to preface: my wife and i are world travelers, we will drive hours (at most 6 hours) for a single restaurant. we sample the best the world has to offer and enjoy regional dishes.
this restaurant is not authentic nor amazing, in fact it's barely edible. my wife and i went there looking for 5-star indianfoodand we came back with severe cases of indigestion and regret.
we started off the meal with two pieces of papadum with tamarind and mint sauces, both sauces were fantastic and the papadum was great. i found out that they were store bought, still delightful.
two vegetable samosas arrive soon after, which were recommended by our host. they were amazing, very chewy outside and the veggies inside were a brilliant medly of vegetables and potato. our meals came about 10 minutes later.
we ordered two of their specialty rices (lemon rice and pulihara). these rices both had nuts all the way through them, a spoonful of rice gave about 6 nuts; the nuts were burnt and bitter to the taste. the rices themselves were cakey and overly pungent with their flavors; the lemon rice tasted like it was boiled in lemon juice. after tasting these rices i immediately ordered white basmati rice.
the dishes tasted tart and not at all as ordered. the vindaloo was not spicy but more vinegary and harsh, a proper vindaloo should be spicy and lightly sweet and not at all bitter. the meat was mainly dark meat with the tendon still attached on some pieces, some very slimy.
the chicken tikka masala should be a sweet dish, there was nothing sweet about what i tasted. the chicken tasted burnt and the sauce was globular; you could not pour the masala sauce after a few minutes of sitting out, you had to spoon it out.
in the end our host was very apologetic about the experience and admitted that the reason most people eat here is because they do not know better indian food. i agree wholeheartedly.
if you love indian food, please stay away.