Anjappar Chettinad

First impression — the outside of the building is in desperate need of some basic weeding and landscaping. The restaurant is attached to a motel, but the landscapers who tend to the motel obviously do not maintain the restaurant. I’m not usually that observant, but it was really bad. Dead plants obscured by large weeds.
Once inside the décor was nice but the service was lackluster. They refused to even entertain the idea of substituting one dosa from the non-​veg list for the potato dosa on the veg-​list. It’s $ 11-​$ 12 for three small dosas on the lunch menu and you can’t choose what you want.
I got the non-​veg dosas and was quite disappointed. The egg dosa had such a thin layer cooked onto the dosa that I thought it was empty. The chicken filling was tasty but there was perhaps 2 spoonfuls. It also came with a very small dish (maybe ¹⁄₃ cup) of some kind of gravy. Ridiculous amount of food for the price. I was done in about 3 minutes and sat around waiting for my lunch buddies to finish.
There are much better Indian restaurants around.
Bottom line — I won’t be going back. I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a yogurt for lunch.

Went to this new restaurant. Service was great so was the food like always. Tip: Chicken 65 and Goat biryani must have.

Food is average Southern Indian food. Spice levels are inconsistent and one has to be over precautious in trusting the chef for the spice. Sometimes that makes you wonder if the generous dose of spice is used to camouflage reheated /​not freshly cooked food — especially the hard to chew spice rolled pepper chicken. Portions are really smaller compared to what you can buy at other Indian restaurants. Service is sub-​par, especially at the bar. Bartenders are slow, distracted, untrained, and dont seem to take their jobs seriously — bad idea to sit at the bar. With the bar area having less than 30% occupancy on weekday evenings, it is imaginable how things would be on a busy day. Seems like the sloppy service at their rt 130 north brunswick place has been extended to Princeton with the addition of a sub-​par bar. In fact all the jazzy décor seems to be a let down with the service and staff. And food not value for money. Dont recommend this place.

Stopped here yesterday with a coworker for lunch, at her suggestion. First, I want to say the food is decent. I ordered the chicken tikka masala, an order of rice, and the butter naan. The quality was pretty good, and it tasted good, but I did have a couple of issues… the masala didn’t come with the rice and it was a fairly small portion, but at $ 15 on its own I felt like it was a por value. I ended up spending more than I like on lunch, to be honest. But maybe that could be helped by a clear explanation on the menu? I don’t know, I’ve not ever been to an Indian restaurant that did this.
But really that’s the least of the issues here. The service is really lacking. I think it’s important to point out that they weren’t overly busy when we were seated, and the waiters were standing in an awkward line along the wall. One walked up and filled our glasses with water and walked away. About 10 Minutes later, a gentleman I believe must have been the manager walked over to take our order. No one ever asked if we wanted anything besides water to drink. And we never had the same member of wait staff approach our table. My food was a long time coming, in part because of the confusion over the rice, and because we were on our lunch break, I ended up asking to box things up. While I was waiting for my box, another miscellaneous waiter came to refill our water, I asked if I could get ice water, instead of the room temperature stuff we’d been drinking, and he told me it was ice water, but it clearly wasn’t. At that point we asked for our bills, and had to explain to three separate people that we were each paying our own bills. We stopped at the hostess stand on our way out to ask her to pass on the manager how confused and irratic the service was, but she just looked confused as to why we were talking to her. I’d suggest passing on this place, unfortunately, since the food is good, but nothing special, and the service level is awful.

Not recommended at all. There is no one to welcome you at the front door. When we went to the restaurant, we had to stop one of the server and ask for the table. The place not nor even crowded at all.
Food is all right. Price is okay, but small quantity.

We came here last night, because our Paint Night class was being held at this restaurant. There was another restaurant here prior. The space is great with a hip trendy bar, so I was looking forward to checking out the new restaurant. We grabbed some drinks and a few apps before our class at 7. I’m giving this review a 3 star, because the food was good. But, on other fronts there is lots of room for improvement.
The Bad: My boyfriend ordered a draft Heineken and it tasted quiet off with a limey taste. When we told the bartender, instead of immediately replacing it, he showed us that it was straight out of the tap. He did gladly replace with a Blue Moon after we asked. I ordered a ginger ale, which I saw the bartender pour from a 2 liter bottle of Shop Rite ginger ale. It was completely flat. After the beer thing, we didn’t bother returning it or asking for a replacement. I just stuck to drinking my water.
None of the appetizers were served with either mint or tamarind chutney, which is the customary way to eat these items. Instead they were served with hot sauce, which I found odd. The hot sauce was quiet hot though!
The Good: The appetizers were actually good — a bit on the spicy side, so beware. We ordered the vegetable samosas (which were 4 mini samosas), the Gobi 65 (very tasty and fried to perfection), and the chili chicken. The chili chicken preparation was different then I expected — It was fried — normally it is not. It was still tasty, but I wish it had not been fried.

My family and I visited here today as a larger party. First off the service was ridiculous. We waited for over 25 minutes to even place an order after we were seated. We asked for ice water 3 times before receiving it. While placing the order we were informed that half of the items on the menu were not «available». If you plan on having items on the menu. you should inform the customers. The family seated next to us told us that there was an additional service charge even though they were a party of 4. I definitely would not recommend this restaurant to others.

Over priced menu for the same food that can be found in almost any other Indian restaurant. Order goat thali which was basically same as veg thali except had one piece of goat and that too all bones for $ 17!
The service was good and so was the ambience but food pricing and taste left a lot to be desired.

Shan has great interpersonal skills. Make him the floor manager. Good food and ambiance.

Good décor. Good selection of beers and drinks. Tasty food — we ordered the appams. As tasty as they were they were over priced and too little Korma to accompany them. I asked for more Korma and got it but I should not have had to ask for it in the first place if they were a little more liberal with the quantities to begin with and to top it off they charged me extra for it.
Chili paneer was tasty but would have been better if it came out on a sizzling plate.
May come back once more to try out the Thali but will not order the appams again unless they come down in price. The appams were the primary reason we came here in the first place…

Excellent food and service. Lots of choices and the Food was well prepared and wonderfully spiced.
We had the chicken thali and lamb rogan josh. Probably the best we we’ve had in the U.S.
Irfan and staff were very attentive and extremely helpful in answering questions.
Highly recommend if you’re in the area or worth the trip from far and wide.

Went to this place with family and absolutely loved the food. Ordered kozhi rasam soup, which was ok, chicken tikka was nice but the best was Kozhi Milagu Varuval, it was amazing. For main course, ordered chicken chettinad, which was good and Mutton Sukka Varuval, which was delicious. For take out, ordered chicken and goat biryani, those were good too but the quantity was less, not even sufficient for one person.
The service was good and staff was helping. Would definitely go back.
Nitin

This is the place that we go to when we need to whet our appetite for some good old Tamilian cooking. Delectable and sumptuous are the two words that recall our experience every single time. The smiling face of Irfan makes all the difference. The staff is extremely attentive and takes care of all our whims! The Nathali is to die for. My wife swears by the Thali! She is bowled over by the delicately flavored Kootte. We make it a point to show up here every 2 weeks and been regulars since its opening. There is not a single Indian restaurant that comes close to the authenticity that Anjappar offers in a 100 miles.

What a disappointment. They call it as bar and grill. None of them has any bar experience. Guy doesn’t know what cocktail is. One Chinese guy waiter, pretty rude. Food is very average. Bad. Bad. Bad.

Had to update my review after my last one. Visited couple more times after my last visit. As always the food was excellent. I got an opportunity to bring in a group of friends and they tried the following items:
1. Chemmeen curry
2. Lamb roganjosh
3. Mutton meals
4. Chicken biriyani
5. Chicken meals
6. Mutton biriyani
Everyone were new to Chettinad cuisine and everything was highly appreciated. The service was much better than my previous visit. But it still could be much better.
P. S. I asked for a virgin Princeton drink from their cocktail menu and the service person smirked and asked «virgin» and smirked again. Would have preferred him explaining what else the cocktail had or that it doesn’t taste good without the alcohol rather than making us (my guest and I) feel awkward.

This is a very new restaurant, and it shows. We stopped here for lunch on a Saturday, excited to try the new Indian restaurant in town. Unfortunately, there were many issues with the place.
Ordering from the menu is no easy task. We found that many of the items are not available. The server explained it is because they just opened. I think it would make more sense to have a smaller, temporary menu in that case. The items not available were the chicken burger, aloo paratha, murgh sheekh kabob, and tamarind sauce, which was the biggest surprise to me as I’ve never experienced an Indian restaurant without a sweet tamarind sauce to go with the spicy appetizers! Instead, they brought out tabasco sauce and ketchup as the only alternatives.
We ordered onion pakodas, king fish fry and masala dosai. The onion pakodas were good. The fish was meant as an entrée, but it came out as an appetizer, so I was left eating the masala dosai by myself, without my husband having any food. It was very good, although there was not enough coconut chutney. The fried fish was two small pieces and my husband was not impressed considering the $ 15 price tag. He ordered the goat biryani to take home. When he ate it for dinner that night, he thought it tasted like it was made from the day before. I would not be surprised if that was the case.
I checked Unilocal first and saw the great photos of the inside and was excited to enjoy the chandeliers and ambiance, however, instead of sitting in this area, we were taken by a long walk to the back of the restaurant, which is a smaller size room with no windows, and tables set very close together, maybe 9 inches between them. When the server for the table next to us was speaking with his customers, we were afraid his backside was going to touch our plates. It was scary and comical at the same time, how silly that was.
I would try this place again, maybe after they have more time to improve.

I almost didn’t come after reading the bad reviews below, and THAT, would have been a bad mistake. I don’t know why those people wrote bad reviews, but I haven’t had Indiana Cuisine this good since my dear friend «Doctor Joe» passed away…
As far as the service goes, my water never went below half way before it was filled again! The entire staff made me and everyone else In the restaurant like kings!
If I could give 6 stars out of 5 I would!

The worst place to go. The food is expensive and the quantity is very small.
Poor customer service snd had to wait for 10 min to get menu card and another 15 mins to wait to order
Avoid going to this restaurant

The food tasted real good. The quantity served per item is very less so we ended up spending more money than usual. My friends gave this feedback to the manager and we hope their stinginess does not bring them down.
The bar looks great.

The food taste is okay. But the quantity and service is very bad. I ordered a biryani to-​go and the quantity is not even enough for 1 person. Totally not worth $ 13. Also the service is bad for a new restaurant. They are under staffed and not experienced.
I expected better food for a new restaurant especially for the brand Anjappar. I have had bad experiences in New York and Princeton. So better stay away.