Shiva Indian Restaurant

I had the lunch buffet and enjoyed all the vegetarian items. (I don’t eat meat.) Everything was well spiced and not too spicy at all. Everything tasted fresh, and the mango lassi was also great. Will definitely return!

The food here is delicious ! Affordable pricing as well. For a first timer trying Indian food I really enjoyed it. Will be coming back to this place :)

Best naan in town. Really good buffet, quality pieces of meat in each offering. Vegetarian dishes were great too, even the eggplant which I normally avoid. Everything was flavorful and well spiced, the selection isn’t vast but it’s enough and definitely quality over quantity. If only they had Samosas on the buffet then it’d be perfect.

I am updating my review from 5-​star to 5-​star :-)
I had a friend from Peru visiting in February 2015. He is a strict vegetarian, and he loved all of his orders. As usual, I went with the Goa curry shrimp, and I got the usual excellent quality. Whenever someone comes from outside of the US, I will bring everyone here.
The Shiva did a good job again. Thanks a lot!

This is probably my favorite Indian restaurant in Houston. I’ve been coming here with friends, family, and on dates for 6 years since I moved here. The food is always good, the service friendly.
HOWEVER…Last night I took a friend who had never been to Shiva, and I was embarrassed by the state of the place. When you walk in the door, it smells rancid, almost like urine. The Christmas tree is also still up. But the biggest thing was the bugs. We watched half a dozen bugs crawling on the walls right where we were eating. It looked like they were heading towards a hole in one of the ceiling tiles. If there are bugs crawling all over the walls in the dining room, you know they are other places, probably the kitchen.
Don’t get me wrong: Shiva has great good and friendly service, but I don’t think I will be going back until they do a serious deep cleaning of the property.

I used to come here A LOT during college and even after, as I lived in the area, but the quality has been in decline for years.
Nevertheless, I was holding on to some sort of nostalgia, and every few months, I would come back in naïve hopes that the restaurant would improve.
After my visit today, I’m never coming back.
I saw THREE ROACHES crawling up the walls leisurely. The worst part is that my dinner date and I jumped out of our seats, and tried to flag a waiter for minutes without any success. Then, they just pretended nothing was wrong, and the manager refused to even acknowledge us.
Dear Shiva, WE are NEVER, EVER getting baaaaack together!!!

Indian buffet was only so-​so during lunch. My co-​workers had complained that food was not fresh from the buffet and they will not come again. Perhaps it is because we went on a Monday? I am not sure whether I would want to try again, but dinner via a la carte is a different story. The food was fresh, hot, and tasty during dinner time. If you decide to go, it’s worth going more for dinner for quality rather than lunch.

This is your basic Indian restaurant. Nothing really to write home about. I think they only do buffets at lunch though.

I should have read the reviews here before choosing to patronize this establishment! My fiancé and I were leaving the museum of Fine Arts and didn’t want to go too far to eat before returning home. Shiva came up in our search. We eat a vegan diet and wanted to eat something different than our normal vegan spots.
When we arrived at Shiva we stood there for several minutes without being greeted as we watched someone on the far counter on the phone looking directly at us and several waiters pass us by. Finally a worker came up and asked us if we wanted to eat there. I wanted to respond with ‘No, we just came here to look at the décor’. His attitude seemed as though we were a bother and that all too familiar feeling came about.
He pointed to the booth in the corner and made the «shoo» motion with his hand like he wished we would hurry and sit down. Once we sat he didn’t ask if we wanted drinks. No welcome. Didn’t ask if we’d dined with them previously. I’m not exaggerating when I say he tossed our menus onto the table and walked off! By then I was disgusted and my fiancé’ could see it on my face. He looked at me and asked if I wanted to go elsewhere. «Thank You!», I responded and immediately grabbed my purse, stood up, then walked toward the door. (We went right next door to Thai village where the service was the complete opposite and the food matched the service! Great!)
I don’t care how good the food is. The service is poor. The customer is your prime revenue. How dare you treat them with such disdain? I’m shocked to hear how long they’ve survived with such poor service. I presume that the taste of food is more important to some than the quality of service.

Pretty good food, but a rather limited selection for a buffet. My water glass stayed full and the food was hot, fresh and flavorful. Worth checking out for about $ 10 for lunch.

This is by far my favorite Indian restaurant in Houston. I would give anything in menu a try. The curry chicken, garlic naan, and lentils are my favorite.
The best thing about this place is the large menu with many options. I have tried places like Khyber but they seemed like a more American version of Indian food with limited options.
The service I receive is impeccable. The manager/​owner of the restaurant is always there and stops by each table to make sure that everyone is taken care of.

Shiva is a definite point of contention between me and my roommate because while this is probably her all-​time favorite restaurant in Houston, I can’t think of any reason that I would ever come back here.
I’m willing to concede that my judgment of the food may not be completely fair because this was one of the first Indian restaurants I’d ever been to, so I didn’t know exactly what to order. My friends got us the naan as an appetizer, which was good, but the chicken dish I ordered was really spicy even though I’d specifically asked the waiter for a non-​spicy item. It was definitely flavorful and well-​seasoned and the rice was good though a little dry, but I’ve had Indian food since that’s been way better.
My problem with Shiva, though, is the absolutely terrible service. I usually try to cut servers some slack when the restaurant is really busy, but our waiter was not only slow but incredibly rude. I realize that Shiva encourages «family style» ordering, but because my friends and I all had different tastes, we wanted our own dishes. Our waiter wasn’t having it — he kept insisting that we share the dishes he recommended and he was really short and condescending with me when I was asking him for advice on what to order since I hadn’t had much Indian food before. One of my friends ordered a Shirley Temple while the rest of us very clearly told him that we only wanted water, but he brought out Shirley Temples for everyone and we were all charged for it. Then we all ordered our own bowls of rice but he only brought out two and flat out told us that he purposely did that because «he knew we would only need two» — which ended up not being true when we ran out of rice halfway through eating. Then we asked for separate checks and, again just flat out ignoring what we requested, he gave us one check. None of us had cash so one friend had to put it all on her card and then we had to go to an ATM later to take out money to pay her back, so none of us were happy about that extra inconvenience.
I’m pretty sure my roommate just loves the food so much that she doesn’t care about the service, but personally I can’t justify spending my money at a place where I’m treated so rudely. Especially since there are so many amazing Indian restaurants in Houston, I would not ever come back to Shiva.

I have to say the food here is really great. Ordered mutter planner, chicken tikka and chicken vindaloo. Everything was really good and the lassi was also one of the best…
But I found out when we got the bill that they added 2 orders of rice in addition to what comes with the dish. When we were ordering naan the waiter asked if we want 2 rice. I said yes as I thought he thought we just want 2 since we ordered naan. And we got 2 plates of rice with our food. When I asked who seemed to be the manager about the bill, he said each plate of rice had 2 orders of rice so we are charged for 4. I came here with two other people, and we also ordered naan. Why would we order that much rice? I didn’t argue back as it was just rice but haven’t gone back here after that weird incident.

This is my second time coming to Shiva and unfortunately the last.
My first visit went amazingly — we came for a weekend dinner, was seated quickly and had a great, well priced meal.
This visit was different. The food was still good, but we got pushed (no other options) into the buffet which lacked variety.
Still, it was good. But when I went for my second plate, I found a roach climbing on a bowl of salad in the middle of the buffet! Soooo gross. It was a small roach too — one of those that signal a much much bigger problem lurking nearby.
Needless to say I didn’t get a second plate. Later my husband found a very suspicious looking object in his chicken. Ok, it looked like a roach — he said it crunched like one too — but of course all we were thinking was ‘THERE ARE ROACHES HERE. THERE ARE ROACHES HERE.’ so needless to say we may have overreacted on that part.
But still. Stay away. I’m going to go shower now.

Not impressed with their buffet… will not come back for this. Sign said they had chicken tikka Marsala… the only dish my husband eats and it was no where to be found… a porky looking dish was there instead. Will only do this restaurant for sit down, if ever again.

Decent Indian food, but the waiter service is enough to make me not return.
The menu is extensive (love the different types of naan and roti), the portions are reasonable, the food is well seasoned (though certainly not the best I’ve had), but our waiter was short with us, rude, and had a pungent, «you’re bothering me» attitude with everything from placing our plates, refilling our waters, and not providing any sort of insight to the food (or even an introduction of himself, actually). Not worth returning with so many better Indian restaurants nearby, in my opinion.

full disclosure, I’m not expert in Indian food. I mean come on I’m not even Indian… but for the past few months my friend from New Deli has been introducing me to various types of Indian food and exploring restaurants in the Hillcroft area. I came to Shiva just to try since this is one of the older places to hit up and decided on getting the Vegetarian thali ‘Shiva’s Delight.’
After eating a bit the food was ok, the butter nan was ok… it just lacked an added depth of flavor I have experienced at other Indian restaurants.
The décor is cool though, very transformative in the sense that you feel like you’re getting sucked into a portal to India with food as a compliment. The restaurant is clean, and there’s a nice theatre set up so you can watch the chef cook food in the back … although you have to get pretty close up to see what he’s doing if he’s not throwing around his cooking stick.
Price is a bit high but what can you ask for when the place is in rice village. Anyways, I’ll most likely stick to exploring places around Hillcroft for my Indian food fix.

After trying Indian food at my friend’s house, I was hooked. I love Indian food, especially the spices! Indian food reflects a blend of cultures and ages. I still cannot differentiate between North, South, and West Indian food… One day! ;)
Parking for Shiva can be horrendous, especially in Rice Village. I remember I came to the Village for a weekend, and it took about 30 minutes before we found street parking. Recently, we parked 2 blocks from Shiva. There is a garage about a block or two, located in the same complex as Bombay Brasserie, Black Walnut Café, and Baker’s Pub.
Shiva, God of destruction. As soon as I walked in, I noticed the dark reds, whites, and golds around the restaurant. Pretty typical for an Indian restaurant. There are several arts of Shiva. In terms of ambiance, there is none. Almost everything is outdated and worn, especially the booth my friend was sitting in. It looked like Shiva might have done some destruction.
Menu offers a little of everything for vegetarians and carnivores.
Saag Paneer (²⁄₅): Tender chunks of homemade cheese in cream spinach. I was pretty disappointed with this. The cheese was tiny and didn’t have the texture I was hoping for. I didn’t touch this after my first bite, for I’ve had better elsewhere. Thankfully, my friend liked it.
Gosht Vindalloo (⁴⁄₅): Hot and tangy Goan style curry with tomatoes and potatoes. This was my favorite! This is more on the slightly spicy side, but I recommend this! If you cannot handle spicy, then make sure your friend likes some heat. There were probably two potatoes from what I recall. Lamb was tender and cooked perfectly. I just loved dipping the paratha into the curry.
Murgh Akbari (³⁄₅): Breast of chicken, stuffed with cottage cheese, nuts and raisins cooked in a saffron sauce. Chicken breast was decent. Saffron sauce is slightly sweet and sweeter with the raisins. I personally thought it was okay, especially with the Gosht Vindalloo. Something to change your palate.
Garlic Naan (²⁄₅): Traditional leavened white bread with garlic. They just sprinkled garlic powder over the naan. Disappointing. Where are the garlic bits?! Naan was soft and hot though.
Alloo Paratha (³⁄₅): Whole wheat bread stuffed with peas and potatoes. Well, I just used this to dip into the yummy curries.
After your dining experience, they bring out a warm towel. Be careful and see if the temperature is okay with you. Service was decent but rather slow. I ran out of water twice, so I had to catch the waiter’s attention for that. Otherwise, the waiter and owner were real friendly. My friend hurriedly ordered the food items, and the owner said, «I thought you were talking to your friend next to you. Can you repeat that for this old man?» If you’re looking for a quick sit down, then just do a take-​out. For Shiva, just bring your pals and enjoy your time.
Like most other Indian restaurants, Shiva offers a lunch buffet that costs $ 10.95 per person. Lunch buffet hours are from 11:30 to 2:30, I believe. Usually a variety of 2 – 3 curries and 2 – 3 vegetable dishes with unlimited naan and desserts.

My first and last time at Shivas. Do yourself a favor and ask for a table, not a booth! Had a roach show up uninvited to dinner last night. Tried swatting it off the table and it disappeared… A minute later, it appeared again on the wall next to us and quickly crawled behind the painting that was hanging over our booth. What a coward! We only had a few bites of our food before we were rudely interrupted by this roach. I can only imagine what was below the table at our feet. The dining room is really dark so maybe they dimmed the lights for a reason? Gross…

The lunch buffet is about 11 dollars a person. There are three non veg mains (all chicken), and four vegetarian ones. There is also rice, pakora, salad, fruit, and dessert. Naan is provided at the table.
The food wasn’t exactly hot, which took away from some of the flavor. Overall, it was just ok. I have had better saag and daal elsewhere. But the naan was good, and so were the paneer cubes in the saag and korma.
I would really give it 2.5 stars but I’ve had a good experience with their dinner service before so I’m rounding up.