Dawat Fine Indian Cuisine

Offering a buffet simply isn’t enough for me to wander into an Indian restaurant anymore. Dawat’s samosas were boring, their chutneys were boring, and their vegetarian selection was boring. I don’t even remember what I ordered it was so boring, but I remembered what my boyfriend ordered: Baigan Bhartha, his go-​to Indian dish. Smoked eggplant, mashed and mixed with garlic, green peas and sometimes bell pepper. Sounds good, right? Dawat’s Baigan Bhartha resembled barbeque: it was red, greasy, and chunky. In addition, we found a piece of wood in his food. It looked like a chunk of splintery cutting board. We will never go back.
Plus, the waitress was giving my boyfriend «the eyes», which he didn’t notice, but I sure did. It didn’t make for a comfortable meal.

I have been to all of the other Indian restaurants in Allston and somehow missed Dawat. It’s funny because I was hoping for one with a buffet — it’s a good way to try more of their dishes.
The buffet had a lot of choices: 3 chicken dishes, 3 vegetarian dishes, vegetables, pakoras. The manager was really friendly too. He let our friends who ordered from the menu have some things from the buffet too since they don’t have a lunch priced menu.
We really enjoyed the food and are going to go back soon.

I’m no purveyor of Indian cuisine but is it wrong to judge an Indian joint on the strength of their chicken tandoori – I think not. Needless to say, I wasn’t blow away by the tandoori or the pakora – 2 staples of Indian dining which were off. Attentive service, while nice, doesn’t make up for a lacking in the food department.

I am surprised at the negative reviews. This is one of the few Indian Restaurants that doesn’t seem to cut corners. It was refreshing to order a meal that had fresh ingredients in it: like real cloves, corriander, and ginger. Most indian restuarants skimp and use powders etc. some even use tabasco sauce for spice!!! Dawat has some of the most authentic cooking I have had (this coming from an Indian!), and I have tried nearly every restaurant in the area! The comments about some of the food being oily: Right on! just the way my grandmother used to cook, and in traditional indian cooking the oil often floats on the surface of the dish. It really reminded me of being a kid and coming to dinner when Grandma called us. I can’t tell you how pleased I was to bite into a FRESH sliver of real ginger. very refreshing! HIghest rating! This is as authentic as I have had so far!

We were debating what to order out on Friday, as Andy had to work late and we settled on Indian food.
The requirements were that it had to be on foodler and that it had to be open and deliver to our house.
Dawat fit the bill.
The food arrived very quickly and was hot (temperature-​wise).
My chicken saag was probably the best saag I’ve had that didn’t come out of a home kitchen. Absolutely delicious, nice and creamy with good spice level. The potato samosa was really good and a bit smaller than usual, which I enjoyed, because I don’t like the massive samosas that most places serve. The naan was fine, but naan doesn’t travel well, so I wasn’t too upset by that.
I think Andy was pretty impressed with his food.

Ok back to 4 stars. Service has been impeccable since the last delivery mishap and the food has remained consistently delicious.

We’ve only ordered delivery once from here so perhaps the dining in experience is better. Considering that Punjab Palace is so close, Dawat should try and aim higher if they wish to stay in the business. There was just nothing about the food that was better than ok. The biryani was kind of bland and the chicken tikka masala didn’t taste any better than the stuff you can get from the can.

Fantastic. Tried the paneer sagwala at the Taste of Allston and I was immediately hooked. Quite possibly the tastiest I have ever had. 5 stars for the tremendous sweet lassi, which lasted the entirety of the meal in both temperature and consistency. Personally, I am a spice wimp, so I need that dairy buffer from start to finish. Samosa’s were great, though admittedly on the small side. Naan was also quite tasty with virtually no bitterness (don’t you hate that?). Service was fabulous. Portions were adequate with plenty left over for tomorrow’s lunch!

You went to Da-​WAT? Had to do it. Anyways…
We went here for the buffet lunch, and although it wasn’t terrible, it didn’t thrill and chill me either. The only thing that made me say «Mmmm» were the vegetable fritters– they are quite delish. The chicken tikka was bland, as was the mushroom saag, and the tandoori chicken was too greasy. Even the chutneys were so-so…JMP over at Super 88 beats them hands down. The help was overly concerned with our meal, as if acknowledging that it’s not that great (they kept apologizing for random things, which was kinda awk). I really wanted to give this place some business, as they always look so empty, but I won’t be returning :(

I went shopping this morning for a car, haven’t decided on one yet but I did get to try a great Indian restaurant, Dawat Fine Indian Cuisine, as a result of the car dealership visit.
For the car dealership visit, I brought my good friend Larry H. with me. Larry H. is like a Honda and Toyota encyclopedia on every car so any question I had, he could honestly answer during the test drive. I moved on to more pressing questions with our car salesperson as we were test driving around the city.
Forget about questions on leather interior, gas mileage, or pricing information, to the car salesman I asked my most pressing question, «So where can we get a good meal around here?» The salesperson, a good guy and also a foodie like myself, recommended two Indian places Punjab Palace and Dawat Fine Indian Cuisine.
I was tempted to try both Indian restaurants. Part of me thought while I was test driving two cars, why not take it a step further and test drive two Indian restaurants? However, I thought better of it especially since I’ve been trying to get back in shape recently. Of the two places, the car salesman preferred the buffet at Dawat Fine Indian Cuisine.
Dawat Fine Indian Cuisine did not disappoint. There are plenty of seats for larger groups, and I would highly recommend the lunch buffet. The lunch buffet was a reasonable $ 10 and change, and came with a complimentary dosa, almost like a very thin crêpe stuffed with seasoned potatoes, which I thought was a nice touch. This is a great place for vegetarians and meat eaters alike. My favorite vegetarian dish was the saag paneer, absolutely delicious and flavorful. On the meat side of things both the chicken tikka and chicken tikka masala were really tasty. Everything I had on the buffet was good.
Often in a buffet, you sacrifice quality for quantity, but that was not the case at Dawat Fine Indian Cuisine. Dawat Fine Indian Cuisine has only been open for a few months, and I would highly recommend giving the lunch buffet a try.

Finally mustered up the courage to try the restaurant that took the place of our beloved Rangoli (for reference, Rangoli was our favorite restaurant in the WORLD =(). It wasn’t bad, but it was no Rangoli. Our server/​host/​guy was very polite, and thanked us continually which was kind of weird. At one point I passed him to use the toilet and he thanked me… presumably for using it. Here’s the food rundown:
veg samosa: pretty good, coated with some sort of seasoning salt that made them really salty
veg pakora: good
paneer pakora: really good!
chana masala: actually, maybe the best chana masala I’ve ever had! mad props here ;D
malai kofta: sort of watery, but the kofta themselves were very good
naan: standard
mango lassi: slightly watery
lemonade: AVOID AT ALL COSTS. it was maybe slightly-​lemoned water that tasted oddly salty but not sweet at all. blegh
In short, a very decent Indian restaurant. We may go back, but we won’t be running.

I wish I could like this place. They seem like nice people and they’re trying, but… meh. I got takeout from here and decided on the tandoori mixed grill as a benchmark. Points off for me for ordering something for takeout that’s really best experienced fresh fresh, and the tandoori itself was fine (if not in any way outstanding). The price wasn’t great, and the tandoori came with naan rather than with rice — okay, that’s how it goes. I would have hoped that I could get some plain basmati rice for not too much extra, but the most dressed-​down rice menu option is something called «saffron rice» for four bucks — okay, that’s how it goes.
What I wanted was the tandoori, some rice, and (for the ultimate carby goodness) some tandoori roti, so that’s what I ordered. What I got was the tandoori, a container of rice that inexplicably contained peas and what seemed to be shreds of onion or maybe shallot (saffron, not so much), and naan. At least I’d call it naan, maybe they call it tandoori roti, there’s a lot of variations. Whatever, they either skipped my tandoori roti, or they decided that since I was getting tandoori roti and rice, I didn’t want the naan and they could just skip it. And, in fact, I didn’t want the damn naan, but I don’t like the omission of a «comes-​with» without saying anything, much less asking if it was okay or deducting something from the cost of the «roti».
So, in short, while I’m not one to nitpick or nickel and dime on price, I paid a bit more than I liked for somewhat less than I wanted, and while it was all perfectly palatable, the experience left me disinclined to return, given that Punjab Palace is about three doors down.

We went to Allston to try Punjab Palace (which has one of the highest reviews for any Indian place), when my wife noticed a «Grand Opening» sign and the name Dawat just a few yards away. So we decided to give it a shot and save Punjab Palace for later. We had a pleasant experience overall. I had the Achari Chicken (chicken marinated in pickle masalas) which was delicious. Very tender and bursts of flavor with each bite. My wife had the Begum Thali, a sort of a mini buffet, which contained samplers of 3 different vegetables, raita, rice, dal, frybread and gulab jamun (dessert). The vegetables were OK, a bit oily; my wife loved it though. There were wine and beer options and the appetizers were standard. The staff was friendly and came by and checked up on us throughout our meal. Prices were ok– $ 30 for two entrees– common for this part of town. Parking was horrendous ordeal. Took us 15 minutes. All in all, definitely worth a try. so go for it…

This has been my worst indian cuisine experience.
We ordered Chicken Korma and Chicken Kadai. A naan, a poori and a vegetarian appetizer combo.
The appetizers were pretty average. Some unique additions such as sliced battered potatoes. But I felt it was missing some pizazz. My bf was pretty happy with them, but he does his own reviews.
I had a bite of his entrée, the Kadai. I thought it was bland and pretty greasy.
My Korma was TERRIBLE. It was very very pale and I’ve never experienced that before in Korma– ever. It had almost no flavor. It was very very oily and heavy.
The bread was pretty standard, but the entrees were so bland the bread actually took away from the meal.
We’ll definitely return to try out their lunch buffet. It could have just been an off day or they were trying out a new recipe? I’ll give it another shot, but my expectations are markedly low.