India Mahal

My friends have always had mixed opinions about this place, however I have only had good experience here. I have been here four times after it was rebranded from Bombay Hookah Lounge. All the negative reviews here seem to boil down to three issues. 1. Overpriced, 2. Limited items and 3. Bland/​bad taste. Price: All the Indian restaurants in West Lafayette are super-​expensive, and this place is probably the most affordable of all. No other Indian restaurant in WL/​Lafayette offers a decent lunch buffet for $ 10. Period. Limited items: You get what you pay for, people! If you are a vegetarian or vegan, your options are seriously limited. If you are a meat-​eater, you will have a good time here! Taste: I too have felt that the food here is a little bland. I suppose they do it this way to cater to non-​Indians as well??? It would be nice if they spike up the spice level a couple of notches. Their Gulab Jamuns definitely taste fresh, unlike their competitors in Lafayette and West Lafayette.

I use to like this place but i went 2 days ago at 5 pm. The buffet was not ready and since we where the only one they didnt want to bring everthing out. The food was fair. I asked abt the samosa that is usually on their buffet, first he said we will bring it out and when i asked again he said that its not on the buffet anymore if i want 2 pieces for 2.99!

So we didn’t actually eat here but instead took one look at the $ 12.95 buffet and headed straight for the door. It was around 8:45 pm so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that the food looked stale and dried out due to closing time. Not only did the buffet look sad, but so did their presentation of dinnerware. Made it seem like I was in someone’s kitchen rather than a restaurant.
The «server» (guy behind the register) had a weird attitude. like we bothered him by coming in. So yeah… yet another reason why I wouldn’t come back.

The buffet spread isn’t huge, and they don’t even try to keep the food warm and fresh. To top it off, the owner keeps trying to sell you monthly home lunch or dinner plans, and frankly, I’d rather starve than eat their food. And the dishes taste like they were cooked by a grad student trying to cook for the fifth or sixth time in his/​her life. The breads (rotis, naans) are horrible. If you pull something off the freezer, at least make an attempt to mask it. Being vegan, my choices were limited. Yet, the dishes I did have were not prepared with care. You can NOT throw in spices randomly and call it food.
The only reason I went here was because it was a Monday and I’d forgotten that Shaukin is closed on Mondays.
I make MUCH better food at home with the simplest of ingredients available to me. I will visit this place again if I’m ever in the mood to put my taste buds through some real trauma.

Went with a couple of friends. Was far from campus and the food was quite pricey. The buffet had slight variety and tasted ok.

Probably the best Indian restaurant in town.

My husband and I really enjoy Indian food and frequent both Khana Khazana (West Lafayette) & Sharma’s Kitchen (Lafayette) pretty often. As a Purdue alum and Lafayette resident, I felt like we should definitely give this place a chance.
They open at 12:00 on Sundays and we were the first customers in the door, actually the only customers they had the entire time we were there. The only server was on the phone as we entered. We waited quietly to be seated and he continued talking on the phone. After a few minutes, while still talking on the phone, he gestures us towards a table. We stand at the table, unsure as to if we are at the correct one. He never says a word to us. We eventually just sit down. We wait for five more minutes while he continued to talk on the phone. No one else comes to take our drink order or let us know we can visit the buffet.
We were about to leave the restaurant when he finally got off the phone. He approached our table and apologized – only to my husband! We gave him our drink order and he told us to help ourselves to the buffet. As we grabbed out plates he told us to wait 2 minutes while he switched the food option name tags above each dish. We stood there, awkwardly, while he did this. After he finished, he then told my husband to help himself, again not even acknowledging me!
At this point, in hindsight, we should have left. We, however, didn’t do this. We made our plates and sat back down. The food, at best, was mediocre. The thing my husband and I love most about Indian food is the typical amount of spice and heat. All of the entrees with sauce tasted the same and nothing stood out as special on the entire buffet, except these little «chicken nugget» looking pieces. Even if the food had been phenomenal, the complete lack of customer service wouldn’t make up for it.
We ate pretty quickly and exited. I would not return. If you are looking for Indian food with flavor and good customer service do yourself a favor and visit Khana Khazana (West Lafayette) or Sharma’s Kitchen (Lafayette). They are slightly more pricey, but it is worth it. Trust me.
Side Note: They charge about $ 1 more to use a debit card, so if you are trying to save money you might bring cash.

On the recommendation of a good friend of mine from India, I organized a group of friends to visit India Mahal. Unfortunately, we were not impressed with the food and we were hopeful (very hopeful) that it was going to blow our minds.
I love Indian food and India Mahal is super close to Purdue campus. India Mahal has great parking underneath the apartment complex and is easy-​to-​find. The staff were not too bad, although we kind of expected a little more face time with the servers, given the amount of people in the restaurant.
We did decide to eat the buffet, and maybe that’s where we went wrong. It was super cheap and allowed us to try many different food options. We all got the buffet and didn’t quite get what we expected. The Tikka Masala sauce wasn’t as «rich» or inviting as others I have tried. The other dishes seemed a little stale, overcooked or old. The naan was good, pretty fresh actually, and a couple of the vegetarian dishes were also very tasty.
All-​in-​all, I think we might go back to give the food another chance. It wasn’t bad, per se, just missing something (think 100 Year Journey the movie).

Highly recommend! This is my favorite Indian restaurant in the Lafayette/​West Lafayette area due to the delicious food, wide variety of vegetarian options, and excellent service. I only discovered it a few months ago and am already a regular.

This is an amazing place. The food is great and the place is vibrant. My favorite is chicken biryani! I would definitely recommend India mahal for anyone craving for taste of Indian food!

India Mahal is the same Bombay restaurant with same management at the same location. By rebranding themselves, they had a huge opportunity to re-​invent themselves. However, it seems like they didn’t even both to try. We tried the dinner buffet. There was no naan in the buffet for most of our meal and it seemed to be really difficult to get the lone server’s attention (who was the owner). I know all about bad service in authentic places but this place does not have good enough food to have that luxury. The food was average at best and I was rooting for them so much because I can’t afford the pricey buffet at Sharma’s kitchen. I don’t think I’ll go back until something drastically changes at their end.
Edit — 03/​04/​2015: The owners got in touch with me and I stand corrected. The owners are not the same. They just hired the old people. I went back to the restaurant again a week ago, and my personal opinion is that the food was just not good. The service was excellent though. I don’t want to attack an upcoming family business, so I want to make it clear that this is just my personal opinion as a North Indian who grew up eating this food.