Cafe of India

We ordered take out and when I went to pick it up, two servers were chatting and ignored me. I waited about a minute and finally one of the servers walked toward me looked at the take out bag on the counter, mumbled something to me, and went into the kitchen. After another minute the other server walked toward me only to be called away by a third server moving tables, clearly seeing me standing there by the take out bag. So I spoke up saying nicely, ‘Excuse me, is there anyone to ring me up? It doesn’t seem like anyone wants my money.’ The last server laughs but still makes no move to take my money. Finally the second server walks past me to a register, still not acknowledging me. I was left to figure out the she was ringing me up. I felt like telling her that I didn’t think I’d be coming back ever. But it didn’t seem like she cared anyway.
And to top it off, now back at home after eating, my girlfriend and I don’t feel so well.
Definitely not going back.

RIP, Café of India.
I think yours was the first Indian food that this Minnesota girl ever tried.
Your papadam were my gateway drug. Your tadka dal, like a comfortable pair of jeans. Your palak paneer, flannel pajama pants. I could swear that your rajma masala sang me «Sweet Baby James.»
As the years passed, I tried other Indian restaurants, but still I kept coming back to you, like a first love that just «gets» you in a way no one else will.
You had your redeeming features: those grand front windows, swept open to the sweet fresh air of a spring or fall day. Your reliably good food, and cheap lunch buffet. But I’m not gonna lie — you’re a 10-​minute walk from my office. I know it hurts to hear, but if I’m gonna be honest, convenience was part of what kept drawing me back.
As time went by, others had their doubts about you. Recent reviews mention «abysmal» service, goofed-​up orders or simply being practically ignored. I always felt the need to defend you. After all, there was such a history between us.
(Interlude: «Freedom» by Wham!) «But you know that I’ll forgive you just this once, twice, forever, ’cause baby you could drag me to hell and back just as long as we’re together… and you dooooooo»
In a way, it’s good that you’ve gone. Now I am free to move on.

Ugh. While this isn’t the worst restaurant I’ve ever been to, it’s definitely one I’ll never go back to. I went for the lunch buffet and if I didn’t have a Groupon, I’d definitely have felt ripped-​off. The whole place was pretty shabby, as was the food. Dishes were strewn about the buffet and it was impossible to know if they were dirty or clean. The samosas were totally cold, the rice clumpy, the dishes monotone and oily. There was a cold section of the buffet with lettuce and deflated blueberries which left me confused. One of the veg entrees was EGG CURRY – hard-​boiled eggs in oily curry. Suffice to say, I’ve never seen this offered in any other Indian restaurant, nor should it be.
The one saving grace was the mulligatawny soup – it was delicious.

Not a bad place. I had a Groupon for here so I figured I’d check it out. Nice atmosphere and we were greeted and seated promptly. The food was good, though I have to say I am used to a little more spice. I know I ordered my food «mild,» but that doesn’t mean no spice. I guess I’m just used to other places which like to make you beg for water. The waiter was less than attentive, but I assume that’s because of the Groupon. Sometimes people assume you’re a cheapskate if you use those and you get less than stellar service. Overall I’m neutral.

I was VERY disappointed in this place… so much so that I was embarrassed and apologized to my friends who came with me since I had the google offer.
Two of our four main dishes were served cold! It was as if the food had never been heated. It was at room temperature. We apologized for our pickiness and asked if they would heat it up more, and it was only slightly warmer.
The food was excessively oily. It was almost intolerable.
The waiter messed up which dishes we wanted spicy and which dishes we did not.
The restaurant was almost like a club in terms of lighting. It was dark most of the time, but they kept flashing the lights above us periodically throughout the dinner!
I was very upset with the service, food quality and ambiance. I will not go back.

Café India is by far the WORST Indian food I’ve ever had.
One of my girlfriends and I have Indian food everytime we get togethe and this day I had a coupon to Café India. The biggest regret of my life is accepting this coupon and having to sit through a meal — is it a meal if you can’t even eat it — at Café India?
We walked by the window and it looked packed, but when we got inside we saw they had just sat everyone in front of the window. The entire restaurant was empty.
Complimentary fried veggies made it to our table, but they were so old or just cooked to death, the grease and rubbery texture deemed them inedible. We had the aloo mutter, which was watered down and drowning in canned tomato sauce. The bengan bharta was so dark (I’ve never seen it like this) and so salty I only had a few bites. I asked for onion chutney, which was doused in salt and inedible, and the mint chutney tasted like green water. We asked for garlic naan, they brought potato naan and regular naan. We thought the regular was complimentary, but when we got the bill we had been charged for both. Neither of us said anything about the problems we had through the meal, I don’t know why.
The waitstaff was non-​existent. Our waters were never filled, no one asked of if we wanted more wine, and we sat there for 10mins before we even saw anyone we could ask for our check. They took another 10mins to bring our check. They didn’t add our coupon to the bill and had to adjust it. That took another 10mins.

Thing I love about Unilocal is the extremety of ratings. I was visiting Cambridge and the hotel suggested this place. I went in early and it was certainly not crowded. I ordered the Special Plate and was rapidly given bread and soup etc. I thought the food was very good, not fatty, well flavored to the level I requested.
Outside of NYC and maybe India, it was very satisfactory and I would return when next I am in Cambridge

This is my spot for good, reliable Indian food. The naan is awesome (I always get garlic) and their chicken tikka masala has great flavor — especially when you order it spicy. The buffet offers a wide selection of dishes (usually a grilled chicken dish, a goat dish, a chickpea dish, rice, vegetable samosas, and one or two other items) if you’d like to try out some new things without paying a ton of money. I believe they do a lunch buffet everyday for around $ 10, and a dinner buffet (not sure how often) for $ 15. Everything I have had there has been enjoyable and I have definitely taken advantage of the buffet to widen my knowledge of Indian dishes.
Also, this is one of the restaurants that offers some good gift certificates on
— check it out before you go!

While Café of India does some things fine, it’s also weak in other areas.
I shared the vegetarian dinner for two with a friend. The lentil soup was lukewarm, though we had no complaints with the piping hot samosas. The naan was kind of doughy. The dish of rice was quite generous, and more than enough for the two entrees that came with the meal.
At Café of India, you can choose your entrees, whereas at other restaurants, the kitchen often decides. We had the shahi paneer and the aloo mutter, and requested them medium spicy. They both came out mild. The shahi paneer was a bit too salty, and oily enough that you could see the oil separate from the rest of the sauce. The aloo mutter was a little sour – not to the point where it was inedible, but it was odd.
You get your choice of desserts from a selection of three, and we had the gulab jamun and the rice pudding. Between appetizers, main dishes and dessert, the dessert was the best course overall. The dessert portions are small, but the entire vegetarian dinner for two is definitely more than enough food for your dynamic duo.
We didn’t have any issues with the service, and the food came quickly. But there are other Indian restaurants in Harvard Square that are worth trying before coming back here.

Café of India is my favorite Indian Restaurant so far. Its spices and deep rich flavor, especially for their lunch buffet, always caters to my flavor loving tongue. With a rotating assortment of entrees, appetizers, and dessert, I get variety without having to pay a high price. Especially if you buy a Groupon Now! coupon, you’re in for a wonderful bargain.
The garlic naan is buttery and slightly crispy. The spinach dip is an exploding bite of flavor. The broccoli and cauliflower drips of sauce in every bite. The chicken tikka masala is perfectly marinated. The tandoori chicken is tender. The coconut rice dessert is rich and satisfyingly sweet. The atmosphere is beautiful with low background music and actually feels like an Indian (but very Americanized) atmosphere.
And their fruit plate includes really shiny grapes. My friend and I marveled over that for a minute before engulfing three plates of fruit.
When you leave, there is a bowl of spices mixed in with sprinkles to refresh the tongue. One of the most exotic pleasures I ever tasted.
Definitely worth coming back numerous times for. My favorite lunch buffet of any Indian restaurant. And I’ve been to quite a few.

Unfortunately mediocre. There are several better restaurants nearby, so I’m unsurprised the place is frequently empty. The food is not outstanding in any way, and the service is really indifferent.
On the most recent visit, there was such a problem splitting the check with two credit cards that the cards actually disappeared for more than 10 minutes. That kind of thing makes me really twitchy, and I don’t think I will go back.

I went to Café of India with a Groupon Now Deal today. The deal was $ 8 for $ 11 buffet. Normally I stay clear of buffets, as every one I’ve ever tried has been a lot of mediocre (at best) lukewarm food — but today I was hungry & I thought I’d give it a try.
Well, when I got there, I wasn’t pleased to see that the cost of the buffet was really $ 8.95!!! Like I said, I was hungry, also really tired & since I already bought the Groupon, I didn’t want to turn around and go home.
Let me make this clear: this particular «Now-​Deal» was good ONLY today for the lunch buffet — so it was an out & out lie. If they had been honest, (they don’t put the cost of the buffets on their website, I now realize), they would have said it was a 95 cent savings!!!
I also didn’t realize that this restaurant conglomerate also owns — in addition to about a zillion other places — Mumba Choptix in the Back Bay. I remember reading a review by Unilocaler, Nitin K., where they did the same type of bait & switch game — claiming a savings that wasn’t there! Since I read that review (and other negative ones) I avoided going to Mumba Chopstix, only to get scammed by Café of India!
That left a bad taste in my mouth — but as bad as this is, it’s not as bad as how sick I was after eating the food there.
Never again!
Edit: Although this isn’t a review for Groupon, thought I’d pass the follow-​up along to other Unilocalers. I filled out Groupon’s email form to let them know about this deception — was amazed that they actually credited the $ 8 back to me! I actually didn’t expect it — didn’t even ask for it. Just wanted them to be aware of this bad business practice. As I suspected, they did not know — and Groupon impressed me again with their customer service. «Taste of the World» (the company that owns Café of India and the zillion other places) should take note. Somehow, I don’t think they will…

Beautiful room, love the on-​kitchen window and the open-​air exterior wall.
The food? Hit or miss. The buffet can be alright, but my recent dinner with my family left me completely turned off.
We were the only patrons when we arrived and yet one of our appetizer orders (chicken tikka) came out cold and dry. I understand it gets a little dry and a little tepid but this was simply left out too long before they brought it.
The swordfish was supposed to be fresh… maybe it was, but it didn’t taste it. The lamb was overcooked and tough and the korma sauce with the cheese (shahi paneer korma), though very tasty, was far too acidic for my taste… I expect it to be mostly creamy and it really had the essence of a tomato dish.
The cheese pakoras were ok but not seasoned, so incredibly bland. The samosa which I think was supposed to have shrimp had a large quantity of poorly seasoned or poorly cooked spinach which lent a medicinal quality.
I liked the gulab jamun dessert but the ras malai tasted like it had been either poorly stored or stored too long in a freezer and was impossible to enjoy.
As for the service, it was at times very good and at times we waited ages for any attention at all.
The kicker — all our entrees were $ 15 or more and WAY less delicious than the Indian food at, say, the food court in a mall. Absolutely insulting — it feels like we were literally robbed.
Go to the buffet if you are working nearby and craving Indian, otherwise brace for disappointment.

I hate giving bad reviews to Indian restaurants, since I love Indian food so much. But my recent visit there was a spectacular failure.
The food was fine, don’t get me wrong. Tender chicken, flavorful spinach, great naan, the whole nine yards.
But the service was abysmal, and the nadir was when an inept waiter dropped an entire tray of dirty dishes, spraying me with rice and yogurt. He didn’t apologize until about ten minutes later, when he offered me a free beer, which I turned down. He didn’t offer me anything else (not to pick up the dry cleaning bill, or to get me a dessert), because apparently it was either the beer or nothing at all.
Also, they were out of virtually all of their dessert options, which I learned over a span of fifteen minutes as the server kept returning to my table to tell me they didn’t have any of what I was ordering.
Overall, a crushingly disappointing time. If I was just judging on food, I’d be happy. But when you walk out covered in spilled food without much of an apology to mollify you, you’ve got to rate it as a bad experience.

On a cold, rainy afternoon, the thought of a warm Indian food buffet bolstered my spirits.
Walking in, I was struck by the size of the restaurant. It was much bigger than it seemed on the outside. There were some nice tables by the window, a whole wall of booths and larger tables in the center of the restaurant. The center of the restaurant features a glassed off area where a chef prepares food, right in front of your eyes. I saw him pull out several skewers from the tandoor oven.
Both Amy and I went for the buffet. When at a new place, you want to try as many things as you can. So, I did. The only thing I did not try on the buffet was the kheer. There was a huge flat heated dish with squash and chicken on it. (I would call it a giant comal, if you’re of the Mexican persuasion.) That was wonderful. The other standouts included: mint chutney, chicken tikka masala and the sliced omelet hidden next to the salad bar.
We were given a choice of garlic or plain naan. I don’t usually order garlic naan, as I find it can compete with the flavors of some Indian foods, so I asked for plain. I like when naan is a little chewy from being undercooked. This naan was exactly that. Awesome.
The other vegetarian foods were fine, but not as spicy as I would have liked.
Our server was good about refilling water glasses, but less so about my iced tea glass. Amy stopped him to ask him to refill my glass. I appreciated that, but wish that he would have recognized that on his own.

I would give it 3.5 stars if I could. I went there with a Groupon with my boyfriend on an early Sunday evening. There were only a few people when we got there, so there really wasn’t a good buzz yet. I was kind of put off at first because the menu was dirty and when I used the restroom, it wasn’t dirty, but kind of messy.
But the place redeemed itself. The service was good, the food was very good, and they had some cool low-​key Buddah Bar Club music playing.
We got the curries and korma along with naan. There was definitely enough to fill you.
I would go back on a warm evening when they open up the windows to the street when there was more of a crowd in there.

Went here for the lunch buffet last week during the heat wave, and had some ok, basic college indian fare. Nothing stood out as particular authentic, nothing was particularly spicy, and there were mostly vegetarian dishes on the buffet.
They did have two of my favorites on there– chicken tikka masala and muttar paneer, but I didn’t think either was particularly well done– both were heavy and lacked flavor, and very rich.
However, for the price ($ 35 for 3 people including the tip) it was a good deal, and the food was acceptable.

Yes, I agree with the local reviewers that the service here is curt, and done without a smile. My Cambridge host and I ate here early on New Year’s Eve, and so perhaps it was slightly better than normal service, but not by much!
Still, when the tap beer tasted slightly «off» we weren’t scared enough not to get up and ask for a different beer in a bottle. But besides that little problem, the food was excellent!
The Saag Paneer was good, although a few more cheese cubes wouldn’t hurt. The Chicken Tikka Masal was excellent, a must order at Café of India if you like the dish elsewhere. The Veggie Samosa was good too. We were brought complimentary desserts of Kheer rice pudding. It was a nice gesture.
I could see this being a low expectation dinner option (as far as service goes), or coming here for their lunch Buffet– no server issues there!

This is a pretty stylish Indian spot with cozy booths. I like the window into the food prep area. The plates are fun and stylish, too.
The food is good but not great. We shared the vegetarian dinner and a thali.
Décor is very nice, but the Indian food was reliable but not a standout. I’d go again if someone suggested, but I wouldn’t make a point of returning.

Really not impressed by this place.
Too loud. Too dark. Prices are nothing to write home about.
Our plates were dirty. The glasses had something on them, too.
There were lots of different items on the menu, which was cool. They were also accommodating to my friend, who wanted paneer + tikki masala. Naan was a little burnt.
I also hate to say it, but the person who refilled our waters had a bad B.O.
This place was relatively speedy, though, and obviously can accommodate large parties.