Lal Qila

I went there a couple of times for their Sunday buffet and always found their food fresh and good. Just today I went there and found the place to be boarded up and closed.

Came for lunch buffet, very nice setting and food is of very high quality. Will definitely be coming back!

My family and I were brought in on a Thursday night to Lal Qila on a Groupon. The Groupon wasn’t expired, and we were there within the allotted day/​time, but there were signs upon entry that the Groupon wouldn’t be accepted. Automatically off to a confusing start… Despite this, we decided to take a plunge and give it a shot.
Our party of six were literally the only customers in the restaurant. Our waiter may have been the chef, as he had an apron on. He came over to our table, no smile, no how are you, just a sigh, eye roll and a «what do you want»? To be honest, it felt very stand off-​ish. We ordered a few entrees and a beef samosa appetizer. Within 10 minutes, there were samosas on our table, and we were all ready to dig in. I took one bite, and the entire center of the samosa was raw, ice cold to the touch. Literally frozen. The combination of the rude waiter, improperly cooked food and the fact there was truly not an excuse (as we were the only people there) was enough for us to say, thanks, and walk out.
I hate to leave such a negative review, but this place deserves it…
PS — We drove over to India House in Buffalo Grove and had a stellar dinner. :-)

I read older review about this place which were not favorable. Decided to go for Lunch Buffet on a Friday.
The food was Fresh and awesome, My wife and I had the place to ourselves when they first opened up. By noon the lunch crowd was coming in.
The food was fresh really tasty, i live in the area I will be going back!
Thanks!

Five Star food — every time.
I’ve been coming here here for years — great atmosphere and even better food — best butter chicken I’ve ever had

They used to be good but since achieved that «good»…they’ve gotten lazy.
Service is no longer timely or on par
Food is losing its touch
Portions are shrinking
Prices are going up
When hosting an event, I was surprised to see that the staff was very… cheap…with the food even though it had been paid for.

Came here with the family from an hour away to check out their food. Turns out their hours are not correct and they are closed at 4.43PM. We were told to wait until 5 until they opened to find out they gave us the wrong information and won’t be open until 5:30PM. They are very rude when we walked in and did not even allow us to sit there while waiting when the restaurant was open. I think this place definitely deserves a 1 star for opening up when they feel like doing so, for being rude and not welcoming and for advertising correct hours to begin. We will not be back.

Horrible food and Horrible Service. Went here and felt like we were eating in a sauna. It was so hot it restaurant, that it was hard to eat there. First off no one was here to greet you to your table. Second the food was either raw or not edible. Third there was no AC in the building, so eating in a hot place was not bearable. Last there was no order in this place, we had to wait a while to pay for our food and leave. I have been here a couple of times before, but looks like this place has gone downhill. Don’t think I will waste my money here, pretty bad place in my book.

I wish I could love this place. The food is actually pretty good, but the workers are always incredibly rude to us. I never have trouble with servers– I’m always polite, tip well, and don’t ask for much, so this isn’t something I encounter often. I’ve been here a few times to eat in the restaurant and about 5 times ordering out. Every single time, the workers are incredibly rude for absolutely no reason that I have caused and it’s made me not want to go there ever again. I love Indian food and was happy to have a place so close by, but will now have to look elsewhere.

The lunch and weekend buffets are decent at best and pretty good value for your money. If you want better quality, order off the menu and you will not be disappointed. The menu is a bit pricey but I will say you get about as much rice and entrée as you get at a chinese restaurant and ordering an entrée so the portions are large. I have had better Indian food but this is a great option in this area. Thank you Lal Qila!

Lal Qila is probably one of the best option for authentic Pakistani food places in Chicago.
Food is always always on point. Fresh and quality food!
With 100+ options of pakistani resturants in chicago — Lal Qila takes the cake.
Pricing is a little bit more than your avg paki place but it is worth it.

the sunday lunch is close to gross
all oily nearly cold stuff
not worth it at all
i would not come to this place if i not for the groupon i bought and cannot use for lunch
i am too dumb to read the fine print that the groupon cannot be used for lunch

I’ve been to lal qila a number of times for their buffet and it’s never a disappointment. There are always plenty more options than I’m able to eat! In my opinion this restaurant has one of the better Indian/​Pakistani buffets in Chicagoland, with both ample veg and non-​veg options. (Also the butter chicken is awesome.)

Ordered delivery from GrubHub because my sons weren’t cooperating with me on a pick up order. Food arrived at the time promised, but that was the best part about this place (Note-​GrubHub is independent from this place so if that’s the best part, it means I’m giving this place ZERO stars).
Ordered Mattar Paneer and Naan. $ 30 wasted. The Mattar Paneer was super nasty red oily and the sauce somehow broke so it’s curdled looking and oily. The naan was not light and fluffy like traditional naan, but edible. As for the Mattar Paneer… I have a big weekend coming up and food poisoning is not on my to do list so I’m calling this an expensive lesson learned.
Don’t order from this place. Check out my pictures of my nasty meal.

So, I went here for lunch with my co-​workers last week. I was pretty excited to go because the last time I had went was in summer 2014 for the Ramadan Iftaar buffet. The food was awesome then with a wide variety of delicious dishes. The food high I felt last summer pushed my desire to take my coworkers here for lunch.
We arrived on a Tuesday around 1 PM. There was one other diner there to an otherwise empty restaurant. We were seated immediately and the hostess told us to help ourselves to brunch. I took a quick look at all the dishes before I grabbed my plate. Myself being of Pakistani descent, I tend to hold Pakistani restaurants to a higher standard. Put frankly, the food just didn’t look appealing. But, I was hungry, so I tried the palak saag, pakoray, and tandoori chicken. For dessert, I had the custard.
The chicken was alright. It felt like store-​bought masala was quickly marinated on it and cooked. It didn’t have much juicy flavor. But, it was cooked well, and not raw which was good.
The palak saag was pretty good. The pakoray were okay; they were kind of on the oily side but still had flavor. The naan was okay– (³⁄₅). Definitely not fluffy, soft, and crispy like naan from other places. My coworkers agreed that the chicken was ehh. They enjoyed the channa masala/​cholay and the biryaani.
The custard was really good! I really liked it. My coworkers had the gajjar ka halwa and really enjoyed that too.
The service was good for a buffet. Our waters were always being filled and our plates were taken away when needed.
Overall, maybe I just had a magical moment during Ramadan when I was fasting for 17 hours. I guess everything tastes good in that state? I will definitely come here another time, maybe not on a random Tuesday, and see how the food tastes then. But for now, I would say the food I tasted would not motivate me to come again anytime soon.

Good traditional Pakistani food. I will come here for the butter chicken. Better than Sabri and the service here unlike most Desi restraunts is five stars

Once again a groupon almost expired gets me back to Lal Qila. And it was every bit as delicious as my previous half dozen visits.
Perfectly steamy crispy garlic naan, and we always seem to get the curries, goat and lamb, fantastic. I’ve only been here for dinner but people rave about the lunch buffet. We have had nothing but solid, attentive helpful service from teh big guy. We ask for a recommendation, he tells us what is most popular based on our interests, we order it, and love it. Portions are generous, we have always left with significant leftovers.
I’m still amazed at the money they put into this place not only in design but just SOLID quality of the table, chairs even silverware.
I think this is a tough location, people are pretty much heading for Menards or getting on or off route 53, instead they should be lining up here. Do it.

I have been to this restaurant many times, and to agree the Food was great too… But one major thing lacking in this Restaurant is Service, there is One old person at the Cash counter and one Huge Server, both to mention the worst candidates, No respect to customers at all.
We went for Lunch buffet and no one guided us to our table so sat in the huge hall, and when we were half through our lunch the server came and asked us to leave the table and sit in the smaller area, and the server and the proprietor were quarreling in front of us for sitting in the Party hall… And we had to carry our plates all the way and sit in the next hall, it was so embarrassing… How does the customer know where to sit unless they show us the table and also how could some one make us move in the middle of lunch and move to different table in front of everyone. Felt so angry and top of it no one even cared to Apologize… Hmmm…Worst service Ever in a restaurant and never going back again.

Lunch at Lal Qila consists of a somewhat different style Indian Buffet.
Let me say first that we came during a time when the location was explicitly not busy, and the restaurant seems well suited to gigantic crowds of probably 200+ people. This is not a small mom and pop restaurant or a small indian buffet. This is enormous.
The food itself is pretty good, but notably there’s a little bit of Hyderabad style indian food and a bit of the traditional. So it’s not really that different than any other buffet. The cuisine is generic indian cuisine, with your typical goat curry, chana masala, saag paneer and so on. However, there aren’t very many vegetarian options at all.
So if you want a buffet? This place is probably fine. If you’re vegetarian? You might not exactly find everything you want here.

We came to Lal Qila per my friends recommendation for our holiday board dinner and had a very nice time. We came on a Wednesday evening and it was pretty dead, maybe 2 other tables besides us, but that never worries me. What kinda did annoy me is that when we asked to sit somewhere in the middle at a table for more people, the guy kinda of rudely said «no, you can only sit at the four tops since there are four of you.» Umm, there wasn’t exactly a line out the door to get in and get a seat, nor did anyone else come in within the two hours we were there so that kind of put me off. Oh well, at least I was in good company and I really did enjoy the food. It was decently priced and the portions were fair. Here are some of the goodies we tried:
–Keema Samosa-​which was pan sautéed ground beef mildly spiced & stuffed in a
crispy deep fried pastry. Very good, highly recommend it. One of the best I’ve had.
–Chicken Biryani-​delicious chicken prepared with masala, tomatoes, yogurt, herbs and spices then simmered in brown basmati rice along with onions and saffron. Definitely enjoyed this but would get it with vegetables next time instead of meat.
–Chicken Tikka Masala-​Marinated boneless chicken grilled and sautéed in a
delicious tomato sauce and garnished with ginger and cilantro. I get this all the time and it wasn’t the best I’ve had but I did enjoy it especially dipping all the naan into it. I’m officially and Indian and Pakistani food lover even though they say this dish was actually created in England. Oh well, I still love the Indian influences to it.
–Darbar Chaana Chat which is a chick pea dish tossed with onions, yogurt, mint
sauce and tamarind sauce served in lentil basket. I thought this was tasty but I probably wouldn’t order it again.
We also got some other lentil vegetarian dish which was also tasty but I can’t remember the name. Overall, the food was very good, have no complaints there. Service needs some work especially when we had a double take deal to use at the end of the meal, the guy was like «sorry we no longer accept those.» Well then why do you advertise with double take that you do. So that was kind of annoying that we couldn’t use the $ 20 prepaid bucks that we bought, oh well. I would still come back here for the food, maybe do carryout next time, oh and get a few of those naan baskets.