Madras Pavilion

Ate there last Thursday, April 23, 2015. We were told (and they were putting up signs on the door) that this was their last week open at this 3910 Kirby Dr location. The building they are in is scheduled for demolition and all the tenants were given 30 days to vacate. We were told that they’d been 19 years at Kirby Dr and they were looking to move somewhere within a few miles of the Kirby location.
On that Thursday, we had a delicious meal from the buffet. The food was spicy, but my wife who is pretty sensitive to hot spicing still declared it was a great meal. I really like that I can get a dosai as part of the buffet.
We would definitely go back again when we’re next in that area of Houston and we’ll be looking out for their new location.

The host was so patient with all the questions I asked about the food being served. Being vegan is difficult, but he went all the way by showing me which plates I may serve myself.

Buffet can be hit or miss with the items and freshness. The restaurant though gives me a welcome alternative to having to go to Hillcroft for South Indian food. Dosas are consistently good and they are huge when you order off the menu instead of the personal sized ones that come with the buffet.
I’ve had both the north indian and south indian thalis and have gotten items that apparently weren’t reheated long enough in that they were still cold from refrigeration. Guess not everything is made to order.

It’s usually pretty quiet on Saturday nights, but this place earns a South Asian seal of approval. I haven’t tried the buffet or any of the other food options in a while. However, I usually come here whenever I’m craving dosas. It happens often. The masala dosas (think of it as an Indian crêpe stuffed with Indian-​style potatoes and onions) are so good!

If you love India food go try this restaurant. I have eaten at this place several times the staff is wonderful but the food selection is good I never tried their buffet but I would love to one day before they relocate this year. I love their rice crepes dishes and noodles its a vegetarian style restaurant for the veggie lover.

Good authentic south indian cuisine! the buffet was reasonable with lots of variety. sambhar (best i hav had in houston so far).vada, saag paneer, bhindi, fried rice etc etc. curries werent oily as other places in town. only thing which they can improve on is the chapati (roti) .it was rubberry. overall for $ 12 the food was tasty with complimentary fresh dosa at your table. filter coffee (special coffee) was decent too. i would visit again definitely!

Omg what a horrible place. I thought I would totally appreciate South Indian restaurant knowing that there weren’t a lot of choice to eat South Indian food. I should have just guessed it from the décor that the food is also going to be as boring as this place looks like.
Where to begin? From old flatware and dishes to old décor? I thought hey food will make it up, I was wrong I took one bite and had to just regret coming here. My daughter loves idli and she could not even eat her favorite dish.
I recommend going somewhere else before coming here. This is not South Indian food I thought. My kid said the food is bland? She is only 11 and she even didn’t like anything on the menu.
I hate to give one star but I would think twice before coming here again.
I don’t know may be my standards are high for dinning out…
Will not come back

We aren’t Indian food experts but wanted to try. The lunch buffet was a bunch of undescribed food. Many of the labels for the items were missing. We didn’t know what we were trying. It all tasted good but it would be nice to know what was there. The décor was what you would expect from an old strip center restaurant. We will probably try another place next time.

Me and hubby went there for dinner and not knowing the portion size, we ordered one of each of the dinner specials (South Indian Thali and North Indian Thali). I guess they are like samplers of the cuisines of the regions. When the food arrived, we were floored by the variety and the size. Everything was so delicious! We took home most of the food and ate it for another two meals (no kidding!) The owner is very friendly and the place is clean and well-​lit. We love vegetarian food and this place is definitely going to get repeat business from us.

I’ve been disappointed with other Indian restaurants in the area serving overpriced, oil-​soaked food, so I was pleasantly surprised by my lunch at Madras Pavilion.
I only ordered raita and a masala dosa, but the dosa was excellent. I got the paper thin version and it was just as it should be. The price point is still a little high for me, but the dosa was excellent.
I am looking forward to returning and trying other menu options.

The BEST Indian buffet I’ve been to!
(I’m Indian so that’s saying something)
–Lots of South Indian options including vada, idli, and avial
–Lots of North Indian options including paneer tikka and biryani
–Lots of mixed stuff like munchurian and fried paneer bites
AND BEST OF ALL, THE $ 12 LUNCH BUFFET INCLUDES DOSA!!!
The sambar was excellent. Perfectly made. The curries weren’t oily like almost all buffets. Salt was well balanced.
Wish I lived in Houston so I could go again *tear*.
If you live nearby, GO!

Authentic, delicious, feel-​good food.
The natural light and calming music were a refreshing change from some loud, bustling restaurants I’ve visited, so that was a plus. It wasn’t crowded for a Saturday evening, and my group of 4 didn’t have to wait for a table — another plus.
By the time our food arrived, we were starving, but IT WAS WORTH IT. The paneer butter masala was creamy, decadent, and worthy of scraping the plate. The spicy vegetable curry lived up to its name, so beware. And the Malai Kofta was everything I dreamed of. We all ordered different breads, and they were all fluffy and scrumptious.
As a carnivore, I was impressed by this place.

On thing I really liked about this place was the lighting. Well lit, with a lot if natural light coming in.
Great buffet. Simple, authentic South Indian food tht reminded me of home :)

I’m vegan and I love Indian food. I was happy to find a vegetarian Indian restaurant during my stay in Houston. I must add that the food was very spicy for me and my boyfriend, however we forgot to specify for mild food. The dosas were great and we enjoyed our less spicy plate, hence I would still recommend this place and would consider going back.

I’ve traveled in India and have visited a variety of Indian restaurants in the USA, so being new to Houston, I checked this one out.
I’ll give semi-​thumbs up on the dosa. I love masala dosa, and their potatoes/​onion combination was good. However, thumbs down on the vada. I just didn’t like it, and that’s one of the best foods to indulge.
Ultimately, I’d probably come here again for the dosa, but I’m iffy whether this would be a reoccurring event. I expect there will be better in Houston. For the price though, you can’t really complain here.
Parking is easy.
Staff is friendly.

I am visiting Houston and my brother knows I love Indian so he recommended the whole family have dinner here. We arrived 30 minutes before the closed and had a large table of ten. They never made us feel rushed which I always appreciate from a restaurant and we had I great time. The food was outstanding and even my mother who swears «she can’t eat spicy food and never will» loved her dish:)
We loved this place and will definitely be back. The place is kosher which I think is brilliant, it really gives me a chance to eat Indian with my Kosher family!

Quick tips: I would skip a la carte items as your best bet is with their buffet. As for a la carte the paneer butter masala is good, but a bit greasy. Also, 12 plus dollars is a little pricy. In terms of authenticity, this is a South Indian type restaurant and as a South Indian, I feel equipped to say it is very authentic. Similar but not as good as what my mom cooks at home.
Food: The idli with various sauces (coconut) is good. If you want to sound like a pro, the sauce is called pachidi. It is a rice cake and pretty light for those watching their weight.
Service: good attentive service.
Ambiance: No frills, convenient Indian food in Upper Kirby. Come to explore, not to impress.

Madras is a vegetarian/​kosher restaurant option inside the loop. For lunch there is a buffet. I usually disagree with Ellen C. on buffets, because quantity always trump quality in life and in love, but I think she was spot on about what this buffet is like. The food was tepid looking. It looked it had been chillaxing and scoping out the view for some time. I don’t mean it grew legs and walked out. It just was not fresh off of the barbie — which is usually impracticable at buffets, except for the ones that make you go ‘dang son’ such as the (unfortunately) closed Bhog56 and the Cuisine India near JSC that continually is wheeling out fresh, steaming hot food into the bins of food. I did not see a single thing get freshened up the entire buffet lunch we were here.
The lettuce looked dull and sad in the bin that held cut up cucumbers, lemons, and some other salad-​ish things such as tomato hunks. I wanted some greenery (no that kind hehe) but in the end was just as unfulfilled by the «salad» bin as I was by the saag paneer. That looked the oldest thing in the buffet line, almost swamplike with a huge mound of water settled in the middle of the bin, and it was not steaming hot or as creamy as I am used to from other restaurants or the frozen thing you buy at Whole Foods and microwave yourself with all of your culinary skills brought to bear. There were two rice styles, the white jasmine style and a yellower, more buttery sort of thing. I took tiny portions of the few other bins they had just so I could say I tried everything. This was the saddest looking single plate I have ever amassed at a buffet place — I had not eaten everything I could but there was nothing I felt merited a second trip to the buffet line for another plate; my dining companion did make repeat visits to the buffet line though. The only thing I was mildly sure was fresher than two hours was when the manager walked around for our dosa order — spicy pls. Unfortunately it was not spicy at all. If weaksauce was a sauce that was weak, this would be the watered down weaksauce branded as WEEKsauce™
As opposed to the sleeker, upscale Pondicheri down the road this is more of the Ploughman’s option. It is in a much older, dingier sort of environs. It has a much different character than Pondicheri and the re-​designed Cuisine India were going for. This was mostly going for «bucket of food for cheap, eat it, and shuddup» — there was no pretension about this place. It’s not without its charm but personally the food quality and very limited number of options in the buffet make me unfortunately have to dub this the worst Indian lunch buffet in the Houston area I have eaten at — even the Bombay Brasserie by the Galleria which I did not greatly enjoy, still had better food quality and more options. With that being said, Madras does offer something else «off of the menu» which I will address in the next paragraph.
I found it humorous that by accident nearly everyone in the restaurant during lunch was Jewish — there was a table of men in the corner representing the Orthodox (kosher) contingent and me and my dining companion throwing up the lazy, but progressive Reform contingent gang signs, and a couple that was unaffiliated either by not wearing their yarmulke in public nor me knowing them well enough over the past decade that I knew what religion they were. Another humorous tie-​in to this strip mall is that my worst date with a [you guessed it, Jewish] woman took place next door at the Red Onion in 2008.
While the food was going to get a weak two stars from me, I added an extra star because of the sense of community that was found in this one restaurant during one lunch one afternoon that is noticeably absent from every other dining experience where the demographics are always much more illustrative of how few Jedis there are in Texas. Also they were better behaved than the usual truckload of Brooks Brothers pastel-​colored pant wearing investment banking idjits that seem to have just multiplied overnight in every single restaurant I go into, downtown and elsewhere. Their conversations are loud and obnoxious, as if their pants colors did not give it away that they are terrible people, the words coming out of their mouths prove it sentence by sentence. Here, the conversation was much quieter, and more interesting to overhear.
It’s a place you could take your Jewish mother.

This is a family owned Indian joint, with good vegetarian food. We got a pretty large take out order of stuff, most of it was well done. There wasn’t anything particularly standout, so I can’t give you any details.
They did tell us it would be ready in 20 minutes, and it ended up taking closer to 40 minutes!

Did not care for the iteams on the lunch buffet. Can’t say the waitstaff is not attentive. Went up to get more food and my table was almost cleaned. Had to start over again but they meant well.
What I don’t feel great about is if you walk/​drive by the side door you’ll see a mess of things coming out of the restaurant. Not a pretty site.