FIFTEEN38 Indian Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Woodbridge Township

A running disaster of an Indian Restaurant, from start to finish. This is an "Indian" Restaurant that doesn't know the bare fundamentals of Indian cuisine, let alone trying their hands at anything more accomplished. In fact, the only thing they readily accomplished during our visit there was insulting the intelligence, time and taste-buds of all their customers. To cite a few examples:

The Bhindi (Okra) fry was nearly inedible; tasting a pasty, sickly sweet, with the stems not removed (an error so basic that the only parallel I could think of would be an Italian restaurant serving you stiff, undercooked pasta!!). The waiter admitted that the chef used Frozen Bhindi (Okra) when questioned further about it, which is an absolute travesty since they have a South Asian grocery store selling fresh produce right across the parking lot.

The chicken masala was, continuing what is a trend with the restaurant, pallid, off-putting and sweet, which is the last thing you would expect a masala curry to be. Frankly, I could cook much more delicious versions of these dishes at home, for far cheaper. To be charged for this trite, disposable trash (by an unrepentant staff that clearly don't care) is a travesty.

In summary, it is telling that the best dish at this "Indian" restaurant was the burger....

Loved the customer service and the ambiance.

Update: Let me start with this "Bad customer service ruins Good Resturants". We used to go here often. This was the get go place for me, my wife and sometimes when our cousins visited us. Since some of the guys who used work over here have left the place. Now a girl runs the bar area and the service for the restaurant. She has the worst attitude ever, whenever we go over there. Last few times we have been here the girl named Ashmita I think, has given us horrible attitude. We ask for high chair, she tells go get it yourself from the other side. We try to order, the maximum you can get is one drink as she doesnt like return to the tables and tries to hang out at the bar, where there are no customers. We used to spend a good amount here for the first time, it was around $100,as we just gave up as she didnt want to take our order at all. At the end, I just wrote on the receipt, " We appreciate your Rudeness", as that how she was. I normally dont write such big review, but the last straw was when she kicked the high chair to the side when our 19 month kid was...

We went to Ruby Ke (Amboy Ave, Edison), but we're turned away because we didn't have a reservation. We then tried Shazan (Oak Tree Road, Edison) but it is gone. A quick web search turned up FIFTEEN38, so we tried it.

The place was mostly empty. The waiter advised us that not everything on the menu was available. He brought complimentary papadum and chutneys - on paper plates. Paper plates?! Had we stumbled into a too casual, low quality restaurant? The mango lassi came in a plastic cup and may have been pre-made. This set my expectations pretty low.

But the papdum was crispy and the chutneys we're very tasty. We got the veg biryani and chicken tikka masala. My wife doesn't care for Indian cuisine but indulges me occasionally. She tried the tikka masala and liked it. It may be the best I've ever had. The chicken was cut into smaller pieces than is typical and the curry was extra rich.

All in all, 1538 is definitely a place I...