Royal Bangladesh Indian Restaurant

Worst service ever. Food was mediocre. Interesting interior decoration. I wish the employees treated the patrons better.

Shitty place, food, service, and staff. If you’re looking to eat last weeks leftovers then this is the place for you. Working in the industry I know how service goes or should go. You shouldn’t only see your server once or twice in 90 minutes, but here that’s how it goes.
After an hour of waiting for entrées we decided to ask the server if the food was coming, his response was «yeah yeah it’s coming» another 20 minutes passed, and someone dropped off soups at our table that we didn’t order. When they realized the mistake five minutes later they approached us and said, «don’t eat that it’s not for you.» Well we already had, and tried to indicate to him that since we had already eaten some of it (assuming that it was pity soup due to our long wait), it was no longer appropriate for consumption. The server continued on his path to the original destination with the half eaten soups and after several attempts to stop him, he finally turned around, exasperated, and spilled it all over my sister-in-law’s coat.
The server threw us both some cloth and paper napkins, left the soups on the table (which tasted horrible if you were wondering). At this point we were just ready to exit quietly and never return. We got up and began to gather our things when our mystery server reappeared telling us that our food was ready and on its way. For the first time that evening, every staff member was aware our presence, surrounding us and preventing us from leaving. While one yelled about how we should be paying for the soup we «ate», the other interrogated my sister-​in-​law about the soup spilt on her coat, still clearly visible and on the guy behind her as well. Eventually, after standing our ground we were told to «get the hell out.» Gladly!

One of the first Unilocal survey questions that came up when I checked in here was «Is this Divy?» I wish I could mark hell yes. But my experience with Indian food is the divier, the better. There’s just something about the closeness of where you sit and the smells and the wonderful seasonings that goes better with a dark cramped space. Sadly, I was actually here by myself on Thanksgiving. I know, waaaaahhh. But as you can see by the picture I posted, I kept it so nice and festive and the food was so delicious it was actually a nice Thanksgiving. What could be more traditional on Thanksgiving than Indian food?!?

This place sucks. Super slow, terrible service, food average at best. The only redeeming quality is BYOB.

I must say this one of my favorite places in NYC.
The food is as flavorful as the aroma and I just LOVE the lights.
This is one of the only BYOB spots around
Its much better here than the over crowded and smaller upstairs restaurant that has all the media hype. This place also has a garden patio with all the lights too =)
Ive been here many times in my life can always rely on:
1. The food is good, fresh homestyle indian
2. Service is extremely hospitable and very nice
3. We always have a good time and its cheap
4. Did I say BYOB?
5. Very family friendly
Enjoy!!! We will be back again =)
m.

This is one of my favorite restaurants to go to! I have been coming here ever since I was a child and this place has become a staple gathering spot for my friends and family. The outside dining area is an added bonus when it’s nice out — an addition I think makes them stand out compared to the competition. Not to mention the owners and staff are so friendly! And last but not least, you cannot beat these prices! Great bang for your buck!
I’ll be stopping by again soon Royal :)

This place is amazing. From the food to the service, they cater to all your needs and give you bomb ass free dessert at the end. And good lord, if it’s your birthday they treat you like a fucking queen/​king. Everyone eats cake.

You just have to manage your expectations before you come to this place. Does it look like a 4 star restaurant? Absolutely not, so don’t treat it as such. The food here is good, its so cheap and they let you bring your own booze. Therefore they treat it like a factory where they try and crank in as many people through the doors as they can. The servers are abrupt and you have to be assertive to get them to take your order or get the bill. However its still possible to have a good time here. They actually are pretty accommodating for large groups and you’d be surprised how many people they can cram around a small table. Be prepared to sit close to the next table and leave after your meal… its not really a «hang out and chat afterwards» type of place. Come for the lights, come for the novelty, manage your expectations and have a good time.

The worst indian food you will ever had, coming from an Indian. You only go for the fact that its BYOB. Worst service, I should have walked out because it was so bad. Also idk what people are saying about Indian mafia this place is always filled with mad white people.

After the gladiatorial assault that befell us on the sidewalk by the Indian mafia, we settled on this place because its waiter accosted us the least.
It was a mistake to come here. The flavors were borderline inauthentic, and after biting down on a rock which somehow made it into the saag the manager did nothing but remove it from the bill. One chipped tooth later we left with a bad taste in our mouths… literally.
Fun for the lights, but don’t let the campy ambience fool you.

The first restaurant I almost walked out of without paying.
I have been to Milon and Panna 2 a few times, and this summer decided to try out the Royal Bangladesh with three good friends. Without their company and the BYOB we brought, the night would have been a complete nightmare. I remember waiting ages for a waiter to finally ask us what we wanted and then after about an hour and a half of waiting for our food we almost left, but then were told by the manager that the food was coming. We received food. But it was not our food. So we asked for them to return it and they argued saying that we ordered what they gave us. I’m sorry but what the hell? Anyway, we reordered. Waited another century for the check. Plotted our escape strategy, and then were stopped by the manager on the way out. Luckily, it was not only us experiencing this terrible service but all the noisy restaurants around us as well.

The food was ok. I did not like how the owner (or maybe the manager) treated me. He asked me where I’m from and I told him where I’m from and after that he gave me the dirtiest look. It seems like though as if he did not like my ethnic background. If there was a 0 star avaliable then I would pick that. I mean if you can not give me a good attitude when you are serving me then you don’t deserve any better.

This must be what hell is like. THE worst restaurant of any kind that I have ever been to!
As other reviewers said, I wish I could give zero stars.
Right from the get-​go you are greeted by three or four guys YELLING at you to enter. Inside there are strings of shitty colorful flashing lights that blink on and off that you need to duck under to stand up straight. When we asked if they could just leave the lights on and set them to not blink they wouldn’t comply. We were a party of 11!
Once we ordered, the waiter argued with me that we should get a prix-​fix menu option that would’ve made our meal far more expensive than it needed to be and given us too much food.
The food was super greasy and left no doubt that it was made with the cheapest ingredients on earth. Lower than street-​meat quality.
Service was slow. Throughout the meal, the staff was rude and inattentive, letting empty plates sit on the table until we asked for them to be cleared and forgetting two entrees.
Being with a party of 11 close friends and family members (and coming here at the recommendation of one of them), I did my best to be a good sport about it all and just enjoy the company, but this restaurant was so incredibly awful I couldn’t even focus on that!

Wait, is there a way to give a place 0 stars… Anyways, my friends and I, a party of 5, stumbled upon Royal Bangladesh Indian Restaurant while roaming around the area. First off, if you do come here, don’t be surprised if you are hustled into the restaurant by several people standing outside (trying to divert customers who are trying to go to the restaurant upstairs, as several reviewers have commented).
I was pleasantly surprised when we walked into the restaurant. The interior was filled with strands of lights hanging from the ceiling and it was extremely cute and cozy. We had some beer and alcohol with us, so it was a definite plus that this place was BYOB. While the manager was enthusiastically helping us open our beer bottles, we asked if there was a corkage fee. He responded by saying there was no corkage fee and that he just wanted us to be happy.
We proceeded to order a couple of mango drinks, two orders of samosas, two orders of garlic naan, and an order of curry chicken. Not all of us were particularly hungry so we didn’t order that much food. The manager was not pleased.
Throughout the meal, tensions with the manager were high. It was very uncomfortable and awkward. He came by our table a few times and mumbled that it was not okay that we only ordered one entrée between five people. However, when we got our check, the waiter brought over two desserts that were «on the house». That’s when I knew they were about to put some ridiculous charge on our check, and boy was I right. We got an extra «service charge» amounting to $ 11.52. I guess the manager decided to pull a number out of his ass and slap it on our bill because he was not pleased with us for having small appetites.
Naturally, we asked about the charge and instead of the manager approaching us, we had a waiter explain to us that the service charge was for a corkage fee. First off, the manager should at least have the balls to tell us straight to our faces when we ask. Don’t hide behind your waiters. Second off, don’t use corkage fee as an excuse for slapping a ridiculous charge on our bill. You are only showing weakness and inconsistency by going back on your words. And because you are going back on your word, it makes us even more pissed. Third off, I asked the waiter to break down the surcharge and he just stuttered and had NO idea how to respond to my question which further proves that the charge was completely random and unnecessary.
And no, it was not an 18% gratuity charge, which would have been a much better way of handling the situation. If you reallllly wanted everyone at the table to order an entrée, why don’t you write that on your menu like any other place would? You wanted us to be happy? Well congratulations, you now have five unhappy customers.
As for the food, I don’t even remember because I was so angry and felt ripped off. I guess the memory of being at Royal Bangladesh is best if it’s forgotten…

I’m upset that I had to even give this place one star. Is zero stars not an option?
I would describe this restaurant as the movie Taken with less food. Did they even serve that girl food? Probably not.
My best friend and I were trying to go to Panna 2 upstairs and obviously since it was a Friday at 9 pm there was a wait. Some man was lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on unsuspecting Panna 2 castoffs. He pulled us into this «restaurant» and now my life will never be the same…
This place has the same décor as Panna so at first we thought it was the same establishment. I assume this place exists to bamboozle would-​be Panna patrons. We asked the waiter if it was an extension of Panna and he said yes. He looked me in the eye and lied straight to my face. And that was the last time we saw our waiter that night.
About half an hour after entering the depths of hell (this restaurant) we finally coerced a different waiter to take our order. The original waiter had walked by several times and chose not to see us gesturing to him to place our orders. Waiters were running amok in this place so they were definitely not short staffed. Just incompetent.
One hour later, still being held captive with no food and seemingly no way out of this self-​inflicted torture, we were served an appetizer that looked like cat vomit. We ate it out of desperation and to give this place a smidge of credit, it wasn’t horrible.
Half an hour later (1.5 hours after we were seated) a large party complained that they had still not received their food. They had been at the restaurant considerably longer than we had and this is when we lost all hope. We told the head waiter (aka Satan’s helper) that we were tired of waiting and wanted to just pay for the one appetizer we consumed and he said we couldn’t. For the second time that night, a waiter looked me in the eyes and lied straight to my face: he said that the food was ready in the kitchen. He walked away and this is when we threw $ 5 on the table and ran away, narrowly escaping a dismal fate.
I have never felt compelled to write a Unilocal review before in my life but this place truly inspired me with it’s nonexistent service and nonexistent food. If you want to question every life decision you’ve ever made, give this place a visit. They’ll certainly give you enough time to mull it over…

If you want amazing Indian food don’t go here. If you want an incredibly cheap and fun night this is your place.
No problem booking a large group on a Saturday night, BYOB (we brought cocktails I’d batched at home as well as wines and beers which they chilled for us), came to $ 20 a person including tip. Grand.

This place is the BEST! The food is delicious, homemade and great bargain. The décor is awesome too, there are fun colored lights that cover the entire place. Also, it is BYOB, what more could you ask for? You can bring whatever alcohol you want, with no extra charge and they provide glasses and will open it for you as well. The servers are very friendly and sing you a silly song and incessantly flicker the lights if it is your birthday, it’s great. I highly highly recommend the banana pakora, chicken korma, the naan is some of the best I’ve had and the chicken tikka masala is outstanding. Really, you can’t go wrong with this place, highly highly recommended!
Oh and, to top it off, they have a great outdoor patio in the back for seating in the spring/​summer.

This place is A-​OK in my book only because it’s a byob spot in the city. Everything else about this place is sub par… from the way the staff hustles to get you in at the front door, to the low ceiling basement that you have to walk through to get to the backyard, the food is bland and of low quality (I eat indian food daily). Most of the staff is pushy and aggressive except for the younger waiters. The price is decent. This is probably the only byob spot I’ve been to in the city since there pretty rare, so just based on that… I have to give this place some props.

Extremely rude service at the door. You are clearly doing something wrong if you are trying so hard to hustle customers in but everyone is choosing to go upstairs.
The food is subpar, the only thing that would set Royal Bangladesh apart from the other restaurants is the outdoor sitting which is definitely not worth the bad service from start to finish and mediocre food.

The prices are decent, and the service was friendly and didn’t feel rushed. The food is just not memorable. I thought that the upstairs and downstairs was the same place, but as others have said, there are guys outside hustling for customers so I just chose the downstairs one, plus it was freezing!
I like the décor, cool for pics and you have to crouch because of all the lights, but I felt like they jacked up the price on the bill. I don’t think I’ll come back here but may try the upstairs one.