the host

i have never left a review of a restaurant because all in all the service is usually up to my standards, however after my first time eating at the host i finally have a reason to write a restaurant review. it was my girlfriends (at the time) birthday and she never tried indian food so i decided to take her to the host. i have driven by here multiple times as it is close to my girlfriends house and it claims fine dining, so i figured it would be the perfect place to take her for a special occasion.

=so first off, we walk into the restaurant, and the first door had a cool look to it but that about as good as it got. as we walk in there is no one to greet us and i am looking around aimlessly for a couple minutes for a host (at a restaurant called the host, ironic much?) finally a waiter saw me, because i stared deep into his soul and he must of felt my presence and without even acknowledging me he takes another minute to greet us. he tells us to follow him and he literally points us to a table in the back corner of the restaurant...fine dining but the waiter/host cant take me to my seat. alright, so then our waiter comes and my girlfriend asked a couple of questions about the drinks and just went with a pomegranate martini. the drink was way to strong and all you could taste was the alcohol...yet another problem. my girlfriend has never eaten indian food before and i have only had it a few times so we had a few questions about some dishes. first for the appetizers i start telling my waiter i want something vegetarian, but before i can even get my words out he interrupts me telling me about some chicken dish that is very popular and delicious. i tell him thats great but i do not eat meat and i order naan with spinach and a few other things in it.

the dish came out after 5-10 minutes which is fine and the dish was ok at best. nothing special, could of easily made something better at home with some indian spices. so our waiter comes back, doesnt even ask us how the dish was and asks us "what would you like to order". i tell him i have a few questions and he responds with "ohh you have more questions?!?" and at this point im just in disbelief at how rude a waiter could be. i asked him about the spicy prawn dish my girlfriend was going to get and all he said was that it was spicy...thanks for the help. we ordered that dish and i ordered some eggplant dish. then the waiter says something about rice. to which i say pardon as i thought i had already ordered my dinner. he rudely responds with "what rice are you getting?!" and with myself being confused i ask him "what do you mean?". and once again, obviously extremely rudely he says "what are you going to eat your dish with?" so still in disbelief i ask "what rice is there to choose from?" and he grabs the menu and points to the rice. one is white rice and the other i never heard of so i asked him about that and all he says is "it has more flavor". well thanks for that, going to a fine dining restaurant and you cant even tell me anything about the food. so i end up ordering the rice that has "more flavor" which also costs money but is apparently mandatory to order...hmmm, makes sense. maybe they should tell you before rudely forcing you to order something without explaining anything.

so finally after the worst service i have ever experienced in my 22 years on this planet my food comes.. the food was alright but honestly the indian kitchen is better and the host proclaims fine dining...what a false statement. i'd suggest to anyone ambiyan restaurant in unionville, great food and most of all great service (take some notes the host management). so now my girlfriend is all annoyed and the waiter comes to ask if we need dessert and we just ask for the bill. doesn't even ask how our food was.... so after a few minutes our waiter is walking towards us and literally throws the bill on the table not even making eye contact or asking if we need a machine. i cant fit anymore here but i wouldnt reccomend eating here to my worst enemy. worst restaurant in ontario

not as fine as the restuarant claim to be. last night, we had dinner at the richmond hill location and the food was not good at all! first of all, we were 11 of us and they put us in this 10 people table with two chairs on the sides. we were missing plates and napkins. we hardly had room to put our plates and drinks around. the waiters as usual in indian restaurants seemed to be unhappy for some reason and were not very accommodating.
lets begin with the food -the appetizers that we ordered were vegetable pakoras, mango salad, mumbai bhel puri, and paneer tikka. the only thing i could taste on all was salt! the tamarind chutney was thick and tasteless. the main course, daal bukhara was okay so was the baigan sabji, the palak paneer was just nasty beyond its weird green look! the butter chicken, which supposed to be the highlight of all fine indian restaurant, was horrible! you could see the onions, ginger and garlic in the gravy. the chicken pieces seemed to be not marinated prior, even the kids who love butter chicken, left the chicken on the side!!
the dessert - they did not have mango kulfi for some reason so we ordered pista kulfi which was drizzled in chocolate sauce. why? i don't know. its common sense that kulfi and chocolate do not go well together. i guess the chef has not tried it before!! the gulab jamun was hard and seemed stale. it supposed to be soft and melt-in-your-mouth but not here! do not even bother getting it. the ras-malai was okay.
over all, we paid $400 including tip (tip for what i don't know) for the food that was crap! chef sanjeev sethi really needs to revisit the cookbook on making sure that at least first off all, ease up on salt esp. on deep fried items, do not drizzle chocolate sauce on kulfi and cook your butter chicken masala thoroughly besides many other faults. more so, the ultimate indian dessert, the gulab jamuns need to be soft and please do not try to put too much pista and stuff to make it look fancy! it is not working!!! we paid so much money for such a crappy food! not coming here again any time soon, unless chef sethi invites my family and i to do another tasting!!!

the host is one of the finest restaurants for fine north indian cuisine. i personally prefer the buffet better because there are many options to choose from. i would definitely recommend trying out chaat papri, the daal, spice kebob and naan bread. simply delicious and if you visit once, this will become one of your top options for north indian cuisine in toronto.

when my grandparents came to visit, my mom suggested we go to the host  after having gone for the dinner buffet before. we went to the richmond hill location, conveniently situated in a sheraton hotel with lots of parking and a shopping centre attached. i don’t eat indian food that much, so this would probably be the third indian buffet i’ve been to. i’ll try my best to give a helpful review of this restaurant compared to the others i’ve eaten at. so, for my first plate… ccw from the tandoori chicken: bhindi amchuri (okra), papadum with mint yogurt sauce, samosa with tamarind sauce, potato wedges with tamarind sauce, kaju matar paneer (looks like tofu), amritsari choley (with chickpeas). back: rice cakes with lentil sauce     this restaurant definitely has the most plentiful selection of curries compared to other places i’ve been. this was probably my first time seeing rice cakes and

when my grandparents came to visit, my mom suggested we go to the host after having gone for the dinner buffet before. we went to the richmond hill location, conveniently situated in a sheraton hotel with lots of parking and a shopping centre attached.

i don’t eat indian food that much, so this would probably be the third indian buffet i’ve been to. i’ll try my best to give a helpful review of this restaurant compared to the others i’ve eaten at.

so, for my first plate… tandoori chicken: bhindi amchuri (okra), papadum with mint yogurt sauce, samosa with tamarind sauce, potato wedges with tamarind sauce, kaju matar paneer (looks like tofu), amritsari choley (with chickpeas). back: rice cakes with lentil sauce
 this restaurant definitely has the most plentiful selection of curries compared to other places i’ve been. this was probably my first time seeing rice cakes and the crispy papadum at an indian buffet before.on the website, the butter chicken/ murgh makhni is considered award winning and i thought it was quite good. the sauce had a strong tomato taste and the chicken wasn’t too dry. i ate this with the naan, though i thought that the naan here wasn’t as soft as the kind i tried in vancouver because it was sitting at the buffet for a while after it was freshly made.one thing i would definitely recommend getting seconds is the rice pudding. i think they add rose water to it which gives the milk a very distinct, fragrant taste. there are also raisins and pistachios inside. this would be my favourite dessert.standing in the back corner of the buffet are two cooks who made these appetizers in front of you. this was my first time trying bhalla chaat papri, which tasted like biscuits covered in tamarind, mint, and yogurt sauce. i liked this more than the pani puri, which were these thin crispy, hollow bulb-shaped snacks that had beans and chickpeas inside, and were soaked in mint water. the taste was certainly interesting, i’m not quite sure if it was good or bad, but i would definitely recommend you to try these indian street eats for yourself!alongside my second or third bowl of rice pudding, i also ate more than one gulab jamun. i’ve tried these popular indian desserts at other restaurants before and they are really sweet but delicious. gulab jamun is a dumpling made from curdled milk and deep-fried, then soaked in some sweet syrup water.

the jalebi was prepared on the spot by another chef in the corner and i watched him squeeze batter into spiral shapes in a pan filled with oil. when taken out, he placed them in sugar or honey water. i was surprised to learn that these were an indian dessert too because my iranian friend had brought a box of these at the end of ramadan (they are called zulbia in iran). these tasted chewy and really sweet as well.overall, i enjoyed my experience very much here. while eating, i had no idea how to pronounce anything and i was trying a lot of things for the first time, so writing this blog post led me to search up what all the menu items were and research their origins. the selection of indian food offered by the host was not only gastronomically pleasing, but gave me a lesson on culture as well!

until next time.

dinner review for the host. simply outstanding! went for dinner a few times and the food and service was consistently outstanding; highly recommend it.

my favorite place for malai kofta!

the buffet was pretty good. i was hesitant to try the buffet because of a few reviews but it was actually pretty good and only $12.00. i will definitely try this restaurant again.

lovely ambiance with great food and service, i’ll definitely be back again (and ask for a spicier tandoori murgh).

vile. this place used to be good but now the food doesn't taste of anything and the service is bad. had the buffet, never coming back!

undecided. i went with family on a friday night. at first the service seemed prompt and attentive, with well-trained waiters pouring water and bringing plates. it quickly faltered as water glasses went empty for over an hour (with no waiter coming by even once).
as well, our food took an hour and a half to arrive. for the price, the portions were very small and i found the food to only be slightly better than average. disappointing, considering the cost.
if they were simply having an off night, i'd consider going back...as long as someone else is paying.

first time going to an indian buffet. i have tried the host at the mississaga location long long time ago but it was just regular dinner plate. it was during lunch time and it was packed so it is popular place for saturday afternoon. there were quite a selection of both meat dishes and veggie dishes. my favourite of course is butter chicken.

love it!. wonderful food and great place to take the family or simply dine alone. love it. decor is quite striking with traditional indian artifacts, not overly done but subtly presented.

our waiter helped us choose our meals & we were not disappointed.
the butter chicken was delicious and the nan was fresh.would love to come back here and try their lunch buffet.

best north indian food. by far the best north indian food in toronto to date. the food tastes fresh and authentic. would recommend this place !

host is a place i go to 2-3 times a year with vegetarian friend. we love it. service is lovely -- food is consistently delicious. we come late for lunch and it is fresh and clean. small problem with the traffic flow -- buffet goers have to pass the check-in -- but this is minor. great lunch place!