Tandoori Chef

Good selection of food, freshly made. Good choices of dishes are the seekh kabab butter chicken and the paneer curry

YUM!!! Love this place! Veggie korma + garlic naan + mango lassi = happiness

Having been here a couple of times, and been to a plethora of Indian restaurants since my original review, I believe it’s important to update my review. As before, this place is still spectacular.
We’ve tried various samosas, vindaloos, tikka marsalas, saag paneer, and matter pander. Each and every dish we’ve tried has been amazing. Each dish is always beautiful with great flavor. You can also customize your spice level, which was a nice bonus. While that may not be unique, they actually listen.
My girlfriend still maintains that this was her favorite place we’ve EVER eaten at. This still blows me away because we go out nearly everyday. She always finds something to dislike about the food. She could be a New York Times critic with how harsh she grades food. But, all I heard was, «nom, nom, nom.»
The service is always great. You get your food fast and always with a smile. There is definitely a family business pride in this restaurant.
If you live anywhere around the San Diego area, or if you’re just visiting, you owe it to yourself to give this place a try. You will not be disappointed!

Never any diappointments seriously top rated in san diego in my opinion. Always delicious i even ordered the wrong thing on accedent one time and it was delicious True story. Walk in or dine in only experience though.

Food — bad taste
Service — no service at all
One of the worst Indian food. Please avoid.

Ordered vegetarian food. Received chicken. Not okay.
They have a specifically designated vegetarian menu, so very confused about how this mix up could have happened. It makes me question if any of their food is vegetarian at all.

The food was great, but not giving it 5 stars for cleanliness. Also, the staff were not as attentive as they should be.

Dined here again last night, and my recollection of the food being so good was correct.
— Naan is outstanding
— Chicken tika marsala is delicious
— Butter chicken is probably the best I have had in San Diego

Indian lunch buffet? YES. Tandoori Chef looks like a small restaurant but actually has a bigger seating area on the left of the cashier/​buffet area. It’s sunlight, spacious, and a great place to enjoy a quick lunch.
They have a good variety of food. At least 3 vegetarian dishes along with desserts and chutney. Naan is complimentary and goes great with their chicken tikka masala sauce. I ended up putting everything on my plate every time I got up to get more so I can’t remember what exactly they had. Their mushroom dish was pretty good, I haven’t seen it often at other Indian buffets. Tandoori chicken was a little dry, but other than that, everything was good. Mango dessert and rice pudding was a nice bonus at the end of our lunch.
Cheap buffet and no long waits for your food to come, why not?

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Food is absolutely amazing. We order the chicken beryani and the chicken masala it tasted like a proper panjabi food. The atmosphere is regular and would give it 3.5.
My advice is dont order a spicy food if you can handle it. You can go for the mild food.

Truly and simply really really great food… my wife and I just kept commenting how it looked and tasted home made.
We had the vegetable samosas, garlic naan, saag paneer and chicken tikka masala and it was simply delicious.
We recently moved to SD from Chicago where we were always spoiled with good Indian food from Devon St and after many attempts in SD we have found our new spot!!!
Thank you Tandoori Chef!

It is amazing time to eat in Indian restaurant the food was delicious and the stuff is very nice.

I live several blocks away and it took me over 2 years to finally try this place out. I’m glad I did! Tandoori Chef has a warm and comforting ambiance. Very clean interior and the people working are always very friendly.
Tandoori Chef does not use food coloring, MSG or preservative in their dishes (I only found that out after visiting their Facebook page), just real ingredients and spices.
I’m obsessed with the butter chicken here. The sauce is so creamy, decadent and bursting with all the right flavors. The chicken literally falls apart in my mouth. Paired with some rice and naan and I have one happy belly. Highly recommend ordering the garlic naan, so tasty and seasoned perfectly. I’ve also gotten the chicken masala and vegetable korma which are also lip smacking good. They also serve wine.
Last night I ordered their chicken biryani in addition to (duh) butter chicken and it was amazing. The heavy blend of spices really tantalized my taste buds, I ended up eating way past my limit and had major food coma for the rest of the night. Do not plan on doing too much physical activity after eating Tandoori Chef because you’ll be too full to move!
Another reason this place deserves 5 stars is how well they pack takeout orders. The first time I tried Tandoori Chef, I ordered takeout and was impressed by the extra layer of plastic wrap over each container of curry to ensure no spillage occurred during transport. This small act really showed that this place cares about the food they offer and left a good impression on me.
Never thought La Jolla would be the place where I would find such delicious, authentic Indian food but I was wrong. Do yourself a favor and try this place out!

Tried lunch buffet here. They had 4 veggie curries in their menu, 2 out of 4 are Panner based. Dal Makhani was in buffet and it tasted good. Palak Panner in the buffet tasted good, one more Panner dish in the buffer was OK. There was one mushroom curry in the buffet and it tasted aweful and old. The vegetable pulav was undercooked, tasteless and aweful. The lady over the counter asked everyone else about the naan option, plain or garlic, but she didn’t ask us for the option, so we ended up trying both plain naan as well as garlic naan, garlic naan tasted much better than plain naan, but the plain naan was also good. I am from Bay area, we have so many Indian buffet in bay area and I have high expectations for the buffet, this definitely does not satisfy me.

FOOD = A+, SERVICE = B–
My friends and I have been DYING to try this place but never had the chance to come here until recently. When we went into the restaurant, other than a really big family who was dining in and people who were getting things to-​go, there really wasn’t a lot of people. As expected, we were tended to relatively quickly by our first waiter– which totally goes against what a lot of other reviews say about this place’s service. (OR SO WE THOUGHT– but more on that later). When we got the menu, I was pleased to see a wide variety of different sorts of dishes for both vegetarians and omnivores alike. We went ahead and ordered two veggie curries and one chicken one: vegetarian dishes with mild spice because me and friend 1 are spice wimps, and friend 2’s chicken dish with medium because she is cray cray. Additionally, since it was the first time we had met in a while, my friend treated us all to samosas, which was super nice of her!
After a normal amount of time for waiting for the food to arrive and killing the time by catching up with each other’s lives, we finally got our delicious foods on the MOST BEAUTIFUL DISHES I have EVER seen. It was clean, full of intricate patterns, and totally photo worthy for just the dish. But with the food on top? My AESTHETIC! The curries were served in these cute little silver dishes, which suggests that you can eat it by yourself, or share it communally, like we did.
Since I am a basic b in the world of Indian cuisine, I had friend 1– who is an Indian food expert– show me a whole new world of food, which sorta inspired me to try the Malai Kofta, which is vegetable ‘dumplings’ in a thick stew of yellow curry. And wow– I am so glad I tried something new, because it was just a delight to put in my mouth. The mixture of all the spices in that dish were harmonious and intricate– and there was plenty of ‘dumplings’- little packets which I think are made of peas and potatoes and some sort of binding agent– to make sure that the curry didn’t get too boring. I totally recommend it with the eggplant, potato, and pea curry that friend 1 got, which had a slightly acidic tomato base that really helped cut the richness of the Malai Kofta. The chicken curry was also good, but I didn’t get to fully appreciate it because I literally have the tongue of a cat and cannot handle spicy food at all. The thing I wouldn’t get again would have to be, regrettably, the veggie samosas. Though having them with the sweet tamarind sauce was good, they only really had one-​note of flavor (domination by the spud), and weren’t crispy and flavorful enough for my liking.
OK– Now why, Jannet, would you give service the grade you did? Why B so negative? (I’m good, I know.)
After we were done with our food and had been talking for about 30 minutes, we realized that none of the waiters or waitresses really checked up on how we were doing and that they had most of their attention on the big family beside us who were dining in. Seriously? Come on. The lighting outside actually changed from light to dark by the time I finally got fed up and took action. And I actually had to get up from our little table to the register TWICE (one time too much if you ask me!) to get our bills. Unfortunately, they do not split bills in more than 2 ways– so BE PREPAREEED!

My wife and I stopped here on a whim and we’re so glad we did! I had just performed a wedding on the beach in La Jolla and it’s a good thing that we didn’t go before the wedding lol. The spices are a wonderful blended harmony of deliciousness, but we prefer ours hot and they served it perfectly.
Tandoori Chef is excellent. The service was wonderful friendly and prompt. Don’t hesitate to stop in!

This place was pretty good.
Pros: easy parking (side streets), not too busy for dinner on a Saturday night and they have good service (I feel like I’ve had pretty terrible service at other Indian places – maybe just a language barrier thing?). Their ‘mild’ is an actual mild and true to what they say.
Cons: there’s better. It closes at 9:30 on a Saturday :(
In regards to the food, my party of 4 ordered 2 garlic naans, vegetable korma, chicken tikka masala and the beef curry. The dishes come with white basmati rice (looove it). My favorite would have to be the beef curry because the meat is so soft!
The vegetable korma is creamy and pretty good as well (veggie was a good addition to our meat dishes).
I was pretty disappointed with the chicken tikka masala. I’ve had other places where the chicken was a lot softer and the sauce was not as sour? It’s not bad but I would say it’s not the greatest. I almost wished that the spices would have hit me a lot harder.
Overall I think that other places are better (ie Punjabi tandoor) but this place isn’t bad.

I can best sum up my dining experience at Tandoori Chef as delicious. I’ve eaten at a number of Indian restaurants and this one is now my favorite.
The chicken tikka masala, which is my go-​to Indian dish, was melt-​in-​your-​mouth incredible. I made sure to request that it was mild as I’m a huge wuss when it comes to spice level and have literally been burned at other restaurants. The dish was so rich and creamy that it didn’t need spiciness to add flavor. I was in heaven! Even better, for a light eater like me, there was enough food for not one, not two but three meals! Not a bad deal for a meal that’s under $ 10.
My boyfriend ordered the paneer tikka masala but with a high spice level. He loves all things spicy and thought the dish still could have been a bit spicier but still enjoyed it. It’s rare for a restaurant to be able to meet his spice requirements. Yet he still ate the entire portion and then was completely stuffed after the meal
We also ordered two sides of naan, the garlic and the cheese. We were split on which was better as I preferred the garlic and he preferred the cheese. Now if they could make a garlic, cheese naan we’d both be happy! :)
I also would like to recommend the mango lassi, which was like a thick mango milkshake. More dessert than a beverage but so delicious!
There’s a lunch buffet that I’d like to try sometime and I’ll definitely be back for dinner too. I sometimes housesit in La Jolla and this would be a great place for me to come pick up dinner from then. Or it’s also worth the special trip down for Del Mar.

4 stars for food. 3 stars for customer service so 3.5 overall.
Like some people have mentioned on here, their service is rather slow. I think we might have waited over 20 minutes for our food and their place wasn’t that busy to begin with.
We ordered the vindaloo lamb and the chicken tikki masala. My vindaloo lamb was spicy and pretty darn tasty. My date’s chicken tikki masala was okay. The sauce was nice to dip in with the naan, but I wasn’t too big of a fan of the chicken. It was rather dry on the inside and I don’t really like dry chicken. I mean, who does really? I may come back here, but most likely not.