Empress of India

I was looking for a quick cheap dinner to soak up the wine from last night and knew that I needed cheap and fast Indian. I got the mild butter chicken with a veggie samosa and garlic naan.
The garlic naan was the best naan I’ve ever had. No joke. Highly recommend but order two, you’ll want extra!
The butter chicken was exceptionally sweet, which isn’t my style. I think I should have ordered a different main but I was a little hungover and lazy, so took the first suggestion from the waitress.
The veggie samosa were huge and quite spicy. Overall one serve was more than enough for a generous meal and leftovers for lunch and it was $ 20! Bargain!

My second review of this lovely local — I have always had takeaway here, but nice enough to dine in, I just prefer not to comply with social etiquette when eating (inhaling?) messy food. They still rock the Curry-​Rice-​Naan deal for $ 13.50 Mon-​Wed, $ 16 Thurs-​Sunday (excluding the obvious seafood/​tandoori) My Chicken Korma was a true medium heat as requested, here they don’t just do plain rice, oh no, they offer saffron, coconut and plain (at no extra charge) My naan was freshly made and glorious. The Onion Bhaji is stunning and a huge portion, the best for miles, in my Onion Bhaji loving opinion.

The palace taster may be pleased but the empress may say off with their heads. This restaurant at the junction of Great North Road and Surrey Road in Grey Lynn has surprisingly tasty curries but average service. Their starter platters are a sizzling combination of samosas, crispy onion bhajis and pakoras. Everything from butter chicken to saag beef to the vindaloo is delicious and the onion fried rice is a nice touch for a bit of extra flavour. There’s an adequate wine and beer selection and the ambience is suburban casual. Service seems to be limited to dropping plates and drinks off. Water glasses were never refilled on a recent visit and neither was any request made for further drinks or dessert. Luckily, if you are feeling a tad neglected, you can daydream with the constant stream of Bollywood music videos on screen by the main door. Perhaps you can even get up and dance — that might get you some attention from the wayward waiters. Jai ho!

This is one of the best Indian meals I’ve had in Auckland in the under $ 15 price range. A lot of restaurants do a ridiculously cheap $ 10 lunch deal and mon/​tue/​wed night dinner deal. Then the rest of the time a curry is $ 18+. However, Empress of India is $ 14 – 15 for a curry and this is why we got takeaways from here on a Saturday night.
The curry and rice portion size were huge and flavour was fantastic. We got a hot beef vindaloo, a medium butter chicken and a medium butter paneer as well as naan’s and poppadom’s. Couldn’t fault the curry’s at all — tasty, fresh and had plenty of meat and heat to them. The naan’s were perfectly cooked and huge. Poppadom’s the same.
The only thing that stops this restaurant from getting 5 stars is that we went to their website which was offering a $ 15 deal for curry, rice and a naan and then placed a phone order. When we got there they told us that the deal was for 2014 but they hadn’t updated their website and refused to honour the deal. It was only a $ 2 saving per meal, but it was the principle of the whole thing.
I’ll definitely be back here, and if you’re looking for a great indian meal around Ponsonby/​Grey Lynn then definitely come here.

This place still remains the best Indian I have had. This was my second visit to reaffirm that the first visit wasn’t a fluke.
However, I was proved wrong. The flavours they have were amazing! The chicken was so tender and the curry was perfect! And the naan was glorious as well.
I will be back with more people.

Attentive, polite, friendly service is what you will get as soon as you step foot into this restaurant. When our water was poured, the server said ‘Hello Miss how are you?’ Although we were seated at a quiet table near the window, the enthusiastic crowd upstairs signaled this place was good enough to bring the party to.
Our meal started with Onion bahji and curry sauce. I equate this to onion rings without coming full circle. We dined on this for quite a while, as we waited on our entrée. It was a good 20 minutes before our food arrived. Possibly delayed because of the large party upstairs. Perhaps they had not prepared in advance?
I ordered the Lamb Vidaloo traditional spicy, Raita and Saffron Rice. The vindaloo was superb. A thick, creamy, spicy sauce with tender seasoned lamb. The rice was aromatic, lightly fluffed and cooked to perfection.
The raita. Oohhhh the raita. Not good at all. It was sweet! Another raita with extra fixings involved. This one had chopped onion, along with some sweet flavor I couldn’t quite place. When I asked our server if it was a specific type of raita, he said it was the house special traditional. Mmm okay, suppose I’ll keep searching for the house special flavor I am used to; just yogurt and cucumber thanks. The naan bread was also a bit subpar — not the baked semi-​crunchy naan most places serve. Put it this way it was soggy without even dipping it in the vindaloo or raita.
There are specials for each night of the week here. On this occasion, the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night special includes a curry, rice and naan for $ 12.99. I may pass on the naan and raita, but I thoroughly enjoyed the vindaloo.

I walk past this restaurant every day and have always wanted to try it out. I was delighted when a friend suggested we try it last weekend for a Saturday take out.
My friend is a vegetarian so we chose the Palak Paneer which is cottage cheese cubes in a spinach type sauce= AMAZING. We also had the Malai Kofta which was also amazing. Each curry comes with rice and a naan.
I was sooo impressed with both these options that i ate the leftovers for breakfast the next day!
They have a great deal for $ 14 which includes curry, rice and naan. AWESOME VALUE.
I would HIGHLY recommend a trip to this place.

While I’ve recently taken to eating more Thai than I do Indian, I sometimes make an exception for Surrey Crescent’s Empress of India, which does a ridiculously awesome $ 10 main special on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I’ve sampled pretty much everything off the vegetarian menu since I started spending a whole ten bucks on going to Empress, and here are my favourites. (All the mains are good, these are just the ones I get regularly.)
Shahi paneer — paneer and cashews, together at last.
Paneer tikka masala — creamy, spicy and packed with paneer.
Chana masala — an aromatic dish with ginger, herbs and spices.
One day I’m going to have to go there for the vegetarian banquet, which is also crazy cheap at $ 25 a head.

A favourite BYO bottle between girlfriends and dinner at Empress of India is quite a nice way to spend a week night. We sat downstairs where the fishbowl windows allowed us to watch the world go by outside Surry Crescent, not that we were too interested because we were busy chatting and eating tasty Indian.
We ordered Malai Kofta and the a tangy flavoured dish, Jalfraizee with garlic Naan.
We noticed the upstairs seating and were told by the waiter that this was a great spot to hold a private venue, tend to agree as its tucked away from the rest of the restaurant and is a really nice space. Parking is easy outside behind the restaurant. Prices are reasonable too.