The Bombay Club — Restaurant in Washington

When one typically thinks of Indian food, they don't think of fine dining. But, this idea is challenged at The Bombay Club in DC. in 1989, Ashok Bajaj came to DC with a vision and opened America's first fine dining restaurant in the heart of Washington DC. I had only read about this place, but on April 3rd, I got to see what Indian fine dining can be and experience it myself. From the host in the front to our server Mani, and Ashok himself, every person present surprised me with their hospitality.

We went around 5 pm for dinner and got seated immediately at a beautiful table with a great view of some old pictures from India. We started with two cocktails, good old-fashioned and a tale of two roses. Both were outstanding. For the appetizers, we decided to get a pappadum basket, paneer tikka, and lamb seekh kebab. The pappadum basket was a good mix of fried and roasted pappads, and it came with three chutneys; tomato, tamarind, and cilantro. The paneer tikka was succulent and super juicy, and the lamb seekh was melt-in-mouth (I usually do not like kebabs, but this one was hands down the best I have ever had).

For the next round, we decided to order a bottle of Volver tempranillo. And for the mains, we got chicken makhani, dal makhani (we wanted the green chili chicken, but our server Mani warned us about the spice level, so we opted for dal makhani), truffle naan, onion and mint kulcha, and goat cheese naan. Usually, at Indian restaurants, we prefer chicken makhani over any vegetarian dish, but this place's dal makhani blew our minds. It was so velvety, rich, and had the perfect spice balance that we were glad we didn't order the green chili chicken.

We have never had a truffle naan, and this place's truffle naan was outstanding. The truffle was not overpowering the naan and had a perfect balance. The goat cheese naan was super soft and pillowy. Onion and mint kulcha was a surprise and went well with the dal. By now, we were all most done with our wine bottle when we noticed the owner - Ashok Bajaj, and thanked him for creating such a fantastic experience for us and changing people's perception towards Indian cuisine.

Time for dessert and another round of drinks, we decided to get the Indian dessert sampler. The sampler was a perfect combo of gulab jamun, gajar halwa, kheer, and phirni. We decided to pair it with a 10year Tawny. While we were waiting for the desserts, the server brought us two glasses of champagne as a compliment from Ashok. It was really sweet of Ashok Bajaj:-)

The dessert sampler was so good that we decided to order a plate of gulab jamun with cardamom ice cream. By now, we were super full and happy to have experienced America's first Indian fine dining restaurant. Everyone at The Bombay Club took such great care that we left with a big smile and, of course, a big belly.We will...

My wife and I came here on a recommendation from our son. I wish I could give them as high a rating as my son gave it. The ambiance of the Bombay Club was excellent. There candlelight on the table was nice. They had a real person at their piano playing live music. The wall artwork was pleasant to look at and further enhanced ambiance. We first ordered the Kale Chat and I must say it was excellent. My wife ordered the Vegetarian Thali and it was pretty good. I thought the Daal Mukhani was too adulterated. What I mean here is that it had too much heavy cream and took away from the real flavor of the Daal. The Raita (yogurt with cucumbers and spices) was excellent. The saag was tasty as well. I didn’t care too much for the bread it came with. It came with some sort of Roti and I didn’t find it as tasty as the garlic naan I ordered with the green pepper chili chicken. My chicken dish did say it was three * star hot and I must say it was three star hot. Thankfully I was able to use some of my wife’s raita to calm it down. My dish came with rice. But I ordered the naan because I find Garlic naan is usually really good. My wife ordered an old fashion for her drink and I ordered a margarita and asked if they could make it spicy. My wife’s drink was good. It’s difficult to go wrong with an old fashion. However my margarita was really undrinkable. So we sent it back and they made another one which was more palatable. But I wouldn’t say margaritas are not their wheelhouse of drinks. The desert we ordered was the mango sorbet. I thought this was OK at best. It did come with three small scoops of ice cream. I would be interested to know if you could have them give you a sample because the coconut ice cream sorbet seemed like it could have been a good choice since they were giving you three scoops. I just found the taste to be more like an unripe mango which was too tart and didn’t have enough sweetness to it. But maybe some people like it that way but it wasn’t to my liking. I guess the biggest shock came at the end when we looked at the bill and we were charged $29 for my margarita that really wasn’t that great. Especially when my wife’s drink was $15. If there was a lesson to be learned here it was to make sure you understand what the charges are for your drinks because you could be quite surprised. So this is my take away...

If possible I would give them minus star. They need to understand - just the prime location and ambiance doesn't make a good restaurant. It is also the food and more importantly courtesy. They ARE SO RUDE. I visited alone on my first visit. All good. I had couple of visits lined up with more guests and I thought to myself Oh I found a nice place to take them out for dinner. I was wrong and HOW. I proudly took guests visiting from India to give them nice experience. But the management staff was so rude. They looked at them from bottom to top as if some alien has visited. Despite reservation they made us sit outdoors in hot weather. I asked them what did I make reservation for? They rudely said we didn't promise a particular table number. And the most disgusting part is it was 6 pm and the indoors seating was totally empty. Food was bad too and having it outdoors in midst of traffic made it worst. I thought of giving it another try few months later. This time I made sure I ask for indoor reservation. This time my guests had a 6 years old kid. They created such a frustrating experience. They said he cant talk loud (I mean come on, how loud a kid can go). His mother gave him phone to play a game. They came back and said he cant have game volume on (trust me it was NOT at all loud). Finally she tried to make the kid sleep. They came back again and said he cannot sleep!! I could not believe. Ultimately, we had to leave food mid way and leave. And they charged gratuity for large group automatically. Throughout our stay they kept looking at our table as if we were free loaders lol. How racist, pathetic and awful attitude. They are specially biased against south asian community and indians in particular. If you are alone or with white freinds they will treat you ok. But if with Indian family member they will give you...