Wah Taj

this place is now closed

My husband and I went there one day after work. Only 1 table was occupied by a family of 6. We ordered 2 entrees. I also ordered some soup and my husband ordered a beer. The beer took about 10 mins to arrive and then started the loonnngggg wait. We waited for 25 mins for the soup. No one came to our table to ask or say anything. When we tried calling the servers, they pretty much ignored us. We actually got up from our table and had to ask one of the servers about our order. He could not tell us anything. Finally a guy comes up to us and tells us our order will take 10 mins more. All this while we are just waiting on our soup. We said this is ridiculous please get us the check for the beer, we want to leave. He said OK — No apologies! And then the check took so long we left $ 7 on the table and walked out.
We walked out about 45 mins after we entered the restaurant having eaten nothing.

This place is either understaffed or there is an opium den in the back. There was only one other table besides us and for such a small load the service was slow and unattentive. Not to the point where it was a major detractor but to the point where you will notice.
I did however have my best dosa experience here. Even though the real star I felt was the excellent Chutney. I had never had thick chutney before, it was like having indian humas. I’m not sure if a lot of other places have think chutney, but Ive been around the block a few times and I was blown away by it.

The best Indian Chinese in the greater DC area I’ve ever had.
Everything they make is on the spicy side. I must order the food extra mild and still its a bit spicy, but the flavor is still there.
Recommendations for Vegetarians:
Veg/​Gobi manchurian DRY — This is more of an appetizer and is EXCELLENT. Crispy, and makes you hungry for more.
Veg/​Gobi manchurian WET — This comes with the sauce and thus the veg balls or gobi is much softer. Great garlic flavor comes through.
Paneer Chilli — Slightly different sauce than the manchurian, so you can order both without a problem.
Hakka Noodles — Good, but just a bit on the simple side. Not too fancy but a good compliment to the dishes above.
I would say the South Indian food is pretty average. You can find better places if you only want dosa.
Service can sometimes be slow, but the food is far better than Masala Wok.
****NOTE**** If you don’t know what Indian Chinese is, don’t expect typical Indian food or Chinese food. If you have just come from India, its not like back home, but its pretty much the best you will get out here.

Found out about this place and decided to check it out on Independence day (Indian — Aug 15^th) for lunch, especially since it was a Friday.
Showed up and there was a printout on the glass wishing everyone a Happy Indian Independence Day. Good Sign #1.
Sat down & decided to order appetizers. Took quite an effort to flag down our waiter and get the order. Bad Sign #2
Appetizers came in (all the Manchurian dishes on their menu) and they were simply wonderful. Nothing in the area beats them. Good Sign #2.
This is where the Good Signs ended. The next 45 minutes are a chronicle of one of the worst restaurant experiences I have had in a very long time.
Flagged down our waiter and ordered our main courses as our appetizers were being brought to the table. 15 minutes later & nothing. We hear people at the next table clapping as each of their entrees were brought to the table (they’d been waiting over 30 minutes).
Half an hour later, still no sign of the food, went up to the register and asked that our orders be changed to carry-​out and paid for our food. 15 minutes later the stuff comes out and we are finally able to leave almost 2 hours after we got there.
There was no indication that the kitchen was having problems, no apology… nothing, just indifference.
To top it all off, the items that we got to go were very poorly prepared and not worth the effort it took to bring them home.
I really hope they get their act together, because I want them to succeed. The little taste of the indo-​chinese that I had there was excellent and they have potential.

Went to this 2 month’s old Indo-​Chinese restaurant for lunch. I actually didnt even know this restaurant existed until today. We went there towards the later part of a Friday lunch hour (this place is next to Staples and Bank of America near Herndon clocktower) and found it to be slightly busy. Most of the clientile were Indian which I thought boded well (while in rome…). We ordered Veg Manchurian and Singapore noodles (Vegetarian) as well. Looks like they dont have any (and I mean ANY including standard sodas) drinks on the menu. We definitely got water for sure.
The ambience is not great. Like any other indian restaurants they meaninglessly run some Indian programming on a TV (this happened to be MTV India).
The food arrived reasonably quickly and was hot. The spice level was right (we ordered medium) — however there was some weird aftertaste in both the vegetarian manchurian (not the gravy but the dumplings that goes into it) and the noodles that I couldnt quite place. We ended up eating most of it (Never waste food!) and found the experience to be just barely ok. The food btw is decidedly more Indian than chinese — but that is what «Indo-​chinese» is for us Indians!
I am giving 3 stars just for novelty — they are in direct competion with Masala Wok
so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
On a side note, looks like this is an Minerva offshoot — the receipt was a Minerva receipt i got).