Spice of India

This place is open. It’s called CHETTINAD CUISINE AND IS UNDER A NEW MANAGEMENT. Dont know why people say it is closed. Google and Unilocal both report it to be closed, but this place is open. Called and checked personally. Food is infact better than in the recent past

Food is below average not at all Indian. Not spicy at all. Also most of the time there is no delivery. Buffet is the worst. It’s the last resort if your really hungry.

I’ve stepped into Indians best. Or Indians best is brought to this place. Ive tried 3 othr indian resturants. But this one is quite the delite, delightful chicken tikka masala; it’s always a go-​to for me, w/​Naan &rice.MmMm, i like just enough spice so i usually get the medium flare. Just tried their flourless carrot cake; different but authentic, and taste great almost like a carrot cake without the cake lol. Also, the rice pudding is good too, a little watery for for taste tho, I’ll still order but makes me remember my grandmother’s recipe.

Not a good place if you know how Indian food really tastes. Buffet is value for money but there are better places to eat Indian food in town.

They made me wait an hour and still got the wrong order. Disappointed with the service.

Pretty good food. Really good butter chicken and kadai chicken. My husband always gets their lamb biryani and it’s awesome. Only star I had to take off for slowish service

They don’t have delivery even thought its it says they do on their Unilocal page and it’s even posted on their window. The food tasted horrible! I’ve tried many Indian restaurants and this one lacked flavor and tasted watered down.

I spent $ 11 on biryani to realize that this is the worst Biryani I had eaten in the last 10 years!
Don’t buy biryani from here what so ever!

I’ve been here three times for their lunch buffet and it’s usually been pretty mediocre but will satisfy a craving for Indian food. I’m pretty new and unfamiliar to the area so it’s something convenient and close by work. The first two times I went there to eat they had excellent service. However, recently it was very bad, slow, and not as clean. Maybe the kid was new or he was filling in for someone but it almost made me not want to go back. However, from my past experiences I know they’ve had better service.
That being said I think it’s a toss up on what you might get during their lunch hours. Just make sure you don’t go before 12 or all of their food won’t be out yet.

The dining room of this location is probably about the size of my living room. Needless to say, there are no frills and the décor is pretty straight forward. If you didn’t know it, this place could be interchanged with any kind of restaurant. They apparently have a lunch buffet and there were three buffet dishes in the corner.
I feel like the quality of the food is not commensurate with the price but, in a pinch, it will do. The website for the business could stand a little work and we had to end up calling to get more info about the availability of certain items. The meat in the food seemed a little sparse and there was a little too much sauce. My partner and I both agreed that the food was not the quality of previous Indian restaurant experiences but I will say this… there was definitely a «spaghetti effect». You know how the day after you make spaghetti, it always tastes better? Well, I experienced the same thing when I took the leftovers for lunch. It seemed more flavorful and I enjoyed it the second time around, hence the three star rating, otherwise I would have given them a two star rating.

So, before trying this place I obviously turned to Unilocalers– but after trying it, I have to say I disagree with most of the reviews.
People seem to either hate it or love it, and I’m in between. We ordered the paneer makhni and garlic naan. It was delicious, but could have been a little more spicy!
(*tip– if you like spicy food like us, spicy isn’t spicy here! Ask for a little extra)
After our first experience went well, we kept going back– and basically, it is either hit or miss. 2^nd visit, we opted to order to go, but got home and our order was all wrong.
I mean all in all, it’s worth going back. I will just be a little more specific when I order and double chk my to-​go orders ;)

Being an Indian and missing the kind of food I have back home, this place really comes handy and is a good place to have some Indian cuisine in the area.
Interior not so good, but the taste of food is contradictory to it. Specially the Naan they serve (garlic/​butter) Gooood…
Lunch Buffet is totally value for money. Appetizers have some authentic Indian taste. Price pretty cheap or I would say average.
2 star less (1 for not so good interior, 1 for not the authentic taste of some dishes)

Indian food is one of my most favoritest things (alongside Vietnamese and BBQ), so when I discovered this place, I was very eager to try it out. It’s a small place tucked away in a little strip mall and after sitting down, I noticed the carpet could’ve used a good vacuuming. Umm… blah. But I forged ahead and ordered Chicken Tikka Masala and Peshawari naan bread. The owner or chef (or maybe he was both) came out and kindly recommended that garlic naan would be a more suitable match with the Tikka, so I bowed to his better judgement.
As I waited, I mused on the curiousness of an Indian restaurant having only young Vietnamese waitresses, but as they were highly attractive AND extremely efficient, I didn’t dwell on it and instead watched the Bollywood music videos on the TV. I nearly said Bollywood MTV, but everyone knows there’s no M on MTV.
After a very short wait, my meal arrived steaming hot and looking quite succulent, but wait… where’s the rice?
Beautiful Vietnamese waitress: «Sorry, It doesn’t come with rice. You have to order that separately.»
David: «Do what? No rice with an Indian meal!?!
Beautiful Vietnamese waitress: «That’s the way they serve it here»
Dude, don’t nickel and dime me over 3¢ worth of rice! In any case, the food was quite tasty, though not spectacular, but definitely very good quality and well prepared. The staff were all very pleasant, helpful, and attentive. The plus of the good food balanced against the negative of the less-​than-​clean carpets and being a miser with the rice brings me to 3 stars. I would’ve gone 4 stars, but there you go. I’ve been back a second time and got the Butter Chicken. Same good food and pretty waitresses, as well as the same slightly dirty carpet. I’d be happy to go back again, if for no other reason than to see if they ever break down and run out the vacuum cleaner!

Caught the end of the weekend lunch buffet, but food was hot and delicious! Mostly ‘natives’, which always makes me think it’s a good choice. Only problem was we had to wait 20 minutes for naan, especially since there was a large party of 16 blocking us in. People, scoot your chairs in! Small restaurant.

Good food,
The best part I like is that they have a couple of new side dishes in the buffet.
They drop off food pretty quickly if you live in the neighborhood.
The prices are reasonable too and the restaurant is kept clean despite of that. It is definitely not like other cheap Indian places at Hillcroft.
In Buffet– Dont miss goat curry and samosas if they have it.
In dinner– get chicken tikka masala.

The good — price, variety, and some typical Indian dishes — chicken chilly, chicken schezwan, masala dosa, home delivery if you stay near the medical center
The bad — slow service
The ugly — not a very safe neighborhood in case you don’t have a car

First of all, I live down the street from this place. So, part of the reason I am giving this a good rating is this is super convenient for me, and my boyfriend and I are regulars here.
The best format of enjoying this place is to go for the lunch buffet. There are a good number of items (prevents you from overeating), smaller trays so they are forced to make just enough and keep the food fresh, and the tables are clean with white table cloths and fresh flowers. This place is small but I am convinced they are clean and tidy. The owner knows my guy and me by now since we do the lunch buffet a few times a month.
This place has the option of delivery. If you get the delivery, I recommend you get a masala dosa, tandoori chicken, naan, rice, or saag paneer dish. These will be fine via delivery. The items that we ordered such as chicken vindaloo and goat curry were not satisfactory due to the containers being mostly gravy with very few meat pieces. In fact, I had to cut up my own chicken that I made at home to use with the gravy. It was as though I just paid $ 8.99 for gravy instead of goat curry. So, avoid making that mistake.
The food is tasty, and my parents are from India so I grew up eating a lot of Indian food. I really like that you will not leave this joint with your mouth on fire from too much spice and chili powder. This is my 2012 food review. I noticed some of these reviews say the food is poor. Please note the date stamps for those reviews. There could have been another chef at that time. Also, I will admit that this place is not on a Hilcroft level of «good.» It is unfair to compare them to Hilcroft, or to restaurants that are more expensive like Bombay Brasserie. If you are in this area, the cost and convenience of this place is fantastic for the cleanliness and tastiness of this menu.
That being said, if you have out-​of-​town guests, this is not the place to take them to show off the best of Houston. This is not a «destination» restaurant for you and your friends to meet at. It’s a convenient place for people who live here and want some affordable Indian food, or if you want something delivered. Not too many Indian restaurants offer delivery. That is a huge plus factor for me.
Sorry for the long review, but this restaurant really doesn’t deserve as low of a rating as it has on Unilocal.Keep neighborhood businesses going and support Spice of India!

So recently a friend wanted to grab dinner and she looked up a place near by on google maps and suggested this place. I was tired and let her do the picking. I did know it was not a place I had ever tried so a new experience was OK in my book.
When we arrived at the place I was like… OH this strip center. Everything in the strip besides the sandwich shop is meh…
But I figure I only order 3 main dishes when I eat Indian, so I should be safe. These items are butter chicken, chicken tikka masala, and chicken briyani. Which happened to be the 3 dishes our group ordered. We also added in an order of garlic naan, which I loved at himalaya. This place is NO himalaya.
First off, it took FOREVER, to get our meals, almost 30 minutes? Luckily we had not seen each other in a while so we did take that time to converse.
When the food came out the curries and rice dishes only had a few pieces of chicken. They were really skimping. Then the taste was just off. Didn’t taste correct. The naan was a fail also.
The worst part about all of this was the prices, they were actually on par with the better places in town if not more expensive.
They did refill my water. I would never come back here.

I was really excited to try this place because I’ve been really busy at work and haven’t had the chance to go out in a long time. Plus I love Indian food!
I went there and it’s really small. Maybe 6 tables max? I guess this place is more tailored towards take out. We were the only table there but granted it was only 530pm on a weekday. I ordered the chicken tikka masala and to be honest I was really disappointed. I feel bad giving a negative review since the guy helping us was really attentive and nice. My entrée was just not good. The chicken was really dry and the base was sour. Not the typical tikka masala that I’m use to getting which is usually pretty rich and flavorful with spices and tomato sauce but it didn’t taste anything like it. I got ‘spicy’ and there was a slight hint but I feel like they could’ve done more. This tikka masala was really lackluster. I didn’t finish my meal and I usually do but I was not interested in eating it. Kind of wish I stayed home.

Giving them 3 stars is being too nice (I would just give 2.5 stars)… I tried this place with one of my co-​worker because I just love Indian food. Once entering this establishment, we noticed that it was very small with a small buffet table. Maybe it was their «off» day since the A/​C was out and they had their fan trying to blow air. Their lunch buffet is (7.95 per person), if you order ice tea (1.49) and their lunch buffet was just okay… the total bill comes out to $ 10.22.
On their menu was Fish Vinadalo (it’s a tomato based which has pieces of fish but I couldn’t really tell the flavor of this dish. It tasted like water down ketchup), Chicken Tikka Masala (I love this dish, well… the screw this one up with watery sauce.), Goat vegetarian curry (small pieces of goats), Palak Paneer (Goat cheese & spinach which seems like they couldn’t screw this up and its good), Dal Makhani (I think this was bean curry maybe. It was Bleh!!!), and Peas Pulao (which was curry flavor rice with peas). Plus, their Naan did not taste like real Naan. It tasted and was thin like a tortilla.
I don’t think we will be back. I would rather go to the Rice village to get my Indian food. But, maybe its the price you pay.