Tandoori Nite

This is absolutely my favorite Indian food in Houston. Lovely textured complex tasting curries… Can’t wait to go back!

Mix the fascination of food trucks and the wonder of Indian Food and you get Tandoori Nite. A little out of the way from central Houston, but well worth the drive out to their location. This truck sits next to a gas station and has several picnic style benches under a canopy. On cold nights they have outdoor heaters and a fire pit going to allow customers to still enjoy the outdoor seating. The men that man the truck are always friendly and offer great suggestions. Unlike most food trucks, you place your order, eat and then pay for your meal. Their prices are reasonable and the food is great tasting.

Now this one was completely out of the blue. Group of friends, dinner plan, lets go to Tandoori Nights. I was expecting a restaurant and what not, but next to a gas station, a truck! First surprise.
Have eaten from food trucks before, but long back and this one did not disappoint. Two visits during my recent trip and both turned out amazing. The Dal, the Nan’s, the rice, the Paneer Tikka, fabulous… Second trip was pure desi, with Pav Bhaji. Enjoyed it, the spread and smell of butter on the Pav, did indeed kept me licking my fingers for a long time. Chilled out place, nothing fancy, be ready to sit on benches and just relax.
Good part about the Indian Store near the Gas station. You get your beer there. Grab a bottle, and enjoy with your food. Various Indian varieties make it a pure desi night…
Suggestion: When you are headed out there, make sure you map out the place, unless you know it. Very easy to miss, the truck is on the side of the gas station, so unless you have some one in the car, who keeps a look out, you can very well miss it.

It’s a food truck, like a lot of other delicious food joints in Texas. However, the fact that it’s inside a gas station is a little bit of a turn off (for me). But anyway, gives you a slight Dhabas on Indian highways kinda feel.
The food is pretty delicious. I’ve been to this place on 2 – 3 trips to Houston now, and it never disappoints.

Worst costumer service. Doesn’t give a damn about customers, and the best part you get free HAIR with naan.

I love Tandoori Nite. Food is consistently good and this is actually my favorite Indian place to eat.

Awesome food
Absolutely loved everything
Tried onion naan, sheekh kabob chicken masala and paneer malai
It was absolutely the best
Wonderful place to grab late night bites
Will be back

Some items are OK some are terrible. I remember it used to be great some years back. Don’t ever have goat korma or curry, u will have everything else in it, but goat.
The place is very dirty. The guys are rude and they usually charge a dollar or two more every time.

We drove for about one and half hour to get here and we can describe the experience of eating here in one word — terrible. Starting with pander tikka, it only had two things in it, the orange color and ginger garlic paste. It felt like chewing rubber slipper. We were brave enough to continue eating the main dish as we already paid for it. But in the end we ended up trashing half of it. Also it was pretty expensive for such tasteless food. Over all it tasted like old refrigerated food. The only thing we really enjoyed was bottled water. I do not recommend this place at all.

Five things that make it 5stars.
Pros
a) if you are working late hour shifts and want to eat reasonable quality «Punjabi/​desi» food; this is the answer. Other late night places are in Hillcroft area but are more Pakistani than Indian and the taste is a bit different.
b) Fast no nonsense service. Average wait time for cooking is 10 mins.
C) reasonable selection on the menu. There will be always something to choose from and they all taste better or as good as most of the fancy more expensive Indian restaurants in houston.
D) bullet naan with any of the subzees is a blast.
E) can never go wrong with Dal here.
F) location– just get off the west park tollway and half a mile later you are here. Easy access and free parking.
G) despite the location or so called dhaaba, the clientele is middle class working people. Haven’t seen the cabby crowd (not that there is anything wrong with that) that usually hang out in the Hillcroft late night places or the ones used to seeing in NY late night midtown downtown desi joints.
Cons
A) the tables are a bit untidy, the dhaaba could use a guy or more to clean the tables more often, but hey, get over it. It’s a dhaaba. If you are a «very clean person or have a very clean person» along with you, take out might be a better option. You surely don’t want to bring your good looking well dressed babe here! Dress her down if you want her dress to still look pretty.
B) the Rotis are not as «Kadak» as we like, but the naan is awesome.

Oh my word best food ever! We call in and they know our voices and start to whip up our tikka masala! I always get mine with paneer and my husband gets chicken. The garlic naan is to die for! Great service, great food! It’s a food truck fyi;)

Great food. I have been here 4 – 5 times and I have tried few different things. Mostly everything has been good. The only thing they need to improve on is their Cousmter service.

Its roadside food — you won’t like this place if you are a hygene freak. That being said, taste isn’t bad, but isn’t too great either. Its worth a try if you’ve haven’t been here before. I would recommend «take out» than «dine in».

This is some of the best Indian food I’ve ever had! I ordered the jeera aloo, garlic naan, and rice. It was all SO flavourful with the perfect amount of spice! The potatoes were cooked perfectly and the naan was so fluffy! I also really liked that they had a seating area out there. Convenient and delicious.

Been to tandoori nite a few times now. Have tried the paneer tikka sizzler, garlic naan, onion naan, rocket naan, roti, paneer malai, hara masala. The food is decent. Not the best I’ve had though. But the main thing about this place is the dhaba style ambience. Worth going here once in a while just for this.

This place has the best Indian food I have had thus far in Houston. It is typical dhaba style, meaning a tent basically. I had the goat curry, saag, daal, and malai kofta and they’ve all been unbelievable. I was a big fan of Desi Grill and More, but after the owner died I tried this place since his son owns it, and it’s quite good as well, carrying out Vinod’s legacy.

Not impressed at all! Had my first and last experience last eve. Ordered channa masala and Paneer Makhani. Gravy and paneer pieces were separate. Looks like they were cooked separately and served by mixing right then. Gravy tasted like tomato soup. Channa masala was ok (not good).
Naan and Tandoori roti were very thick and not properly cooked. Frozen Tandoori roti tastes better. Wish I had taken some pictures to post.
Would not recommend.

One a cold and rainy weekend night, I came here with a couple of friends for that «dhaba» experience that we all missed from India. We grabbed a few «Kingfisher» beer bottles from the adjacent gas station to enjoy it with tandoori chicken. There was a tent-​like shelter with 6 – 7 picnic benches and tables with a fire pit at the center to keep us warm. The tandoori chicken was surprisingly good — the chicken was succulent and tender and not dry and chewy. The green chutney could have been better, but we were not complaining. We ordered Goat kadhai and chicken hara masala (green masala) with garlic naan. The naan was soft and tasty, but the entrees were not spicy. The goat was mostly bones with some meat around it which wasn’t marinated properly. Overall, I will rate it 3 stars for the tandoori chicken and an outdoorsy dhaba-​style experience.

Not the best of the options available, not the worst, but like Mr Neeson said, they have a unique set of skillsets by which you are Taken.
This is a food truck, employs 4 guys, parked right next to a Phillips gas station beside Highway Six. The seating is a a bunch of bench desk combos which need immediate paintwork. They were once brightly red colored, not quite ergonomically built, climbing into one is like climbing a wall. It is a self serviced place, you may find scraps of food lying around your table, so I would suggest stick to take out as I do.
This is more or less set in lines of an Indian Dhaba (rundown outlets near highways serving a large customer base of truck drivers). You can take high standards of cleanliness and facilities out of the equation. They are just enough clean to eat what they serve.
The food is classified as vegetarian starters/​entrée, non vegetarian starters, vegetarian curry based, non vegetarian curry based, bread/​roti and drinks.
One word about the dishes, they are basically watered down versions of what you call royal indian/​Mughlai food. Spicy, colored, and not necessarily the best in taste. Cant blame them, for most dhaba’s operating USPs are cheap food and fast food. (Its a different story in India, where some dhabas serve the best food you would have tasted in your whole life and you will pay a dollar for the whole thing)
Most of the vegetarian dishes are based on paneer (farmer cheese), i was not impressed by the taste, but blame it on the quality of paneer available here. paneer tikka and paneer saaghwala are good options. I have seen chana masala (chickpeas) and korma in menu, havent tried them.
The tandoori chicken is passable (i wonder how good the tandoor will be in a food truck). The kadhai chicken was unimpressive in a watery masala base, and chicken which you feel was added after the curry was made. infact the curry did feel like a quick job of masala mixing done with.
I was not entirely sure if could judge the meat dishes base don kadhai chicken so I also tried out the chicken tikka masala. It was slightly better, but wouldnt really make you happy.
They also serve a sweet yogurt based drink, Lassi (Try it out for Messi, its world cup season)
Getting into the Pros and Cons
Pros
1. Biggest– Open from 5 pm to 12 am — Big plus for night owls
2.Quick (not really but passable)
3.BYOB, and you have a store close by (get beer to wash down that tikka)
4.Not much difficulty for parking space
Cons
1. Not the cleanest food truck
2. Small seating space, better for take out
3. Roti/​bread is good, curries are sub par.
4. The overhead sheets leak in seating space, you are done if there is a rain
5. Not the healthiest of choices. (but guess what, indian fast food in general is not)
6. The charge, compared to the quality of the food.

The food here is spicier compared to other Indian places, and that’s what I love about it. The food is always consistent and good. It’s not the best Indian food in the area, but I like that they aren’t afraid of spice. Their credit card machine doesn’t work half of the time, so you’re better off bringing cash.