Temptations

4÷13÷2013
Closed for Business. remodeling, change of ownership etc etc
Aarghhh! put that on your website or Unilocal page folks!

Indian chinese food is good here. And that’s why they got 4 stars. Authentic Indian food, service, and ambiance not that’s great.
We always get the following Indian Chinese:
Hakka noodles chicken — reminds me of street food in India
Manchurian gravy chicken — tasty and spicy gravy with deep fried chicken.
Hot and sour soup — mouth watering soup that is perfectly desi
Sweet corn soup. — yuummmm. Taste to perfection
Allo chat — as appetizers this us perfect to share on an intimate date.
Don’t eat the desert here, walk to the end of the street to a hidden gem

Temptations-I’m not «Tempted» to come back here ever again. no pun intended!
Stay away from the Gobi Manchurian-​very bland and not worth the money.
Only thing I fully finished was my diet coke and that tasted great.

Temptations is one of only two «Indo-​Chinese» restaurants in the Bay Area, as far as I can tell (the other being Red Hot Chili Pepper in San Carlos). Indo-​Chinese food is not a hybrid food, as many people assume, but rather its own distinct cuisine, developed by Hakka Chinese immigrants in eastern India in the early 1900s.
With that said, Temptations is a decent place, but not a great one, because the food is not that creative, the portions are small, and the ambiance is not ideal for dates or even a quiet meal. Let’s start with the food:
–the veg. manchurian (~$ 10) (arguably the archetypal Indo-​Chinese dish) was good. It was smoky, savory and well-​done, with a medley of cabbage, onions and bell peppers. The portion size was small, though, so it felt like a rip-​off.
–the chili paneer (which I didn’t eat, as I’m vegan) was literally identical to the veg. manchurian. Same sauce, same vegetables. The only difference was paneer instead of manchurian veggie balls.
–the yellow dal tadka ($ 10) was part of the traditional Indian side of the menu, and was okay, but needed more garlic, cilantro and tomatoes.
Temptations does fall short in a number of areas:
–the service, while friendly, was extremely slow, even though we were the only customers in the restaurant for at least 30 minutes
–the menu is really small and not inventive or interesting (as seen above, many dishes are identical to one another, save for one ingredient). Where’s the tofu? Where’s the seitan and tempeh and mockmeats for vegans? How about soy milk for chai?
–they don’t offer brown rice, which is a travesty in this day and age.
–the portions are too small.
–the ambiance isn’t good, with lots of families coming in. Don’t come here on a date as kids will inevitably be screaming next to you. Don’t come here if you want a quiet evening out.
–the restaurant shows signs of decay. Water from the ceiling was dripping on my sister-​in-​law at the first table we sat at. And anywhere you sit you’ll see scuff marks all over the walls, chipped and missing paint on the walls, etc. The place looks shabby.
All that said, the food here is passable, and superior to Red Hot Chili Pepper in San Carlos. If you’re looking for good Indo-​Chinese food in the Bay Area, this is the best you’ll find, but it’s not great by a long shot. Red Hot Chili Pepper has much better ambiance, but the food is only mediocre.

Where shall I start… The service was pathetic, we were kept waiting at our table for more than 30 mins just to take our order. I dont know if that is how it is at this place or they were extra cordial with us (sarcasm intended). After that we ordered and they took their own extra long time as a part of extending they cordiality to us. When the food finally arrived it was so extra oily that I could actually see oil float on most of the dishes we ordered. the paneer curry was so bad that we could not even eat ¼th of it.
Overall didn’t like the food or the service. Never again!

Got takeout. Nice customer service.
The portions were really small, even though it was dinner time.
The tikka masala was heavily tomato based and had a weird acidic sour taste, like dehydrated lime? I was confused. Never again!

My wife and I decided to have a dinner there as we are a big fan of Indian Chinese food. First thing we noticed is their Menu has been changed than what appeared online. The menu at the restaurant has far less items than what is in online menu.
Regardless, we ordered Manchow Soup, Cocktail Samosas and Gobi Manchurian as Appetizers. Guess what, appetizers were served within 3 minutes of ordering. We were right, they microwaved the appetizers and others were pre-​made. Manchow shoup was ok but Gobi Manchurian was the worst taste I have ever had. First, it was made many days ago and second it was fried in some left over or pre-​cooked oil. It had that taste which still exist in my throat after 2 days.
Main Course we decided to order Schezwan Rice and Veg. in Manchurian Sauce. The worst rice which was super oily and Manchurian Sauce which was made months ago. What a disaster. We complained the Server about this and they said everything is freshly cooked. NO WAY !!
Today is the second day after our Meal and our throats are still hurting. We have been taking Robotussin Sore Throat syrup for past two days and still same.
I have opened a complaint against them at Santa Clara County Environmental Health to close down this place because they serve stale and pre-​cooked dirty food to our great county which is no acceptable.
Please use your money somewhere else if you are a fan of Indian Chinese. Try Red-​Chilli Peppers in Belmont if you want some real good Indian Chinese.

I have been here a couple of times but this time my experience was pretty bad. I went to Temptations for dinner yesterday and got food poisoning. Worst experience ever !
Gobhi Manchurian and paneer Sizzler tasted exactly the same. Service was fast but the food was not worth the price. Never going back ;-(

Great concept (Chinese & Indian fusion) but terrible execution.
Should’ve known better when we walked in for lunch today at 12 and the place was almost empty.
For the appetizer, we shared the chicken 65 — the only decent dish.
For my entrée, I ordered the chicken tikka masala ($ 14.50 lunch portion). It came with rice and tasted more like tomato sauce than masala I also had garlic naan ($ 3) which came out too soft and lacked in flavor.
My coworkers had the chow mein and another chicken dish. The food was not fresh, overly salty and we actually had to send the chow mein back.
The décor and wait staff were nice but not enough to make up for the lack of good food. Sufficed to say, I will NOT be coming back.

This place got some good Indian food and I can definitely say this for the Chicken Biryani I ordered. It came out in a silver aluminum type bowl and the chicken was cut up with no bones (just the way I like it)! It blended well with the rice and it had tons of flavor. I really enjoyed this dish an actually craving it again right now while I’m writing this review.
Would I come back here? Hell yeah! My second dish to try will be the Gobi.

I got excited by the promise of a delicious Indo-​Chinese meal and was sorely disappointed :(
Everything was oversalted/​spiced, probably to mask the fact that many of the ingredients were not fresh. However there was no mistaking the stale noodles in the Chinese bhel. I had to apologize profusely to my boyfriend for convincing him to try this place instead of one of the many awesome Castro St options. Guess my search for good Indo-​Chinese will have to continue…

I succumbed to my Temptations and ordered the «Chinese Thali» and what a poor Indo-​Chinese fusion or was there any fusion at all.
Service was almost terrible and food was extremely salty, lets say I need to go else where to succumb to my temptations.

We came to this restaurant twice. First time was OK. Second time, less than OK.
Service is nice, I have nothing to complain about that.
The reason I put 2 stars is for the place cleanliness and taste of food.
The walls were dirty with stains of food /​grease.
We had both Indian and Chinese dishes.
I enjoyed the Indian dishes I took: Alo Tikki and Samosas (although I have experienced better in other places).
And for the two other dishes we had, we felt disappointed. We had Manchurian chicken and lamb Sheesh Kebab. We did not like them at all. The sauce of the first dish was too rich and had a kind of «weird» taste (sorry I can’t find the words to describe it).
The sheesh kebab was just ground lamb and rice… No Sauce, or tomatoes or something «fresh» to accompany it.
Hopefully we had a coupon so our bill was reduced a little…
I don’t think we will come back here…

Indochinese cuisine is an adapted version of hakka cooking with a fusion mix of satisfying the Indian taste buds with spice. Its really hard to find a good Indochinese restaurant only some restaurants like Inchins’ Bamboo Garden franchise takes the cake.
I have been to this place couple of times and i can honestly say, this place doesnt really fit the bill of Indochinese. Most of the items are either outright bland or have too much soy/​vinegar. I tried veg manchuria (which was undoubtedly bad not so dry) and other schezwan items here.
I love their friendly service but the price you pay for (this) food is also simply ridiculous.

There was a time when I wanted to come here on weekly basis but now have decided not to come here ever. I love indo chinese food and when i found out about temptations, i was so happy!
Now, the quality of food has gone so down. service is still good but food served looks leftover from previous day and doesn’t taste good.
A big NO to temptations.

Ordered chicken 69 and schezuan veg Hakka noodles. Neither were good… chicken was like pakodas which was quite pathetic. Noodles were oily and orange colored that’s how close they could come to schezuan indo-​Chinese food. I could make better indo-​chinese at home!!! Service wasn’t great either… ambience sucked big time… Was noisy as hell coz of some stupid maintainence they were trying to do in the kitchen! Not recommended!!!

I should have read the recent reviews before going. One of the worst indo chinese restaurants. Even the cheapest road side food stall in India will make good Indochinese food compared to this.
This place used to be very good a long time back but not now. Its time the owner gets a good chef.
We ordered 3 dishes and pretty much everything tastes similar. even the chicken looks similar in shape and texture. (Diced chicken, ginger chicken and chilli chicken and rest of varieties usually have different shape and the sauce taste different)

One day I was craving for some Indian food and my hubby was craving for Chinese Food. We walked down Castro and found this Indian-​Chinese fusion restaurant. We walked in and were seated by the window.
I ordered Chicken Tikka Masala and he ordered the Chow Mein.
They were both so-​so. It didn’t disappoint nor did it have a Wow factor.
The one thing that DID disappoint was the lamp hanging over our table was dusty. I wish they would clean it often because I was afraid of dust falling in my food.
If I do come back, I’ll actually try a few of their fusion dishes. Hopefully, by then, they’ve cleaned and dusted their lamps.

Apparently this is the Indian interpretation of Chinese food. I didn’t see anything Chinese about it personally. The food was just kind of plopped on the table, too.
Not too exciting. :-/​Cool idea, though! It always seems to be fairly busy, though, so maybe it has a following among some people.

Temptations management could use a little (or big) lesson in customer service. Mahatma Gandhi once said, «A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it.» The management here clearly does not value the human being AT ALL. They simply see you as $$ walking into and out of the restaurant.
We sat in the bar area of the restauarant… not actually at the bar, but at bar tables that are located in the front of the restaurant (which in my opinion should’ve been a waiting area). In order to maximize space, they’ve turned this waiting area into an eating area, so you have ignorant Indian people with no common courtesy hawking your food (and evesdropping on your conversation) the entire time they wait for a table (which is quite a while on weekend evenings, given that Temptations does NOT take reservations post-​7pm!!). Needless to say, it not the ideal ambiance. Oh, and don’t even try to take a date here. It is so crowded after 8pm and super LOUD (due to poor insulation, I’m assuming?).
Now, a restaurant that positions itself as an upper-​end, trendy place is expected to have somewhat decent ambiance. This is not the case at Temptations. It’s a very average, overly-​crowded setup, so the ambiance is pretty much dead when you walk in. Along with the customer service. There was exactly two servers attending to a restaurant of full tables… on a FRIDAY night? Unbelievable. The servers bringing out the food/​drink/​etc were barely audible in describing the dishes that were being brought out, partially because of the noise level, and partially because of the lack of training and professionalism.
On to the food… the food wasn’t half bad, but then again, I haven’t had much Indian Chinese food to compare it with. We opted for the Chinese Bhel as an appetizer, since it looked different from the standard Indian menu. It was decent, but a bit too sweet and loaded in sauce. The crunchy noodles had a nice texture though (if they were intended to be presented that way). For the main course, we ordered the chicken manchurian dry, since that’s one of the dishes that Indian Chinese food is known for. This was somewhat bland, and again, overpoweringly sweet. We also ordered the chicken biriyani, which was probably the best of the three choices. A fairly standard dish in Indian restaurants, but it was exceptionally flavorful and well made.
I have no plans to return to this restaurant. For the price you pay, the lack of ambiance to dine in, the shoddy customer service… what’s the point? Sakoon ans Shiva’s (just a block or so down), are fabulous in terms of ambiance and customer service, with amazing food. I might as well give my money where it’s worth the value.

I wish Unilocal existed or I knew about it back a few years ago when I tried this place but I can see why it got such terrible reviews since my experience was much the same.
First, for the amount of food they give you this place is VERY pricey for an Indian restaurant because most Indian places at least feed you a little more. Their foods are extremely salty and doesn’t contain much flavor except for salt. Even the butter chicken which is supposed to taste delicious tasted more like a bucket of salt with some chicken and one spoonful of butter masked in between it all. Their naan is pretty hard and too crispy for my liking as it should be soft for dipping and eating, and their water is strictly tap to the point where it tastes so bad I wonder if they use a filter even …
When I came here this place was very empty and there wasn’t much here in terms of people or populous; and I came at 7 pm which is prime time for dinner. The waiting staff was nice and friendly but the food was just terrible. I would not consider this place for dinner, ever.