Pappe — Restaurant in Washington

With its beautiful decor and talented chefs, Pappe is a lovely modern Indian restaurant with a fantastic ambiance and tasty food, but it falls short on service (or, more accurately, the consistency of the quality of service) and price point.

I visited Pappe with a fairly large party (of 12 people) but arrived early with one other person. He and I checked in at the host stand (after waiting for ~10 minutes for one of the many staff members milling about to speak to us) but ended up having a minor disagreement with the individual who spoke with us. As a bit of context, we were unable to make a reservation for a party of our size online, so we made two separate reservations for 6 and asked to be seated next to each other if possible. It would have been fully understandable if they had simply told us that they couldn't guarantee they could fulfill our request, but the host -- who, based on his nametag, was actually a restaurant executive, which made his behavior even more surprising -- started to argue with us, angrily telling us that we should have called ahead of time. He also said that he couldn't seat the second group of 6 at an adjacent table even though it was the only other table in the restaurant that could seat 6 people because he wanted to save it for anyone who walked in ahead of the rest of our party...even though we had made a reservation. All in all, it was a very confusing interaction that became significantly more heated than it needed to be, with many more harsh words and admonishments from the host than I was expecting.

Our server, though, was absolutely wonderful. She was incredibly sweet all throughout the night, helping us to navigate dietary restrictions, and was generally quite attentive, warm, and kind. The food itself was good, but had incredibly small portions. My table (of 6) shared the gobi manchurian, two samosa chaats, crab pav, spicy chicken tikka, and prawn ambi for appetizers. We then had allepey fish curry, lamb biryani, baingan bartha, butter paneer masala, and lamb vindaloo for entrees. It seemed like an exorbitant amount of food, but each dish was honestly so small that it worked out well. The biryani, for example, was served in the smallest, 1.5-cup pot. It was, admittedly, extremely cute, but also not exactly what I would expect for biryani. My favorite (of the pescatarian options) was the allepey fish curry, but it wasn't quite as spicy as I would prefer and I didn't find that the quality justified the higher price point. I also loved the samosa chaat, although it lacked most of the toppings that the dish is traditionally served with. For dessert, we shared the rice kheer (which was solid), chai creme brulee (which was far too rich for my taste -- you could almost taste the fat in it), and gulab jamun (which only had two gulab jamun per order, and the gulab jamun were very clearly the classic canned ones). The mango lassi was fantastic, though, so highly recommend getting one!

All in all, I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the restaurant and the food was solid, but I didn't find that the quality of the food (or service) justified the elevated...

NEVER GOING BACK!! Sorry for the long review, but I really needed to add all this because the servers and management are just so bad — they act like their customers are the bad guys.

I had a very bad experience with the server Chris. After he served us our food, he said, “Just call me if you need anything," and left. While we were eating, we needed to order more naan, so we tried to call him. He was just behind us at the bar, talking to another customer, so we waved at him, signaling we needed to order something. He said, “I’m talking to someone,” and continued his conversation with that customer. So we waited.

Then later, when he came, we ordered another naan basket. He asked, “Is that all?” We said yeah, to which he replied in an arrogant tone, “Oh, it sounded like there was an emergency! Jesus Christ!” and rolled his eyes and left.

It really shocked us all, and we were wondering what made him say that — we had already been waiting for a long time and were just looking around to see if any server was available. But we didn’t make any fuss about it — we were a table of 7 and were having our own good time. That rude comment was totally unnecessary. It completely upset the mood at the table. We didn’t feel like ordering anything more or even staying there any longer.

Then, after about 15 minutes or so, he came back and asked if we needed anything and said, “Let me go check back on that naan.” I said, “Sure do check. But it’s not an emergency, so whenever you get a chance — it’s up to you.” I was really pissed off and didn’t want him to get away with pretending that what he did was okay. I usually never confront anyone — I’ve even been nice to the servers even when I found bugs in my food. He then reacted more arrogantly, saying, “Thank you for being rude.” I was so shocked he flipped it on me. Those were literally his words, not mine. I said, “Same goes for you.” He left and changed our server, pretending that our table was being rude to him for making us wait. We were going to complain about it to the manager anyway before leaving, which he knew.

The new server then asked us if everything was okay, and we told her the whole story. To which she replied, “He has two jobs — to serve and bartend — so he’s really busy. He’s good, and this kind of thing never happens with him.” Which makes no sense — he was the one who said those things. Are we lying? That was so disrespectful. In the entire scenario, there wasn’t a single apology from any of the servers for that rude comment. Our friends were visiting us in DC for the first time, and this just ruined the rest of our evening.

He later even messed up our bill by charging us for two tables, which took time to resolve. That may or may not have been a genuine mistake — whatever. By that point, we just wanted to get the hell...

Measly Quantity, Overpriced dishes and Definitely NOT real Indian Food

We were a party of 5, and went on a Friday evening. Ordered Dhai Puri, Crab Pav and Aloo Chat for starters. Kofta, Chicken Vindaloo and Chicken Tikka Masala for main course. And then some roti, garlic naan and a mushroom truffle.

Dhai Puri- For $12, we got 5 pieces. Just 5 pieces and to top it all off, there was no sign of Dhai in Dhai Puri. Aloo Chat- Imagine filling a palm sized bowl with Aloo Chat and emptying it on a small plate for presentation. And you pay $12 for that. That was all it was. Crab Pav- Crab Pav was good but you only get one small Pav (burger). Cost- $12

After starters, came the main course.

And much to our disappointment, all 3 main courses were served again in a palm sized bowl (barely enough for one person) and each dish had only 2-4 pieces of whatever you ordered. So, Kofta had 2 pieces of Kofta and Chicken Dishes had 3-4 pieces of chicken. The chicken dishes were priced at $21 and Kofta was $18. No where near worth the price.

Then we thought maybe the food is really good and we started to eat.

Let me tell you that the base curry for all the three dishes were the same. So, you take the same base curry, add potatoes and tomatoes and 3 chicken pieces, and you have Chicken Vindaloo. Then with the same base curry, you add just 4 pieces of chicken and add a little more red chilli powder, you get Chicken Tikka Masala. And for the Kofta, you add a little bit of cream to the same base curryand 2 pieces of kofta, you get Kofta. You can go and order the dishes and see for yourself. That base curry tasted like cooked canned tomato puree with garam masala and red chilli pepper.

Roti was dry.

Garlic naan and mushroom truffle naan were good and worth the $6 price tag.

After a very disappointing meal, came the bill. $176 with mandatory 20% gratuity. And all of us were still hungry and borderline agitated. We called the server and asked him why is there a mandatory gratuity for a party of 5 when your menu clearly says that 20% gratuity is only for a party of 6 or more. He tells us that it's a typo and they charge everyone that 20% gratuity now.

We didn't argue and accepted that it was a horrible decision to come here.

Hence, this very long review so that you don't make the...