Insert Queen Backing Track«Another one bites the dust» Company closed. «For Lease: Restaurant with equipment». Too bad. They didn’t last very long. Wasn’t too surprising. They rarely had customers in their dining room, even on a Friday.
Stephen K.
Évaluation du lieu : 4 Denver, CO
So, last weekend, after my massage, I took a short trip(very short) down the plaza from Beauty Brands to a tasty Indian find just off Walnut(½ block W off 28th St), Maharaja. I’m reading the other reviews here and seeing a lot of loathing… but it seems they’ve turned things around a bit in the last year or so, because I found it yumtastic. I’ve also read reviews off 2 other websites, 1 of which has a menu of this place, and they are all 4 or 5 stars. Haters here? Probably. The place is family-owned and seems to be recently remodeled; they were getting the final walkthrough for liquor/beer serving approval this week, so you should be able to order all fine Indian brews… Flying Horse, Kingfisher, and all the others to wash down those scalding curries. But this isn’t a brewery… so onwards. Taslime, one of the owners, was charming and talkative when I asked her a few questions about the place, including that they’d been open in their current incarnation for a year and had taken over from another owner(ah *HA*!). I placed a to-go order as it was the end of a very long day running around, and was given a wonderful cup of chai — not scalding hot nor tepid, but right in between, delicately spiced and somewhat sweet — I thought it might be honey, but Taslime told me it was sugar. Hhhhhhhhhhhuh. Honey-flavored sugar…:) There are a few cool dishes on here that I haven’t seen offered in many or any Indian places before, including my selection, the Bangan with chicken. It’s a thick mashed eggplant with marinated chicken, cooked in a savory sauce laden with cream, peas and onions. It was delectable and although I intended on eating only half my container’s worth and saving the rest for another meal, I eventually inhaled the entire contents of my take-home tub. I wouldn’t have done that if the food had tasted ‘meh’. Their menu states any dish can be spiced mild, medium or hot — I played it safe and went right down the middle, and medium’s about a 5– 6 on a 1 – 10 spiced scale. I also had garlic naan, which is also prepared here with cilantro. It was good naan, not great, but good — a little charred on 1 piece, but hey, I’m forgiving. A *nice surprise* when Taslime and I discussed naan was that she said I could substitute another piece of naan for the standard rice, which I consider mostly pointless — personal taste. More Naan? Right *onnnnnnn*. Clearly, the owner, at least this one, was focused on keeping this customer happy. They also have Lassi here, and… the wickedly soul-captivating Gulab Jamun. I didn’t order it here, but I likely will in the near future. I lurve me some GJ, you can read my Yak and Yeti review to find out what it is. :) If there was a disappointment here, it was their buffet — I panned it and nothing there grabbed my eye in particular. Maybe I was there on an off day. The restaurant gets ultra-busy around M-F lunchtimes, I’ve heard — not surprising with all the strip malls in the area — but otherwise there is plenty of room for evening dining. This would be a great place to bring a companion or to dine alone. For their fine food, additional unusual entries to the menu for an Indian place, their tasty chai and the hostess’ wonderful customer-centric attitude towards her diners, this place gets a solid 4 stars… for my 1st visit. :) They also cater, and it even noticeably says on the front page of their take-out menu, «Under New Ownership». I’ve definitely got no complaints.
Coyote O.
Évaluation du lieu : 1 Broomfield, CO
When I first moved here, Maharaja served delicious food — but with repeated visits, things clearly were going downhill. Even with an empty restaurant, it got to where the staff would rather chat with each other, ten feet away from a customer who was attempting to get their attention. The final straw was an experience where it took ten minutes to get a table in an empty restaurant, the server acted huffy when we asked for menus instead of immediately choosing the buffet, and then discovering that the buffet items were barely warm. I don’t know how many hours the soggy, unappetizing buffet items were left at room temperature, but upon discovering that ever dish we’d chosen was cold, we left. Bad food, bad service, high prices, and a buffet table serving up a recipe for pure food poisoning — shameful.
Kyla H.
Évaluation du lieu : 2 San Diego, CA
My husband, Ian M., is more forgiving than I. Timid is an understatement. It was plain ol’ dull. It’s no shock a person who knows nothing about Indian cuisine would give it 5 stars. I don’t want to come off as a snob, but, for me, Indian food is all about the exciting mixture of flavor and spice, and this place had very little of either. The pakoras were delicious, but how difficult is it to make deep fried vegetables taste good? The kheer and gulab jamun were also good, but, again… it’s something that is difficult to mess up. The naan was okay, but a little too doughy and dry. Overall, I’d say this place just isn’t trying hard enough. They have all the dishes, they just need to kick it up a notch or five.
Ian m.
Évaluation du lieu : 3 San Diego, CA
My wife and I showed up for a late lunch and were the only ones in the restaurant. The space is huge and there’s not too many tables in there which is nice. A lot of places really cram the tables in. The service was great(hey we were the only ones there). The music was very quiet… could have actually turned it up a bit. The booths were huge and comfortable and the décor was decent. It’s in a strip mall(with very crowded parking) so you can only expect but so much ambiance. The food: average. There were 4 meat choices(much more than most indian buffets) and about 6 vegetarian options plus pakoras, samosas, desserts. The food was all pretty good but just a bit… timid. It’s as if they were afraid to accost the largely white, affluent population of Boulder with any of their authentic flavor, so they halved all the spices. The flavors were decent… just very muted and not spicy at all. The pakoras were really tasty. That was the one thing that shone brightly for me. Very light batter. The gulab jamun was also very good. Better than most places I’ve eaten. Everything else was just okay though. Lunch buffet was $ 9.95.
R W.
Évaluation du lieu : 2 Denver, CO
Don’t go if you’re vegan or can’t eat diary. They do have a list of vegetarian dishes but they are NOT vegan. The staff were kind enough to make me a special vegan dish without butter and cream but honestly it was gross. In the end they gave me boiled potatoes and cauliflower in stewed tomatoes that was a bit spicy. It was watery and flat … and $ 11! I’ll give them 2 stars for being willing to try, but I will never go there again.
Danielle K.
Évaluation du lieu : 5 Washington, DC
First off Jin Chan which used to reside here was GROSS… this place is great. I’ve been there about a million times and everytime I have wonderful food and chat with awesome people. The buffet is great except for one thing… I ALWAYS eat WAY too much. The crunchy fried onion thingies dipped in this cold, fruity red sauce put me over the edge every time.(obviously im not an indian food expert since i don’t even know what things are called). Also, I love how they’ve pinpointed their market(a primarily college town) and created a brilliant indian-infused drink menu. The chaitini is AMAZING. I’m sad I don’t live in the area anymore to hit this place up.
Ali M.
Évaluation du lieu : 4 Boulder, CO
Sorry Ernest C, you’re way off. This place has five-star food all the way. The only drawback is the price. I went for a dinner buffet, which is $ 12.95 a piece. Yes, its steep, but this is no rip-off-serve-you-leftovers-from-last-night buffet. There are unlimited veggie samosas, pakora, and naan. The buffet is about 20 feet long with different foods on each side. About ½ of the entrees are vegetarian/vegan, and as a 18-year vegetarian, even the meat looked awesome! The food was all deliciously spiced and fresh– truly one of the best Indian experiences I’ve had. The waiter was helpful but not pushy, and we stayed for an hour binging on spicy delights. There is also dessert: rice pudding and little dough balls.
Ernest C.
Évaluation du lieu : 2 Boulder, CO
Goodbye Jin Chan, hello Maharaja. Despite having that nagging worry that they were related to the one in Louisville(they are), I decided to give this place a fair shot. Sadly, it wasn’t much better. Let’s get started. First up was dal soup. It was edible, but I’m not sure I’d go much further than that. It had a slightly unpleasant, musty, dishrag-like odor in the background, and contained an odd assortment of ingredients, some of which were completely singular and seemingly out of place(e.g., one small piece of overcooked army-green bell pepper… what was he doing in there? did he escape one of the other dishes, only to perish in the soup?). One nice aspect was the use of what appeared to be black gram(aka urad dal, black lentils), which have a very robust, earthy, nutty flavor. I think I prefer the milder lentils(yellow, red, or green) for this soup, but it’s definitely not wrong for the dish and I liked their unique character a lot. It’s unfortunate that the rest of the soup wasn’t as nicely flavored. Next up, the entrée and bread. I chose lamb saag, which is kind of my litmus test for Indian restaurants. I’ve had it at virtually every spot I’ve tried, so it’s a perfect way to compare apples to apples and the lamb makes it a little more challenging for the cook. For bread, I picked garlic naan, another staple and good measuing stick(i.e., did they use fresh garlic, dehydrated, or just powder?). The lamb was not very good… rather tough and chewy with some gristly bits(not the sort of thing you want to encounter on a date… pardon me dear, I need to spit a chunk of lamb cartilage into my napkin). You really have to trim lamb well and slow-cook it for hours to get it to that melt-in-your-mouth texture, and they just aren’t doing that here. Not uncommon, but disappointing all the same. The saag itself was good enough, if run of the mill… pretty average purée level, creamy texture. Not terribly aromatic, though. If I had to eat theirs again, I would get something less tricky than lamb in it. As for the naan, again rather disappointing… one always hopes for large-ish chunks of fresh garlic in these situations, but it’s rare that one gets it. The garlic appeared fresh, but it was quite sparse and not very flavorful. The texture of the bread itself was decent enough; slightly crisp top with chewy inside. Average. So, long story short is that it’s pretty much the same lackluster quality as the Louisville location(which I would have given one star to based on my visit a few years ago, but I’ll try that one again before rating). It’ll do if you have absolutely no other option, or just aren’t that picky about Indian cuisine(and after all, even poorly made Indian food is still pretty tasty), but there are too many better choices for my tastes. I wish them luck with their location… they’re in a strip mall area that isn’t exactly the best spot for a restaurant. Whether or not that contributed to Jin Chan’s demise, I don’t know(the food seemed decent enough).