the host

tried both the downtown and richmond hill location and we loved them both!
we were served a papad roll while waiting for our order to arrive. service was excellent. after our appetizer plates were taken away, a couple of servers came to provide us with warm plates which they placed on the table using linen napkins instead of bare hands. then, the dishes were served, again, by a couple of servers so that it all came at once.

we figured we would stick to more well-known, traditional dishes. we got the tandoorichickenwhich was a half chicken, bone-in, marinated in yogurt and tandoori sauce and roasted in a clay oven. it was flavourful but was a bit on the dry side. 

we also ordered the lamb roganjosh which was boneless and slow cooked with yogurt and traitional warm spices. 

while the roganjosh was good, the hands-down winner for the fam was their special butter chicken. it was less creamy and spicy compared to the regular butterchickenwe are familiar with. it was hearty, with the right balance of sweet and spicy and curry.

we didn’t get basmati rice but we did get an order each of roti (tandoori baked wheat bread) which was perfect for picking up the meat and wiping out the sauce from our plates. 

our mango lassi was also perfect, cutting through the strong flavours of the roganjosh and butter chicken. a couple of sips in between the dishes got our tongues ready to take some more of the spice. what a delightful counterplay. 

for dessert, we had the traditional gulab jamun which are spongy milky balls soaked in rose scented syrup. it was soft and just had the right amount of sweetness. 

we also had kheer which is a rice pudding topped with pistachios. it was very refreshing and a perfect palate cleanser. 

happy to say that the girls thoroughly enjoyed this meal!!

my first time here was years ago and it was not very good however, my best friend had said they had changed chef and it is a must try. sure enough, she was right! all th dishes were delicious and it came out piping hot. the murg mitch tikka (green chicken) was moist and tender. the butterchickenwas also tasty and very rich and creamy. love it with all the sauce on the rice or on the naan. also tried the kofta ...veggie balls. a bit on the spicy side but loved it too!!! service was great and kept filling the water for us. highly recommend this place if you want indian food in richmond hill!

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 somechickendish 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. thechickenpieces seemed to be not marinated prior, even the kids who love butter chicken, left thechickenon 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 butterchickenmasala 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!!!

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 thechickenwasn’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.

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 butterchickenwas delicious and the nan was fresh.would love to come back here and try their lunch buffet.

butter chicken. i ordered the butterchickenfor take-out, the place i usually buy it at, i pay $10, and its fairly good. when i saw the price of $15, i was expecting a reason to justify the $5 difference, but there wasn't any, in fact, there was even less chicken.

amazing dinner. service was always pleasant and food was ridiculously fresh. the soup was amazing and thechickenwas the best indian i have had in the gta. place is great but can use a little more light.

my first visit to this beautiful location was with my daughter 6 years ago. ever since it's my favorite indian place.recently i took my family on a saturday a dinner. the food was superb, we had 3 main dishes to share: lamb roganjosh ,tandoorichickenand dal and we were looked after by a very charming waiter with a good sense of humor. if you want ok food there are many choices around but for flavors i would recommend host. consistently good never disappointed.

one of my favorite places. whenever i'm in the area, i have to eat at the host. i have always had courteous service. the butterchickenis the best! and yes there are plenty ofchickenpieces in it. the sauce is so good that i want to dip my naan in it. i understand why they won "the best butter chicken' award". the basmati rice is light and fluffy as it should be and the naans are wonderful. i have been there half a dozen times in the last 6 mos. and it's always great.