for these prices and wait times, i could've flown to india for real food.. i recently visited rasoi on a friday night as part of a group of 10 diners, all in attendance for a small birthday celebration. from the moment i sat down to the moment i left therestaurantnearly four hours later, my experience at rasoi was rendered tortuous by the intensely terrible service and sub-par cuisine.
when you arrive at rasoi, you are immediately impressed with the interior decor. the main dining area is very clean and fresh, and manages to be modern while still imbuing a rustic indian charm. retrospectively, i can now see that this is a massive case of emperor’s new clothes, no question.
our reservation was for made for 7:30pm. my boyfriend and i were the first to arrive, precisely at 7:25. the hostess and waiting staff seemed to be rather confused by our early arrival and insisted that our reservation was for 8pm instead, despite ‘7:30’ being clearly written next to our reservation name. but no matter; we were seated on the back patio, which, to the credit of the restaurant, is a very pleasant space. less pleasant, however, were the group of three staff members attempting to string holiday lights haphazardly around the canopy of the patio with an obviously ill-chosen adhesive. as a result, the lights promptly came smashing to the ground, the glass bulbs exploding everywhere. this process went on for about 20 minutes, with staff members cursing throughout. we found this to be profoundly unprofessional, not to mention potentially dangerous for us and other restaurant-goers. we actually debated leaving at this point, but mistakenly opted to stay.
once the remainder of the group arrived, our orders for appetizers and main dishes were taken. noteworthy sidebar: rasoi does not offer paper menus, so if you plan on sitting anywhere but the main dining room, take a photo with your phone of the chalkboard menu on your way through. doing this will spare you from looking like an idiot when you have to go back inside and stare over diners’ heads while you make your decisions.
our table experienced excessive wait times for both our appetizers and main courses, on the scale of hours. to pacify us in the interim, we were offered a plate of four “papadams”, or more aptly titled “intensely salted pringles”. when it deigned to appear, the food itself was pretty ordinary, and rather akin to low-end indian buffet fare; the only real difference being that you get the privilege of paying $40 for it at rasoi. i should mention that i’m making this comparison as a torontonian, so perhaps some bizarre, upside-down price-quality reciprocal exists in montreal that i’m not aware of. the meals were relatively small-portioned and, as a result, completely consumed within minutes of reaching the table. overall, it was a fairly anticlimactic payoff for our near 3 hour stomach-numbing wait.
at this point in the evening our group was pretty much entirely frustrated, despite us being completely outwardly empathetic towards our server; we all understand thatrestaurantkitchens can get back-logged, or that the establishment is understaffed on a given evening. however, the tipping point came when our waitress informed us that it was impossible for her to split the bills among individuals or even couples — there was going to be one combined bill for all of the food and all of the alcohol. we would be responsible for referring back to the menu and divvying up the bill if we so chose. i think that we can all agree that this is pretty absurd, especially when one considers the infinite customization capabilities of modernrestaurantpos systems. it is ludicrous that a guest who drank only water with their meal is now responsible for paying equal share for another guest who ordered 5 alcoholic beverages. this really was the sour cherry on top of our already terrible evening of exorbitant delay times and lacklustre food.
after much arguing back and forth, our waitress re-took our orders and issued individual receipts. i suppose she has chosen to adopt a rather loose definition of ‘impossible’. this process took another 30-45 minutes. at the end of the night, our group failed to receive either a consolatory discount on our meals or even an acknowledgement (much less apology) from the manager for the dismal service. rasoi was a massive disappointment and one that i most certainly will not be returning to.