Delhi Dhaba

I enjoyed the vegetable pakora with two sauces, red and green. I also liked the chicken korma. We shall return. My wife had the superior talhi sampler special, and she enjoyed the butter chicken. A solid Indian dinner.

From the Bethesda Magazine Blog:
Jun 28, 2011 — 02:08 PM
Delhi Dhaba, the popular Indian restaurant on Bethesda Row, closed its doors last week after 18 years…
Read more at:

Went to Delhi Dhaba the other day for dinner with a big group of people and expected there to be a long wait for the food. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait that long for anything thanks to our awesome server. He was very patient with us when we were trying to decide what to order… which, when you’re in a large group, can take a million years!
I ordered the Malai Kofta and was pretty satisfied with it. With the help of some naan, I completely cleaned up my dish to the point where there was no sauce left. WIN.
Was it the best Indian food I’ve ever had? No. But it also was not the worst. I’d probably go again… but it wouldn’t be my first choice.

We came here for lunch. The service was actually attentive but he forgot to bring some people’s drinks and forgot dessert with the lunch.
I had the lunch special for 10.95. I got chicken tikkah, sag paneer, and chicken curry. There as a cute little salad that came with it and something that looked like raita but had carrots in it.
I like the chicken curry, that’s about all I can say that’s nice. My coworker overshared and said he got a raging case of curry butt after it, I however have the stomach of an ox. Onto other things, the sag paneer was bland, the chicken tikkah was so dry and had no sauce component to it.
This place has some prime real estate for some royally lackluster food.

I tend to overlook bad service, so if I start out my review b*tching about service, that means you will probably get better service at San Quentin (no joke).
The service is gawd awful… ridiculously slow.
–We waited 10 – 15 minutes to get our menu and the restaurant was not busy! WTF???
–We ordered the lunch special which comes with dessert — the waiter forgot to bring our desserts.
–Waiter forgot to bring my friend her paratha (bread), of course they billed us. We pointed out the overcharge to brohan and he replied, «So, you want me to cancel the bread order?» Are you serious dude??? We have been eating for an hour and you just gave us our check… NO, we don’t want the bread anymore.
High chairs were missing safety strap… awesome, danger for my bebes.
We ordered aloo tikki as an appetizer. I felt kinda guilty thinking about all those delicious fried calories. I ate, maybe, one bite; nastiness is a great diet incentive. The aloo tikki was disgusting, hard, pasty, just nasty; chole (chickpeas) was a watery mess.
We ordered the lunch special, 3 items for$ 10.95… sounds like a deal, yeah? Not so much, save your money and calories.
Sag paneer — bland spinach… would have been more flavorful if I boiled spinach without salt.
Chole– makes me want to punch the chef’s mom and dad in the teeth.
Chicken curry– the one decent item. Good flavor.
Rice Pudding — Sweet with a subtle cardamon flavor.
Seriously, I will never eat here again. I hate dissing on a local Indian joint, this review gives me no pleasure (nor did the tummy ache that followed after my meal).

Just got back here from lunch with a friend. I really really liked this place. I’m of Pakstani descent, so I think I’m a pretty good judge of Indian/​Pakistani restaurants. I got the 10.95, three item lunch special. I got chicken tikkah, butter chicken, and chicken curry. First of all, there was a ton of food. The pieces of chicken were humongous. You get to choose between naan or rice and get a small salad and then get keer as well (rice pudding). Service was great as well. They were very attentive. The quality of the food was great as well. Best of all, you can get
coupons that make this place extremely cheap. Will definitely come back here again!

Came here last night with the hubby to meet up with two vegetarian friends. We split an assorted bread basket– the naan-​like bread filled with onions was really good. The samosas were some of the best I’ve had in a while, and I really liked the mint chutney– it had a good kick to it.
Hubby ordered the lamb dish with onions and peppers. Sadly, the lamb was kind of tough and difficult to chew. I was hoping that it was a bit spicier too.
I got the chicken korma. Hubby complained that the chicken was dry, but I didn’t think so since the sauce was creamy and delicious.
Perhaps the buffet is the way to go with this place, but I don’t think I’d go out of my way to try it.

THE BUTTERED CHICKEN HERE IS DELICIOUS. You must try it! Unless, of course, you are vegetarian, or suffer from Alektorophobia. But they’ve got LOTS of vegetarian and non-​chicken options that are JUST AS DELICIOUS, if not more so (the lamb curry is spectacular).
Everyone who works here is very friendly, and very diligent about refilling water glasses. I guess if you worked at a restaurant that served spicy Indian food, you’d have to refill water pretty often. They also smiled a lot, and I do love it when people smile.

I came here for dinner instead of lunch and I have to say that it’s a bit better. 3.5 stars.
The waiter service is friendly and attentive. The food comes out quickly, and there’s no fuss. The mango lassi is great, and I guess they give you enough (quite frankly the stuff is like meth, once you try it there’s never enough). The samosas are hearty, flavorful and stuffed with potatoes and other such good veggies. The two sauces it comes with are delicious, although I’m more partial to the darker one (I think it’s tamarind?)
Butter chicken is still ok. As I said in my previous review the sauce is great, but the individual pieces of chicken range from great to edible to not-​very-​good. If they could just nail the consistency of the meat, it would be a great meal. For the price, you’d expect a lot better quality.
Overall though it seemed better than at the lunch buffet, and certainly fresher. So if you’ve got a desire to explore the cuisine of India and you’re in Bethesda, give this place a shot. But come for dinner, not lunch.

I hadn’t been here in quite a while, then last weekend went back. I had mostly stayed away because the price for their lunch buffet was a bit on the high side, but I realized that actually, a price that seemed high a few years ago wasn’t any more — the other places where I might have lunch have gone up so much that this place is by now reasonable again.
Had the lunch buffet, of course, and there were the usual choices for an Indian buffet, a few vegetarian items and things like butter chicken (which I don’t know whether it really has butter, but — although not the spiciest dish — is a favorite of mine) and at least one other kind of a meat curry. Pretty good, though I prefer some other versions of butter chicken that I’ve had. I happen to like some of the Indian vegetable dishes, but because I am emphatically NOT a vegetarian, I want the ability to take some meat dishes and some veggie dishes, so buffets are the best way to sample Indian food (as I’ve said in other reviews). This buffet is certainly FAR BETTER than Bombay Gaylord, but nowhere near Bombay Bistro or Memsahib. So I give it a 4-​star rating, and probably am not going to wait as long to come back as it’s been between my last two visits here.

Casual atmosphere with above average food, and inexpensive. Had good vegetarian options — we had the Chole Punjabi (chickpeas) & Alu Gobhi Masala (cauliflower and potatoes); both were very good. The naan was great — not greasy as it can be at other places — and the rice was fair.
Not knock your socks off, but a good bet if you are feeling like some Indian in the Bethesda Row area.

The food here is good. The butter chicken is awesome. But… I saw a hair in my food once – a curly one.
Beware.

Super casual atmosphere + relatively inexpensive dining = OK time. The Indian food isn’t the best I’ve ever had, but it’s certainly not bad.
Best experience — All you can eat brunch for $ 9. I recommend the butter chicken.
Worst feeling ever there — I saw a short hair in my sauce.

I’ve eaten at several Indian restaurants in the Washington metro area, and Delhi Dhaba is probably one of my favorite ones, the other being Rashika in Penn Quarter. The food is inexpensive at $ 11 – 12 an entrée. The restaurant is also spacious and requires no reservation, compared to the restaurants in the district. Additionally, service is attentive and hospitable.
Food wise, I recommend the lamb curry and chicken tandoori, the latter is a bit dry though. The lamb curry is good, but it is inarguably prepared for the American stomach (curry is VERY subdued and it is hardly noticeable). For dessert, I recommend the carrot hawla, which is an interesting concoction of chopped carrot cooked in milk, raisins, and almond. Being the foodie that I am, I had to try this and surprisingly it was amazing although a bit too sweet. The size was too much for me so I recommend sharing it with a friend.

I have ordered numerous times from Dehli Dhaba, and I have been satisfied with the food every time. I will say that there are some dishes that I’ve felt are underspiced, like the palak paneer, but all in all, the food is good, and the prices aren’t too high. I have definitely had better, but I’ve also had way, way worse.
I highly recommend the chat papri! Delicious!

I don’t know what other people who have reviewed this restaurant are talking about – they have great service. They are attentive and friendly, and if you come back enough they will recognize you and give you free food. I go there so often with my family that they often have our drinks ready for us as soon as we sit down.
And the food is good. I eat a ton of Indian food, and the entrees I have had at Delhi Dhaba have been solidly consistent. When I became vegetarian, it was really easy to switch to their vegetarian menu (Aloo Mutter anyone?). But they have good meat, too – if not extravagant, it’s definitely worth the money, because the place is pretty cheap, especially for Bethesda.
And I agree with the Unilocaler who recommended somosa with chunna … if you like somosas (and who doesn’t?), then add chunna to them. I am never going back to plain somasas.

This is the worst Indian food I have ever had. There was basically no seasoning in either the Lamb Roganjosh or the Palak Paneer. I pretty much just ate the four pieces of Paneer, and left all the spinach behind. There are frozen boxes of creamed spinach that have more flavor than that Palak Paneer. The lamb was tender at least, but neither the meat nor the sauce had any flavor. It is extremely disappointing to go out for an Indian meal and get unseasoned food.
We saw the bar tender open a plastic gallon of mango lassi and pour it into a cup with ice. That is not what people are expecting when they’re paying $ 4 for a lassi.
From the beginning, I should have known not to eat here when it took us 5 minutes of standing in the door to be noticed by anyone to be seated. Then, it took about 10 minutes for any waiter to come over and acknowledge us. After we ordered it took over half an hour to get our food… we should have just left in that time and gone somewhere/​anywhere else, but were trying to make it to a movie.

This place is OK. Three things I like about it:
1. The $ 8.95 lunch buffet is decent and the best lunch deal in Restaurant Row. Mostly basic dishes but occasionally a gem like shrimp jalfrezi will be on offer.
2. At dinner ask ‘em to upgrade the spices to UK level and that does the trick.
3. They serve a fantastic Irish coffee.

I rarely ever give any place 1 star unless there is a really good reason to do so. I came here for lunch with my boss — our only option was the lunch buffet. Gah, my stomach hurts again just thinking about the experience.
The servers were friendly, always there to refill a glass or clear a plate. But the food was terrible. I was feeling okay on the walk back to the office… but about a half hour later, I was in the bathroom… sick. I don’t think it was food poisoning, but something was definitely off. Needless to say, I will not be returning.

4 words: ALL YOU CAN EAT.
The lunch buffet is unbeatable at $ 9.50.
The butter chicken is so tender.
I recommend taking a long lunch.