spices but find that the more authentic methods of cooking are too strong for your tastes, this restaurant will probably have an acceptable flavor for you. If you want "Good" Indian, go somewhere else. This was a one-stop attempt to find a new Indian restaurant to make up for the loss of a truly phenomenal place, and it simply does not live up to the expectations, much less the price tag. We will not...

i went here for the lunch buffet. most of the food was delicious. i was the only customer in there. ALL of the tables were dirty. they put paper on all the tables i guess to protect the tablecloth underneath that you cant even see because the paper thats on it. i dont get this. have the people in charge ever been to a successful restaurant in america? no one is putting paper on the tables. especially dirty paper. the white rice was old. there was some hard rice in it. probably the cheapest thing on the whole buffet and youre going to try to save money by leaving old hard rice out? everything else was delicious. i dont trust them because of the dirty tables so i wont be back. they just dont have the same standards as...

Five stars, two enthusiastic thumbs up, would visit again!

Unbelievably welcoming staff, plenty of parking (late on a Saturday, in my case), typical prices, big portions (standard styrofoam takeout containers but FULL), delicious, and cooked FRESH.

I had their house biryani and could not stick my fork in without hitting meat and spilling rice out the sides. My buddy had one of their curries and remarked on both the flavor and spiciness. Everything was burn-your-tongue hot even after driving it home, clearly cooked to order. If you visit on a cold day I highly recommend their masala chai — it is served HOT and is one of the best milk teas I've ever had on par with my prior benchmark, a Thai iced chai I had in...