India Grill

The food was super yummy, the service was great. When you order wine they FILL the glass!

I’ve been going to this place for a few years, and honestly it hits the spot for cheap, filling Indian food. I never go to the buffet; the dinner menu is much fresher and overall much better.
The service is always nice, they leave plenty of water, and the servers are attentive. I consider this a baseline Indian place: I don’t get too fancy and expect complex creations or imaginative new curries– just good plain food (for an Indian).
The chicken curry is ok, the tikka masala a bit better, the lamb rogan josh is good, and the butter chicken is THE BEST. The paneer makhani is great too. Those 2 last dishes are the reason I keep coming to India Grill even though there are so many other options around: if you like creamy and rich makhani sauce, get this.
I also love the fact that they have aloo and plain parathas. Ask for chilled mango lassi. If they have ras malai available as dessert that day, get it.
For non-​Indians, consider this the basic Indian restaurant. Good, filling, fairly cheap, does 2 – 3 basic dishes very well.

I am giving 1 star only because I cannot give zero. The most pathetic food I have ever paid for in my life, and I paid for it because I don’t like to complain if food is free, and I just cannot let go of it. Papri Chat was bland, Samosa Chat was a pile of tomatoes, Mutter Paneer was uncooked, poori was oily, veg pakoras was salty and the worst was what the gave out as chicken biriyani… oily rice and uncooked chicken… I can cook better food with my eyes closed and using only my left leg… Advice to the owner, please eat the food you served today, and then review my review.

Ask for the Indian spices! Boy are they hot! Food, not so bad either :-) Been here several times since.

I’ve been here twice. Both times have been pretty bad experiences. First off, don’t even attempt the Mango Lassi. They are sitting at room temperature all day and were poured from a pitcher into a glass. It tasted like pure corn syrup. The lunch buffet consist of over salted, bland Indian food. Service was non existent. Good Indian food has layers of spice that makes it unique from every other type of food. Here they use tons of salt and cream and it just doesn’t come across well in their food.

Might not look hopping from the outside but they do the best Indian I’ve had in the area. Menu is extensive includes plenty of lamb options and their lamb is tender (not something you can always count on at other places). Chicken dishes come out juicy too. The sauces taste fresh and homemade, not too heavy or oily. We’ve done the standard dishes, madras, chicken tikka masala, etc. if you need your curry fix you can get it here.

Any one that eats here and thinks it’s great has no idea what Indian food is suppose to be. It really leaves me wondering who’s in the kitchen and what of nationality. The food has a tremendous amount of oil and not well spiced. This is as Americanized as it gets, but not in a good way.
I was really hoping this place would be better after its re-​opening as driving to North Tampa/​USF is a pain in order to get decent Indian food. But this is overall a disappointment.
There is no competition for Indian food in St Pete, so hopefully someone will keep trying and finally get it right.

Slop and crap in disguise as Indian food. Place is filthy and stinks up the block. Get outta here already!!!

I’ve come here a few times for the buffet and know very little about Indian food other than what naan is, so my review may have to taken with a grain of salt.
The buffet was mostly fresh. Loved the rice and naan as well as the mango pudding. The fried vegetable concoction (not sure what it’s called exactly) was also cooked well and fresh. Some of the items seemed to be sitting out for some time, though. The service was okay but I thought it could be better because there aren’t many people there when I go.
Overall, decent Indian buffet. I know there are more highly rated Indian places in the area, so I recommend coming here for the buffet if you’ve never tried Indian food before.

This place is garbage. If you actually appreciate Indian food then you will regret eating here

So I love Indian food…
India Grill never disappoints me. The price points are great, the food is fresh and the staff doesn’t talk your ear off. I’ve gotten food here to go, as well as dined in (a lot) and it’s always so good.
I’ve actually never tried the lunch buffet, but from what I hear it is amazing! Of course it is, what isn’t at India Grill?
I would recommend one thing but I always switch it up because I want to try everything. Yummy! I tried the Indian place across the street from India Grill and it was really gross, and smelled funny.
My only complaint is that sometimes it is hard to find parking, as it is street and downtown St Pete gets busy at night! But that is not the fault of India Grill.

I haven’t had Indian food in a long time and had never been to India Grill before, so my friend and I stopped in for a late night dinner. We arrived around 8:45 and they were set to close at 9:30. We were seated right away and there were a few other occupied tables as well.
One of the hesitations that I usually have with Indian restaurants in general is that they tend to take forever to cook the food, but here this was not the case. We started off with the vegetable pakore (something like an indian version of cauliflower tempura) with accompanying sauce, which was excellent. I also had a bowl of daal (lentil) soup. It was not what I expected, but I was pleasantly surprised, it had some great spices and flavors to it. My friend got the mango lasse and lamb madras, both got a thumbs up from us. We also had an order of the garlic naan, but I wasn’t very impressed with that as I thought it was too crunchy and prefer when the bread is softer.
The prices are a bit on the steep side here (i.e. $ 12.95 for butter chicken entrée, most other entrees in the $ 13 – 15 range), but this is due to the fact that the portions are HUGE. It’s literally enough for 2 – 3 meals to take home for leftovers, so it justifies the slightly higher price tag.
Also, I was highly entertained by the indian music videos playing on the flat screen TV by our table, it really was a fun cultural touch. Since the service was good, the food was tasty and everything was an overall great experience, I will return again. Next time I’m getting some butter chicken. Nom, nom, nom.

Lunch buffet HURRAY!!!
The lentil Daal was awesome and had flavor complexities beyond a typical daal. The spinach dish and the chickpea dish were great too. Loved that the Chicken Biryani had white chicken and was much more flavorful than other biryani’s I have had. BF loved the Butter Chicken and Tandoori Chicken. Fresh hot Naan was delivered to the table.
Super friendly staff, comfortable restaurant, amusing music videos playing on the large screen TV.
Will be back!

Been here twice, and will most likely return because it’s close to where I live.
The décor is pretty bad, but what to expect from a hole-​in-​the-​wall? I do love that they have bollywood movies playing on a screen.
The service was excellent — friendly, funny, attentive.
The food was good. I had lamb curries and they were okay, small portions surprisingly.
I’ll return because of the great service (big thing for me), close to my place, and I support local immigrant business when i can.

Have only been for the lunch buffet, but it is always spot on. They have the same items almost daily, but they are good and I don’t go too often. Splurge and get a King Fisher beer with your meal and enjoy.
The butter chicken is one of my favorites and they have a lot of veg options too.
I like that they leave an entire pitcher of water on your table.
They always have Indian music or Bollywood movies playing on the tv. It is not overly fancy, but has an Indian motif. Lunch stays busy. I dine in, but you can pay by the pound for to go.

This food is mediocre. If you think this is great Indian food, then you have not actually HAD great Indian food. I ordered the Tikka Masala chicken, and it was bright hot pink. It had some kind of food coloring in it; I have never had Tikka Masala that was that color before. It literally looked like it was out of a paint can from Home Depot. It tasted sort of artificial also, and was way too rich. It either had a lot of cream or a lot of ghee or both. The only other way I can describe it is that it was a very rich, oily sauce, that had very little taste.
The plain Basmati rice was good and the naan was no better than the frozen stuff at Publix.
If you really want great Indian food, I’m afraid a trip to the USF area of Tampa is in order. Or, even closer to St. Pete: India’s Grill on Kennedy Blvd. in Tampa is very good.
It’s really such a shame that the quality of restaurants in downtown St. Pete is so subpar.

Went for the lunch and ordered the lunch buffet. It didn’t have as many options as some others I’ve been to, but I liked the majority of the options, so that was a plus.
Prices were reasonable, no like some other lunch buffets. I didn’t order anything else but the buffet, but I’m sure it all would have been good based on what I had. I would like to go back and try some other items in the very near future.

I have had comical service, been invited to sit down even though I arrived 10 minutes later than posted times, had an evening where utensils were scarce and I’ve also had consistently great food. When you ask for India Hot in this restaurant you get it — love the place for all it’s wackiness and more
Latest visit was not so impressive, hopefully it was just an off night. shame if not

I went for lunch buffet with my girlfriends after seeing «Best of Tampa bay» sticker on their window. The place is very dark and just looks dirty and old.
Their buffet selection is very limited and they have only chicken or veggie. No shrimp or lamb. The only good thing they had was the Butter Chicken… very creamy. Everything else was just blah.
The service is not good either. They were just doing the minimum work and since I have tried some Indian lunch buffet at other places, this place did not impress me at all. I would like to know how they got the BEST of TAMPA award. If they were able to get one, then it is like almost everyone should get one too.

Okay so if I could give this place Zero stars I would.
We went to celebrate a friend’s birthday so we were just in the mood to enjoy each others company. We did not have extremely high hopes for amazing food or amazing service. During the course of the meal, we waited an extraordinarily long time for our food and had to ask where it was.
Attempt #1 — When it finally came out we all thought the food looked odd, and when we tasted it confirmed that this was not the food we ordered. A few minutes later another waitress came and asked what we had ordered and figured out that we had been given another table’s food. They took our food back and said they would bring out the correct dishes.
Attempt #2 — They got the dishes correct, but the heat levels on our food were definitely not what we asked for and in addition to that the Shrimp in the Shrimp Biriyani was NOT cooked (actually still clearish in color)…We sent the Biriyani back and told the waitress not to worry about recooking the dish, that we would just share the food we had.
A while later the waitress comes back with the Biriyani and said that the chef insisted that she get her Shrimp Biriyani. By this time we were already full and only had a few bites of the Biriyani. We then asked for a box and the waitress brought it along with the check.
Lo and behold, the Shrimp Biriyani was still being charged to our table. I asked the waitress about it and she stated that the Owner had written the bill himself.
We then asked to speak to him and he came to our table and stated that we got the Biriyani and we should pay for it and then accused us of changing our original order and that’s why he had to remake the food. I advised him that they brought out the incorrect dishes to begin with and that is why he had to remake the food and we had to send it back again because the shrimp wasn’t even cooked. He then was very gruff asked where the Biriyani was, grabbed the to go box and finally said he’d take it off the bill.
Aside from the poor service the Shrimp Biriyani was pretty flavorless. The heat level on the other two dishes we ordered were not what we had asked for and the overall taste of the food was just so-​so. I will definitely never recommend this restaurant to anyone and will not be dining here again, the words Customer Service are definitely lost on the Owner of this Establishment.