Minerva

Food is great and staff is accommodating. I ordered meal not on menu and it was delicious. Surprised that the place was empty on a Saturday night

The food was great, but the service very slow. There were not many patrons for a Saturday night. Seemed like plenty of staff walking around.

Good lunch buffet and dinner entrees. Sometimes the service is slow and the place is a little dated, but the food is really good. I like that the dinner entrees come with little «sides» of veggies, dessert, etc.

Good Indian food. Many good traditional dishes. Many nice and spicy dishes. Carry out is s bit slow but this is a solid authentic place. You want shopping mall curry then go elsewhere.

This is the best Indian buffet in the area. The selection is great, not crowded and the food is unique and changes. The Kerala chips and the fried donuts in honey sauce are worth the trip by themselves. The biryani and chicken 65 are awesome.

I came here a while ago for a reunion type lunch and I was happy with my stay here.
I cannot say this is a place to take a date, but if you are hungry for some really good indian food, then this is a good place to stop by. There is plenty of parking and the options are well stocked. I like the more relaxed atmosphere, but do not expect high end service.
The lunch buffet was good. Not a lot of vegetarian options, but it does have enough to keep you happy. I was able to get 3 full plates and finish them and for the price, it was alright. I cannot really say much about the place at the moment, but I do remember the salad left an impression on me.

Excellent food. Authentic South Indian cuisine.
Reasonably priced. Buffett has lots of varieties of veg and non-​veg food. My favorite place to dine.

I go here from time to time with my coworkers. Pretty decent choice of food if you do buffet. Price is not bad. The service however isn’t too top notch but could be better. Takes some time to refill drinks and collect your plate. Parking is ok, and restaurant is a bit small.

I love this place. They have the best dosa I have found around here, and a wide variety at that. The butter chicken, tandoori chicken, and samosas are also highly recommended.

Food is excellent but service is disgraceful. Waiters standing around and not waiting on customers. Waiter felt he was doing us a favor by waiting on us. Would have walked out but we were hungry. If not for the service, I would have given 5 stars.

The service is slow, but the food redeemed all. Three words: Minerva Mutton Fry. It is a flavor explosion in your mouth. Paired with some Naan and wine, and boom you got yourself a winner! My wife always gets the dosa and steals some of my dish too its that great :). The buffet is hit or miss, take a look before you decide!

Lunch buffet review only.
I understand that Minerva has some horrible reviews and lots of mixed ratings, but
I still like this place for its lunch buffet. It’s not an amazing restaurant, but it is a good place to get familiar Indian food that satisfies your craving… For me, their food is just like McDonald’s egg Mcmuffin, which you know it can’t be thattttt good, but sometimes it tastes so great…
Here are a few rules that you should keep in mind to have a wonderful experience at their lunch buffet.
1. Go early on Friday. We noticed that buffet selections on Fridays were always better than other days…
2. Don’t get discouraged by the line. It moves really quickly so you never wait long
3. Don’t expect great services. Servers are running around like crazy. Bollywood music videos are playing nonstop and people are running around, too.
4. Tandoori chickens can be under cooked sometimes… cough… so look for smaller pieces.
They always run out quickly and it takes some time to make a new batch, so attack them quickly when you see them. Seasonings are not always consistent either.
Despite all these flaws, we still go eat here from time to time. But if you are looking for the very conventional Indian buffet with lots of selections, then it can be your new favorite restaurant.

Excellent selection of Indian comfort foods. Fresh, tasty naan, okra, and butter chicken – my faves. Speedy service, too. They’re quick to refresh the buffet should you ask.

Best Indian buffet in town! Serving up a tour de force of spicy delights! Because that’s no secret, Minerva tends to be crowded during buffet hours. The restaurant could double in size and still pay the rent.
Minerva’s food is spicier /​hotter than most Indian restaurants, so I always top off my plate with cooling dose of yogurt. Sometimes the buffet selections are a bit thin vegetarian options, but I never leave unsatisfied!

Still stand by my conflicted mediocre curries, fantastic tandoori chicken statement. I have to say though, their lunch buffet is the bomb. The tandoori chicken is always fantastic and I daresay probably the best in the county. Always fresh, hot, flavorful, and the right amount of char. It’s good enough on its own to patronize this place. I wish I could give them 5 stars on their chicken alone, I really do. Their dessert was so fantastic today that I had to update the review to talk about it. Their fruit custard is this yellow creamy dessert that was super fragrant, probably with cardamom, dotted with chunks of tropical fruits. Even the sugary donut dessert which I typically do not like was so on point. They had these chickpea fritters I could not get enough of either.
There was one curry which I thought was worth mentioning– it had eggplant and it smelled really bad (asafoetida I think) but it was rather delightful tasting. The rest were still pretty mediocre. But really, tandoori chicken. Tandoori chicken. Tandoori chicken.

The place has gone down hill fast.
We had a bad food experience a month ago and wanted to give another chance .
This time it was worst, We were a group of 8 people and everyone was disappointed with food, service and attitude of the manager. One one occasion they had put sugar instead of salt in Sambar and when we notified them the explanation was it happened as the sugar and salt bin are close to each other. No regrets and the sweet Sambar was not removed from the buffet. The quality of food is below average
The buffet was out of stuff, replenishment was way too slow, and when asked the manager that there are no desserts left, he gave us s lecture about his fresh food and it should be expected, the whole place had an aura of arrogance about it ranging from manager to server.
This is it for us, good bye Minerva.

I went for their lunch buffet a few days ago. The food was flavorless and the rice was extremely dry. Maybe I went on an off day for them, but it was very disappointing and I don’t plan to return.
We walked in towards the end of their lunch service, but didn’t feel rushed which was great. There was a man who I am assuming was the owner or the manager who was talking super loud on the phone negotiating pricing for something. It was a bit annoying. The servers were all very kind and polite, but that’s kind of point less when the food isn’t any good.
The only item I liked was the gulab jamun because it wasn’t super sweet. I doubt they make that in-​house though.

Over the last few months my visits have been very different from previous times.
The buffet food was barely warm. No where close to hot.
The dal was like watery brown gruel. No taste.
The fried rice had frozen vegetables in it and the Lima beans (gross in the first place) were still cold/​frozen.
Plain basmati was clumped together and mushy.
Butter chicken was a vat of butter chicken sauce. I saw no chicken in it and I fished around.
The owner seems so annoyed when dining alone. As I sat there I saw other table for one customers getting the same grunt. Isn’t one diner better than zero? Hmm.
Anyway, after taking many friends and family here over the years, after my past couple of bad meals I’ve decided to seek a new Indian restaurant.
1star for the hot fresh parotta.

This is probably one of the best Indian buffets I’ve ever been to. Yes, its not the most lavish of decors or the most genteel of services, but the food is damn good! I just went back after a hiatus of two years and… its just as good! No decline in quality, variety or quantity. I’m amazed. I used to go here all the time when I worked in Rockville. My lab mates and I would go for their lunch buffet and then all promptly collapse into food comas upon return to the lab because not a single one of us could control ourselves in the face of all that deliciousness. Productivity plummeted and we were banned for ever going back on a work day… j/k…sort of.
Two years later and its the same story. There’s no way you can go here and not walk away feeling like you’ve eating your weight in biriyani… most likely cause you have. They have a good rotation of dishes on a day to day basis, but on average there are about 6 vegetarian dishes, 6 non veg dishes and an array of salads and pickles. All. of. them. are. Excellent. My favorites were the spinach with corn, fried okra with cashews and the eggplant from the vegetarian side. I could have eaten that spinach for days. The non veg dishes, though, really stole the show! First of all, it is very rare to find a buffet that serves fish and these guys serve fish that is amazing. They also have an egg curry, which is also not seen in buffets that often, which was so well spiced in a flavor profile i hadn’t had before. The absolute winner was the goat curry. It was unbelievable tender, an amazing flavor and so rich from all the marrow that was incorporated into the broth. There were also staples like chicken tandoori, chicken biriyani and butter chicken which were excellent as always.
Give yourself a treat and try this place. Just don’t plan to do anything that requires you to be awake afterward.

I have been trying to go to Minerva for several months now.
On a Butter Chicken whim, BP and I tried it for dinner. We both ordered the the Dinner prices vs A La Carte since we read on the menu it came with soup and other side items.
Little did I know the sides were actually samples… The samples were okay: Soup of the Day (tomato), lentils, a vegetable curry (with one baby cauliflower stalk), something white and gingery (I think it was their raita-​yogurt) and for dessert sample sized rice pudding (my favorite).
The butter chicken was bright red-​orange. This frightened me as it was so artificial looking. Well, I ate it any way. The food was piping hot, which was nice. The chicken was boneless and the chunks were medium sized. Ordering the Dinner portion also meant that my meal came with white rice (about a cup-​cooked) and four pieces of naan (bread). The chicken was good, flavorful and not too spicy. The naan was great! Buttery and soft.
BP ordered goat curry on my recommendation. It was horrible! It was not boneless (lamb was boneless, goat was not) and it also contained barely any meat. Seriously, we paid $ 14.95 Dinner price for a steaming bowl of fat. I should have taken pictures of how much meat there was compared to fat. Since I did not take a picture, I’ll paint one. If I had to hold the gross goat fat in my hands I would have a whole fistful of it. The actual meat? it could fit on two table spoons. This is not an exaggeration.
We also ordered one Mango Lassi and one Sweet Lassi. The Mango Lassi is worth a try. My mom makes it a lot better. The Sweet Lassi was sour! The waiter did replace it with a Mango Lassi ($ 2.95) and only charged me the Sweet Lassi price ($ 2.50).
Also, the waiter was so stingy when we asked for to go boxes. It was like pulling teeth.
We went home with our goat curry… just the curry (because all that was left was goat fat) maybe that was worth the $ 14.95 we paid for the meal.