Coriander Cuisine

Great this closed. This is what happens to greedy people. Restaurant is a place where customer service is important.

I just noticed the sign for it and was excited about the regional Andrha food. However, Coriander Cuisine is no more. In it’s place is a wonderful new South Indian restaurant called Godavari: Truly South Indian. They had an impressive Sunday lunch buffet set up of both vegetarian and an array of meat and fish dishes. I ate from the vegetarian side and everything was fresh and delicious!
From some of the more recent reviews of Coriander that I skimmed, it seems the new restaurant franchaise is a welcome change!

Tried weekday buffet. Food lacks taste and flavor. Not even close to Andhra or Chettinaad cuisine

The best restaurant in NJ for South Indian food! Great variety! Great taste! Great hospitality! I thoroughly enjoyed the food! Waiting for the next opportunity to eat there! Great job guys!

Went there on 11÷09÷14 at 7 pm, restaurant was empty. Ordered plain dosa and idli. Dosa took 20 mins to get ready and it was just about ok. Also placed an order for Andhra chilli chicken and andhra chicken biryani to go. When I reached home and opened the food, I was very disappointed. Instead of andhra chicken biryani which is supposed to be with boneless chicken, there was some heavily spiced rice with some chicken pieces which was large bone pieces mainly. To my horror the andhra chilly chicken was almost raw, I had to trash it completely. I have been going to this place since last 3 years and the quality has deteriorated to such an extent.

Holy cow, this place was atrocious. I had no choice about coming here because somebody else made the plan. And I dare say that I’ve never had worse Indian food at a restaurant in the US.
Confused restaurant which can’t decide whether it wants to remain authentic to Chettinad/​Andhrite food, or be an amalgam of that and food which is closer to a more generic north Indian pallate. If the former, then the food is terrible here, but also unfortunately nothing that I would ever want to eat in a restaurant in any case. In case of the latter, I can’t think of a single dish or morsel that justifies coming here.
Unfortunate restaurant in Edison, NJ which boasts of a large community from the Indian subcontinent.
The fact that through the 3 hours that I had to end up spending here, there were 4 other sets of customers on a Saturday afternoon, should tell you plenty.

This is an absolute disgrace to the Indian cousin! We were many times two years ago and this place was a hidden jewel for authentic food. On this return trip we found chicken vandaloo and aloo gobi to be hot sauce with tomato sauce. The dishes have no spice or taste. The gravy is thin at best. The Nann was flat like chewing on paper. The mango lassi is still descent.
Don’t waste your money!
BTW, we just saw the waiter stole a piece of the food from the party next door. Hey if you gonna steal food do it in the back where your boss might see you not in public please !

Monday night I was the only customer. They did not seem to want serve me. I should have turned around. I stuck it out cos I was hungry. I had the most tasteless shrimp curry ever! Time to try some other Indian resturant in Edison, any recommendations?

I have been to this South Indian restaurant for lunch several times ordering from the menu and from the buffet. One of their specialties is dosa. Each time I attempt to like this restuarant (convenient location from work), the service it just gets from worse to worst.
My last visit was two weeks and find service intolerable. Dosa was not avaible as the pan was being cleaned in the middle of lunch hour!!! The waiter did not know the first thing about «service». The owner walked around the restaurant acting smug and rude. I will not return!

Horrible service. Plates don’t come out at the same time. They forgot our order of rice.
To top it off, gratuity was added to our check and we only had 5 people. Don’t give these people business unless they improve their service.

I have been to this place for both their lunch buffet and dinner menu options more than 6 – 7 times now over the last 2 years. This is a family run establishment and this has its pros and con’s. first the pros
the lunch buffet I decent and a good bet for both veggie and non veg lovers. Coriander has their fairly unique masala taste which makes them different then the other places around. some must have dishes. kothu paratha both the veg and non veg versions chicken and lamb are good. you can’t go wrong on the biryani … the chettinad dishes with kerala style parathas is all good. We are fans of this section.
now the con’s
there are some dishes in the menu which you should keep away from. Like the navrattan kurma or the avial. Try to restrict your selection to the chettinad type dishes and keep away from the Punjabi/​north to Indian influenced dishes.
Service is OK with the entire owners and partners family chipping in to help. Sometimes they do mess up the service but that is not done intentionally. :)
Overall a dependable place to go for us when we need a change of food.

We went here for dinner on a Sunday evening. The place was empty — first bad sign. We were a party of 4 and ordered mostly South Indian fare: idli, medu vada, uttapam, Jaipuri dosa and samosa. Only the samosa was good, though the filling tasted more like dosa filling.
The uttapam was too thick and undercooked. The idli was fine but the sambhar was way too spicy. Medu vada again was good but we had it with the same too spicy sambhar. The only saving grace was the Jaipuri dosa. It had a tasty filling but we mostly had to eat it without sambhar.
Finally, we ordered two cups of masala tea. It tasted pre-​made and not fresh. We had to send it back and request fresh cups. They also did not have Limca and we had to be satisfied with Sprite — strange for an Indian restaurant in this area. The presentation was poor and service was average.
Overall experience was not satisfying.

Horrible food. BAD service. Never going back again.

I went there with a friend for the lunch buffet. We found the food to be very tasty. The only real negative is the lack of a large selection of dishes. I have been to many Indian buffets in the past and this was by far the smallest selection I have seen.
The fact that maybe they didn’t clear our plates away fast enough wasn’t going to stop me from going back for seconds but I can see why some people could have a problem with that.
Like I said, what we ate was very good although I am not sure what many of the dishes were. I just wish there were more to choose from. I usually try to avoid meats and poultry whenever possible but really had limited options here.

Horrible service… Absolutely horrible… Never book a party… This place is okay for buffet for 2 people… food is below average…
All restaurants have bad days. but if you tell them about bad service and still get bad service thats bad. I attended a party here where more than half of the guests went home without having any food. We told the hosts that the buffet trays were empty and requested to fill up the trays. we were told «coming, coming. food is coming»…lol.

Came with a Groupon. Reserved a table for 4 and had a pretty good dining experience overall. We ordered the Coriander Special Appetizer (vegetarian) which was good, but dulled in comparison to the main courses. It was a lot of bits of fried stuff which could have been prepared just a little bit better. The rest of the meal certainly made up for it though.
We all ordered soups as well. I had the coriander special soup (delicious) and also tasted the tomato soup, which was also good.
For my main dish, I had the navratam korma which was definitely delicious and on par with another restaurant that I like. I requested that raisins be added and they accommodated my request. It really tasted great!
We shared some desserts, which were also pretty good.
I’ve read some reviews about the service and I have to say that our experience was similar. We really needed to flag down the servers in order to get more water, order food, get the check… Towards the very end of our meal, someone came by and asked us how everything was and we told him we were happy with the food. He seemed pleased and said «namaste» with a head bow, which I thought was nice and gave me a pleasant feeling about the place.
I would consider coming back if I was passing through the area and needed a place to eat for lunch or dinner. I would definitely order a different appetizer or skip the appetizers entirely and go to the main course.

Great service (very attentive and they were SO incredibly patient with us although I was with 4 young children and a girlfriend). The space was open and clean — I noticed they have a small catering hall right next door so if you’re ever looking for a place to throw a lil party — come here.
The food was AMAZING — absolutely the best Paneer Tikka Masala I have ever had and it was clearly very fresh. Sure, the wait is a tad longer than most places, but their food is made-​to-​order and not premade and then reheated.
Dishin’ Report Card:
Paneer Tikka Masala — A++
Cheese Dosa — A+
Roti — A
Naan — A
Shrimp Biryani — A (a must for those who like a lil kick to their food)
I came in with a Groupon deal I purchased so our meal was extremely affordable for all that we ordered, but their prices were actually really good regardless. I will definitely be back in the future for this great food.

I have been twice to Coriander Cuisine now both have been carry outs.
The food is pretty good here. I have tried both the veg and the non veg and it has been a very good experience. In the veg, i tried Masala Dosa, Malai Kofta and Shahi Paneer. Masala Dosa particularly is very good here.
In the non veg, I have only tried Chicken Dum Biryani till now (i like it so much!) and it was wow.
If you want to eat there, it is a nice cosy place. The interiors are not very good, but not bad either.
The only bad experience was the delay in the order. When we placed the order, we were told it will take 15 mins. Finally after 35 mins only we got our food.
⁴⁄₅ stars just for the food.

Oh my God! It was like eating in home and my mom made this food…
Will miss this after my vacation from East Coast.

Surprisingly, there’s a sea of mediocrity when you go looking for a good Indian restaurant in New Jersey. One would think that with considerable representation from the diverse cultures and regions of India, one would find a few decent options — but if I were to write down all the mediocre places I’ve tried that straddle North and South Indian cuisines, the Iliad would seem like bed time reading!
Coriander Cuisine featuring Andhra and Chettinad cuisines is one of the rare exceptions. Every now and then I go loco discovering in depth an unfamiliar cuisine and recently have been exploring regional Indian cuisines broadly lumped under «South Indian». Despite the strip mall location, unremarkable décor and ambiance, cheap weekend buffet, and the inevitable crutch of «North-​South Indian Specials», their food is very good: freshly prepared, authentic and well balanced in terms of the use of 21 odd spices in every dish. I have a lot of respect for restaurants that accommodate diners wanting to order a-​la-​carte as opposed to the default buffet option. It’s difficult to manage for the kitchen, but Coriander handled it with aplomb and without any fuss.
The Andhra Chilli chicken looked at first glance like one of the typical re-​heated pinkish red tandoori chickens, but to the contrary was moist and spicy courtesy of both the (red and green) chillies used. Also excellent was the Goat Sukka Varuval, which had been pan fried with spices, onions, and curry leaves and prepared with a dry curry. I chose to eat the dish with the Paratha, which however didn’t live up to the fluffier, Northern Indian version.
The biggest surprise for me was the drink: Neer More buttermilk, as it turned out to be completely the opposite of what I expected from a Lassi. Spiced with green chillies (!), coriander, ginger, and curry leaves with a hint of lemon juice I was completely bowled over by the concoction and marveled at the fact that this was a traditional summer drink. I would never think of quenching my thirst with anything that included chillies, but… wow!
Sadly, they didn’t have a jaggery based dessert (Chakkara Pongal) recommended by fellow Unilocaler Madhuri I, but I finally got the opportunity to try an excellent version of Payasam (a dessert loved by Srini V), and it reminded me of a similar dessert (best served hot, as at Coriander) made from vermicelli, milk, cashews, raisins and flavored with cardamom that I’ve loved in childhood.
I’ve never been able to understand their cinema, nor the music that was playing in the background, and so am likely missing cultural cues by categorizing service as unsmiling. That said, there was a discernible concern on whether I enjoyed the food. I did — without any reservations. Coriander Cuisine is a diamond in the rough.