Godavari Chicago

This place is really authentic, food is memorably flavorful and it is so good that the place is always crowded with its patrons. Godavari maintains high standards of flavor, freshness and authenticity and I am extremely impressed with the manner in which they do it every day. Highly recommended.

Nice Authentic Indian Food… I love varieties of food they offer for buffet with a bit of Spicy touch… never had la-​carte hence cant comment on it. If you’re craving during lunch time. would recommend this as go-​to place…

Food was terrible. The portions sizes were clearly quantity over quality. Waste of a calorie intake!

Busy restaurant — Food is fresh and tastes good. The choices range from south Indian dosa, uthapam, rasam to Punjabi tandoori chicken, Naan, fish and butter chicken with good selection of desserts and nice masala tea. The Chicken Dum Biryani is good.
Service is fast and waiters pay attention to tables — eg refilling water without asking, quick check processing,

Very prompt in seating and taking the order. I wish they were this prompt in bringing the food also. Took them 40 minutes to bring our dosas. Their excuse was that everyone had ordered dosas so they were running late on orders… Ummm I guess a restaurant should be able to handle whatever ppl order off the menu.
The 3 stars are for its food which was decent.

Nice selection of items for the lunch buffet. But the service can be better. They advertise on opening the restaurant at 11:30 whereas they actually open at 12:00 and the food gets ready on the buffet at 12:30. Had to wait over an hour just to get started that particular day. No qualms on the food though.

** Enters the restaurant **
South indian music (tamil) on TV.
** Thinks to self **: This is giving me hopes.
The food was pretty good, it was a long time coming to catch up with a friend before he moved out of the state and we had an early dinner here on a weekday so there was not much crowd.
We ordered the chicken briyani (boneless) which was a little bit of a letdown because it was chicken 65 mixed with briyani. (It wasn’t dum — meaning chicken was not cooked with rice to give extra flavors)
The naan and chicken gravy was really good and spicy. The babycorn was really good. Loved it. It was a lot of food for just two guys, we ended up packing just a little.
The price was fine, if there was a bigger group I think it’s worth it.

Was very excited to come here for the buffet on sunday. The veggie menu was a disaster. Add the bad service to this and you end up feeling why you wanted to come here in the first place.
Pros:
1. Good Ambience
2. Desserts are good.
3. … can’t think of more!
Cons:
1. Bland food
2. Bad service
3. Very noisy
Suggestion: You need to work on customer service and have a word with the chefs regarding the veggie dishes.

Only south indian breakfast items are good, didn’t like the non-​veg items. I tried biryani and royyala vepudu, not good.
Also, leftover food from dinner started smell in the morning.

I’m generally wary of indian buffets, since I’ve consistently had bad experiences with quality, so much so that I consciously avoid them. Going here wasn’t my decision, but I was taken on a recommendation by friends while visiting Chicago.
Godavari was able to maintain a high quality of their buffet items through the weekend lunch rush, which pleasantly surprised me.
Ambiance: 3.5*
This is a standard indian restaurant. They have a mid-​sized space, which is clearly small for their popularity. They have a buffet lined along one wall and tables everywhere else. The place isn’t particularly decorated, but it is kept very clean, and the furniture is new and nice.
Service: 2.5*
The service isn’t particularly great, but this place is very busy and so it might be slow. The people are friendly, but nothing else. We had to wait for a long time for someone to clear our places.
Also, unusually, we had some friends who went an hour later on the same day, and they said they got some things on the buffet that wasn’t there when we were seated just an hour before. I found that very strange.
Food: 4.5*
This is one of the very few specialized south indian buffets I’ve been to, and I was very impressed with the food and quality.
Generally in buffets, there are one or two dishes really good, and everything else is mediocre. I found that here, almost everything was excellent, and only one or two dishes weren’t good, which incidentally turned out to be north indian dishes like shahi paneer, which they don’t specialize in anyway.
They didn’t have dosas, but everything there, from the appetizers to the biryani was delicious, and they were able to maintain quality through the rush. Very well managed. I can’t say how authentic the food is, but it sure is tasty.
I however, was disappointed with the dessert selection, which I had high expectations from, specially after the great buffet.
Value: 3.5*
The buffet is definitely one of the more expensive indian buffets I’ve had, about $ 20 after taxes and tips. However, the food quality is great, so it’s somewhat justified.
I really enjoyed the food here, even though I’m very critical about buffets. I would recommend this to everyone who enjoys south indian food. Please don’t expect the normal paneer, butter chicken, dal makhani, or you’ll be disappointed.

Honestly, the best Indian food I’ve had in a while, if not the best! Ordered delivery via Eat24 and so happy I did! I will recommend to friends

So this was my first time experiencing an Indian restaurant that only had a buffet, and also an Indian restaurant that is solely Southern Indian. Luckily, I had a friend whose family is from Southern India and understands this cuisine, so she could walk me through it.
They will not give you a menu when it is buffet time (lunch time specifically… I don’t know if here is a menu for dinner). There are signs by each dish, but it doesn’t explain what is in it. Ok, I know this is hard to believe, but I’m actually not Indian. I’m dumb and I need explanations. My guess is I’m not the only white kid out there that needs this, so… it would be helpful if you are trying to appeal to people who are adventurous eaters but have no idea what they are doing.
The service was great, they were good about clearing plates, bringing the check in a timely manner, super friendly and thankful that we were there, I have absolutely no complaints about that.
The food does lean towards the spicier side. Not burning your tongue off hot, but enough. That’s the one good thing about being able to order off of a menu is you can specify what degree of hotness you want. But, it wasn’t unbearable. They have a decent variety. Some of the deserts were not my favorite, but that is my taste. The chai tea is very good. Along with the naan bread and butter chicken. You can’t go wrong there.
Overall, great place, I would come back again. Nice to have a specifically Southern Indian restaurant in the area.

Went in for buffet lunch on Saturday with family that stays in Chicago and are loyal fans of this restaurant. I agree wholeheartedly — Excellent food, cheerful staff, and decent ambience. Compared to some Indian restaurants, they don’t inundate you with a gazillion uninspired options. Instead there were enough ‘yummilicious’ options of veggies/​curries, rice, starters and desserts to suit both North & South Indian palettes. Didn’t like waiting in line for dosas though! Still I guess that’s expected from a highly popular restaurant. Being vegetarian, can’t comment on the non-​veg except I did see trays of those too.
My favs? Rice payasam, fruit custard with red berry designer swirls dressing, Chole samosa chaat, kadai paneer, baby corn pakodas.
Be sure to bring an empty tummy! ;) Bön appetit!

Indian food is hot.
Ok, not all Indian food is hot. Some of it is intentionally not hot so you can survive the next bite of the insanely hot.
We went for lunch a couple of weeks ago, and I’m so glad that the guys I went with had some sort of clue what they were eating. But the funny thing is, when we were about ½ done they said «yeah, you never quite know what you are going to get from one Indian restaurant to another!» For example, the chips (or whatever they were called) were salty here. At other places I am told they can also be sweet, or just very plain.
Rice dishes, chicken dishes, bread, and ochre were all very good. Tip: if it looks spicy, it probably is. If it doesn’t look spicy, it’s probably spicy.
I thoroughly enjoyed lunch, and look forward to my next Indian buffet.
Lunch buffets are common at most Indian restaurants, and the most economical way to try a bunch of dishes if you aren’t sure what you like. From what I was told, these places usually don’t have buffets at dinner. And while I am definitely not a huge buffet person, the food here looked fresh and well kept. Of course, it might be the hot spices that keep it fresh as well.

Godavari is my new fav South Indian cuisine restaurant.- I just love it! And I extra love that there is no need to drive to Devon Ave, or Chicago.- it’s right in the NW Suburb of Schaumburg!. Delicious delicious food.- several Vegan options (and I don’t just mean Vegetarian — because unlike many Indians, who cook with and enjoy cow milk, I am now a true Vegan). Decent prices.- generous serving sizes.. Very friendly, personable, helpful, and informative Manager Guy, Gajendran, (who my Partner and I both enjoyed chatting with).- really great guy: new to America one month, and adorable! Really good service.. Everyone there enjoying the dining was (or appeared to be) Indian.- great sign (in any ‘ethnic’ restaurant.. I love love loved the music (it went along with videos, but I didn’t really watch) — it made me so happy and so wanna dance. The Server Manager Guy suggested I Google ‘South Indian music video 2016′ — so idk the technical genre, but it was great!. I kinda liked the décor (old school authentic Indian photos on the walls, and really cute and festive stuff hanging from the ceiling. Of course a gorgeous Ganesh idol to greet at the front.
I’ll be back every time able.
*°

The most amazing Indian food I’ve had in a while. Let me break it down.
Ambiance: It had a nice Telugu feel to it with all the South Indian celeb pictures that were hung up. We did miss seeing Cheranjeevi there haha! They had a nice playlist of Telugu, Hindi and surprisingly Tamil songs. It was a welcome change to the boring sitar music or even more depressing old Hindi movie songs. Kept our whole bunch quite upbeat for the reminder of the meal.
Service: As a group of 4, we were attended upon arrival and promptly seated. We were asked about our seating preference. Glasses were refilled without having to be asked. Most of the tables were filled but we had adequate attention and not bugged to many times by the service people. Food arrives as soon as it gets ready. So don’t expect your whole meal to arrive at once. I had no issues with this because everything tastes fresh and is piping hot. We had to sit our shrimp for about 10 mins to be able to eat without burning our mouth!
Food: Oh god! This was the best part. We had a few halal people in our party and ended up getting a lot of sea food. The fish vepudu was amazing so was the shrimp fry. I haven’t had such good sea food in a while. They were well seasoned and spicy. The presentation was good. We had 2 vegetarian dishes: the babycorn something and the schezuan fried rice. They were very accommodating with our request to add egg on our fried rice. I can see these being a staple for every time we come in. We got 2 different kinds of dosas: the paneer dosa and the Mysore spl dosa. They were nice and crispy, not something you can expect in any eatery on devon, and came with 3 chutneys and sambar. Exceptional. I would suggest the Mysore dosa. Even the aloo filling was quite good. Finally we got the chikakura chicken. It came with rice, but paled in comparison to the amazing sea food, shrimp especially that we had.
Price: The prices were quite moderate for the food that is being served.
On the whole. If you are looking for some good Indian food, this would be my number 1 recommendation. With all the seafood options it would be a wonderful halal place too. Please make an effort to drive down here and forget about Devon!

Customer service is HORRIBLE. We had to remind the server nearly 8 times to get us water, glasses, plates etc. Water would come to our table and we’d be waiting for glasses… appetizer would be on the table and we’d be waiting for the plates. The vegetarian platter had only one Mirchi bhajia, one samosa n one bonda (without any chutneys) for $ 12…three idlis for $ 8– RIDICULOUSLY over priced. Biryani & dosas were good though.
Basically, food is good but definitely not worth the money you spend here & the service you get.

Want really authentic «andhra «food which is spicy, visit this restaurant you will not be disappointed instead you will be virtually eating in «Andhra » .
The management managed to maintain authenticity from ambiance to food menu .We did have both lunch buffet and dinner A-​la-​carta both are beyond exception .The Indo-​Chinese foods they serve made us feel we are literally in India. If you are a South Indian this is a must place to dine in. The only thing about this place is that it’s location, and there is no hoarding or sign to the location.

Good place. Good food. Spiciest food i have ever had in 30 years. Dosas were good too

4.5 STARS
First of all I am a HUGE fan of their Menu Names, the names were so interesting that I wanted to try almost everything.
So I have had their food on three different occasions last week .
–Dine In +Take out on a week day evening
–Weekend Buffet
–Catering Order at a friends party
Our dine in experience was a 4 star, we got an appetizer for dine in and rest of food for take out. Their Guntur Mirapakay Bajji was excellent. It was spicy, served Hot and perfect for a winter evening. And got their Kurnool Kodi Koora & Konaseema Royyala Curry for take out, we asked them to make our food spicy and they did.
I dont know how exactly the names of the items were relevant to the areas they are named after but they were definitely good and spicy and unlike anything I have had before here in the States. Both the curries reminded me of homemade food. I thought they were slightly pricey for the portions they gave us .
Weekend Buffet was CHAOTIC. There were tonnes of items on the Buffet and I was immediately Overwhelmed, There were almost too many options of everything like appetizers, curries, rice specials, Normally I see non vegetarian dishes clouding vegetarian dishes on a weekend buffet at any other place but this is the only Buffet that offered same number of vegetarian dishes as non veg and everything was equally good. I should really appreciate the effort that went into prepping so many items .
Pros
–Many options to choose from both Veg &Non Veg
–All items were refilled time to time
–Friendly staff
Cons
–Way too chaotic and no proper waiting area for incoming Crowd
–We were a group of 9 people and our seating arrangement was tight and Dingy.
–Styrofoam cups and plastic spoons for desert ?
— Fish with Bones on a Buffet? — A BIG NO NO
My friends had a party at their place and food was catered from this place, everything was perfection, Malai Kofta and Ulavacharu were the stars.
For a place thats been opened for only 2 weeks this place is doing an Excellent Job, who ever named the items on their Menu deserves appreciation.
P.S — I have never had Duck before in my life and I am a fan now, thanks to their BEZAWADA BATHU Curry