Akbar

Amazing indian food, but seriously be prepared for a real south asian spice palate! They don’t dull the heat unless you request a dish to be mild. Although, given that i myself love spicy food, i say bring on the burn!

This past weekend I had birthday dinner for my good friend here. I had made reservations for 12 but throughout the night we had a few extra people that decided to show up in the middle of dinner. To my surprise, the restaurant staff was very attentive and made room for every extra person that decided to show up. They were very accommodating and even when it was time for them to close (11pm) they never rushed us.
The food was pretty decent. Majority of our group ordered chicken tikka masala and it was a bit on the bland side. I did manage to try someone’s chicken korma and that was very delicious. I also had the curried cauliflower and the chickpeas curry and they were both very tasty for vegetarian dishes.
Our alcoholic drinks were very strong. I do appreciate strong drinks but not right before dinner. I was tipsy off of my mango margarita by the time my dinner arrived. And, for dessert we had gulab jamun and rice pudding. The gulab jamuns tasted like the frozen kind you get from the Indian supermarkets.
It was a good dinner and I did enjoy my time here but there wasn’t really any «wow» factors for me.

I’ve been here once before with my Mom to celebrate her birthday and they had it set up buffet style. That was so amazing. Gave me the opportunity to sample and fall in love with different things. For my birthday yesterday (April 28), naturally I thought about this place.
When we sat down to eat we were told that the buffet was closed (it finishes around 3pm) so, I looked over the menu and picked the Malai Kofta. I was so happy with my choice, it’s a vegetarian platter and it comes with a few things, still giving me the buffet feel. I am happy to review that I will be going back and back and back and I know exactly what I’m going to order. Lol
P. s. I was with a few people that had no clue what they wanted and the staff was pretty patient with their back and forths with what they wanted from the menu, kudos to the patient staff.

Best indian food on Long Island. The AYCE buffet everyday at lunch and dinner on Sunday has the best tating food! The restaurant is recently renovated and they have a new bartender and he’s creating wonderful drinks specials. Ask for Onion Kulcha with your lunch, it’s a wonderful compliment to your meal. Enjoy!

asty… A group of three of us went to the restaurant on a Sunday evening.
The parking was easy — although if you dont know the area, the location can pass you by!
The décor was perfect.
The menu was wide and varied.
Between the three of us we ordered the chicken, the lamp and the shrimp. All were wonderful.
The food is a tad pricey — but the food is wonderful.

We’ve been coming here for years, and have always received consistently great service and food.
I would highly recommend the lamb chops and malai chicken from the menu. Both are always cooked to perfection, and to compliment them I order the mixed naan. The lunch buffet is also a great option!
As for the service, it is excellent and accommodating. Many of the waiters have been working here for years and truly know what good service at an Indian restaurant entails. Contrary to some of the reviews below, they are always attentive and make sure everything is okay without lingering around your table.

Great food, great service and great ambience! First time here and loved it. I recently moved to the area and was saddened to leave the best Indian food near where I used to live. So now for the first time I finally found this gem in town and I definitely LOVE it. The classic chicken tikka masala is perfectly made. Their drink selection (alcoholic and non-​alcoholic) is varied. Their dinner platter option is the perfect way of trying many of the selections they have to offer at a very affordable price. All in all great restaurant. Parking in the street because there was a wedding reception.

Went there last night for Diwali with some of my close Indian friends. There was nothing whatsoever from the restaurant’s side to offer. No environment of celebration, no wishes, NADA. There were a lot of people who came there dressed traditionally and I am sure they were even more disappointed by the restaurant’s nonchalance.
Food: very low grade unattractive preparation and overall bland in taste. When we asked to make something spicier they sprinkled black pepper on it, simply ridiculous.
Waiters: we couldn’t figure out who our primary waiter was. They kept changing. Nobody came to us to check if we liked the food of not. None of them had that warmth or mannerism of an acceptable south Asian waiter.
Compared to so many other better Indian/​Pakistani restaurants in the area, this place is garbage.

This was my first visit. Getting here is a battle as the signs and parking are not really visible.
Hostess was nice but I think they should be trained to properly interact with guests as this was my first impression of the restaurant service.
I was made to wait even though I had made reservations through open table and was 5 mins early. I was not happy to be told «just sit there»!
After 20 mins the table was ready and service was prompt and attentive thereafter.
Food was good not excellent. Prices are on the high end but not outrageous. Portions are small as well. Overall I did not feel I got the value of what we paid. I was amazed to be charged for rice after dishing out $ 14 – 17 for entrees.
Wait staff was attentive but failed to check in with us to ensure we were satisfied.
On the way out hostess did not bother to thank us or wish us a good night!
All in all they failed to meet my expectations as they classified themselves in the «fine dining» category.

Everything was god awful, do not ever eat here. All four of us got ridiculously sick.
Place needs to be shut down for sure

Hubby and I came here for their lunch buffet. I forget the exact price, around $ 11 AYCE.
There wasn’t a huge assortment, but I enjoyed everything I had (spinach paneer, tandoori chicken, stewed goat, veggie fritters, and rice). They also gave us fresh naan at the table.
The waiter was also nice enough to bring out some chicken tikka for my picky husband, even though it was not being offered at the buffet. It was REALLY good. The sauce was very creamy, similar to a vodka sauce.
Not sure how dinner is here, I imagine it’s a bit fancier but lunch was good!

Super friendly service and delicious food! We came with our one year old and everyone was so nice to him! They sent out a chicken dish special for him.
For food we had chicken saagwal and paneer with peas (don’t remember the actual name) both were amazing. I oddly liked the vegetarian dish more than the chicken. We also had stuffed roti. No complaints about anything. So good!

Will never come back here again… this place is a zoo. Placed my order through the Unilocal eat 24 app at 7:27pm, it is now 8:17 and I don’t have my food. In addition the 15% take out coupon code they advertise can’t be redeemed while ordering through the Unilocal app… that makes a lot sense
So it has been an hour now since this was posted and Kristi and I both agree that the food was quite flavorful (chicken tiki masala and chicken jalfrezi with garlic nan). Additionally the owner reached out immediately to apologize and invited us back to make it up to us which I appreciate. Will post again in a few weeks

Place is ok for a quick bite… selections are okay, rice pudding is really good probably the only reason why I would go back.

I’m not a huge Indian food fan, (aside from House of Dosas :)), probably because I havn’t always had the best experiences. I was reluctant to come here at first, but was soon convinced by some of my closest friends who raved about it and assured me that since it’s a buffet I could try what I like (ie chutney, naan, and dosa station). Not to mention what did I have to loose for $ 12.99 for a lunch buffet?
Well I was far from disappointed and I also have a renewed interest in Indian food! Everything was delicious! Although the Tandori Chicken was a little dry, the flavoring was so good that it hardly mattered. The sauces and seasoning were devine, the atmosphere was relaxing and delicate. The service is polite and respectful. I would also recommend the chutneys and mango lasi!
The dessert was also delicious– a carrot dish and rice pudding.
This is definitely a place I’d recommend to others, go back to and probably will end up craving very soon!

I’ve been to many events at Akbar, but I’ve never actually dined on the restaurant side. In the mood for Indian food, we decided to give it a try.
The restaurant looks nice, and the service was pretty good, but the food was decent, and very expensive. The Lollipop Chicken I liked, but I had much better at other Indian restaurants. I had the Chicken Tikka Masala for my entrée and although it wasn’t bad, I found it very bland and lacking flavor.
Don’t think I’ll be back here. I was left expecting tasty Indian food and a less expensive bill.

Me and my sister decided to come here for a few reasons:
1– we dont cook Indian cusine so lets go somewhere that does
2– they are apart of long islands restaurant week
3-​they take open table
4-​they are pretty local
My first impression of this place is from the outside it has some resemblance to a palace. Crisp clean white outside, huge columns, the high bushes hide its entry way and makes you forget you are near shopping and the mall.
The inside was filled with cushioned seats al, ost couch like. Beautiful tapestries on the wall and high ceilings. It is not the most intimate of places but it had some nice music playing. It was also a mixed crowd of people which is nice!
When we came in it was during lunch hour. The person i spoke eith i told them i am here for the long island restaurant week special… The guy looked at me like i just made that up. I was apprehensive… I told them i made reservations through open table. Still an awkward look we were escorted to the dining area. Another guy came over and told us «buffet is good do the buffet you get more».
Me and my sister go over and there was a decent amount of foods that are labeled what they are. The food was all on sternos. There was also soup, salad and dessert bar availiable. I decided to try a little bit of everything. Not being able to rememeber what i was eating or what it was exactly i gave it a shot.
When we arrived back to the table thr server was coming out with fresh naan bread! It is similar to a pita bread, light airy and delicious! It was great to have im the dipping sauces.
Our server asked us how the food was i said everything is good but i told him the food that stated was apart of the fix prixe was not at the buffet for long island restaurant week. I decided to put an additonal order of samosas.
In the meantime we went back to get some seconds lf the foods wwe enjoyed. Then our HUGE samosas returned! Huge biggest i have ever seen. Had to be the size of a softball. It came with the syrup/​tamarin sauce for it. Delicious!
After trying some new foods i was like okay we are ready for the check. The bill came and the server stated i did not charge you for thr samosas bc i know you really wanted that from the fixe prixe menu.
Now, originally Long Island restaurant week consisted of fix prixe enu for $ 27.95 a person. We came to Akbar during lunch. And our total bill came out to $ 25! The buffet was $ 11.95 although we did not get to try what i anticipated when we arrived. We left happy and full. The waiter told us that the lunch menu changes and to come back and try some more!

My sister and I jumped on the train when we heard about LI Restaurant Week. We looked at the list and we looked for somewhere close and different from where we normally go out to eat. We stumbled across Akbar because they also have OpenTable reservations and we made our appointment for a lunch.
We arrive a few minutes early, but with it being lunchtime on a Monday it wasn’t really busy. The waiter sat us right away and we made sure to mention that we booked through LI Restaurant Week/​OpenTable. He said he understood but told us to use the buffet. We were nervous because we weren’t sure this would be reflected in the pre-​fixed price and we had been looking forward to trying their samosas.
Their lunch buffet changes almost daily according to the waiter and he explained it was a better deal than the fixed three-​course meal deal from LI Restaurant week.
I’m not familiar at all with Indian cuisine. My only brushings with it were the times classmates would bring in homemade samosas on cultural-​appreciation days. And those were delicious. On top of the buffet we asked the waiter if we could have a plate of samosas since we had looked forward to them.
The buffet had all different kinds of dishes, from the Sarsoon ka Saag, the delicious Chicken Kalimirch, Dal Makhani, their fantastic Tandoori Chicken, their Takkari Pullao (long grain rice), Kadhai Paneer, and the Kadi Pakora. The only dish I didn’t like was the Kadi Pakora.
Their mango chutney was darn-​good, a great mix-​in to my salad and the ramsala was so interesting. I still have no idea what it was but it tasted like a milky rice pudding kind of dessert. I enjoyed it.
The samosas were huge and the tamarin dipping sauce had me dipping my Naan bread over and over again. And oh my god that Naan bread. Super fresh, crispy and soft. Great light smokey texture and great for absorbing all the leftover sauces on my plate.
Another one of my favorites were the cashew rolls. I ate so many of them. I cannot think about them enough, but they will definitely be something I look forward to in the future.
When it came time to the bill it actually came out waaay less than the three-​course fixed restaurant week deal. And the waiter told us on samosas were on the house.
The décor in the restaurant was really nice, the paintings on the walls were really neat. The booth seats were really comfortable and I’m not used to a restaurant having such bright lights. They started playing music about halfway through our meal which was nice because the quietness was a tad eerie and it was strange to hear people’s conversations at the other end of the restaurant.
We had a great experience and I’m glad we went to try something new.

Akbar has always been good and a reliable place for Indian cuisine.
I first went to Akbar long before they moved in 2001, formerly where Mint is. Now on South Street they have a big place with tremendous columns outside on their patio which is part of the festive feel of the place. Nicer ambiance though more traditional than Mint and nice.
At lunch there were a variety of well made dishes and friendly hosts quick to bring perfect naan, drinks etc. No lag in service for even a moment. Nice! You can order a la carte at lunch or have the buffet.
The curried peas with cheese (a paneer /​not spinach) had seasoning and flavors that took me back in time so many years ago. to the original Sitar formerly on Rt. 110 not the later move to Jericho Tpk. The original was a grand place that really excelled at creating a true eastern vibe and flavor of dishes was ridiculously amazing. My mother still cringes at the dishes I remember so fondly. Lol! Those were the days.
Well one dish reminded me of those old intense sultry flavors and nuances that seem to be lost. Perhaps the chef carries the recipes. Who knows.
Love big dramatic Indian restaurants.

Akbar gets the gold medal for the catered food they’ve served on several occasions. I attended an event in November 2013 hosted in their Garden City location and it was all vegetarian. The dishes were fresh, full of flavor, and tempting. Recently, I went to another event in June 2014 and was met again with exceptional dishes. The foods I recall the most and recommend are the chili fried shrimp, tadka dal (yellow lentils), and baingan bharta (eggplant).
I could have eaten the chili fried shrimp on its own and be satisfied. I kept taking shrimp after shrimp after shrimp. I enjoyed every bite. It was spicy, the shrimp meat juicy, and I just wanted more.
The tadka dal (yellow lentils) went well with the basmati rice or the naan. The big surprise for me was the baingan bharta (eggplant). I was skeptical to try it at first because it’s not a vegetable that I favor, but I was at first confused, and then glad that I did try it… and went for seconds. Maybe it was the slight smoky flavor infused with the vegetables that got me.
On my to do list is to actually eat here for lunch or dinner one day. And, yes, I will order all three of those dishes, plus more.