Kabab & Curry

This place closed– it’s now a Thai place. Not sure if it’s the same owners or not.

Four of us went to Kabab & Curry on New Year’s Eve. It’s a charming atmosphere – small and warmly decorated. But the smiles stopped there.
As we got our menus, the waitress informed us that there would be no tandoori or naan, since something had happened earlier in the day with the oven. There was also only one kind of kabab, and one of the curries was out, as we found after we’d ordered it. The soup my husband had ordered turned out not to be available either. He ended up deciding not to have anything, figuring that he’d just share with the three of us. We had two different kinds of saag and the chicken kabab, along with two samosas. Other reviewers have commented on the high price for just two samosas. They were tasty but cold, strange since the restaurant opened two minutes before we arrived. The saag and the chicken were good, but the rice seemed to be left over from the day before – scraped from the bottom of the pot and also cold – and the meals themselves were not particularly hot. We had two cups of chai tea, but no other drinks. Three smallish meals, two samosas, and two cups of tea came to $ 60. That might have been okay if everything had been hot. It might also have been better if there had been any attempt to add something special to make up for what turned out to be missing, but it would be best of all to go somewhere else in town for tastier, more reasonable Indian food.

The food was quite good, if a little pricey. But the service was incredibly slow. And – maybe I am nitpicking here, but I was not thrilled when the naan came out after I had finished my entrée.
I would consider coming back, once the kitchen and server are more in practice – both in timing and, in the server’s case, knowing what the food on the menu is. But I may not bother, when there is equally good Indian to be had, for slightly better prices, elsewhere in town.
If you do decide to try it out – and, hey, the Anchorage Press gave it good marks, so maybe do, and prove my review wrong – I recommend making a reservation! The place is tiny, and they seemed a little taken aback that we didn’t have one.

This place just opened last week, and you can tell.
I’d been hearing ads for this place on the radio, so my husband and I went for lunch today. We were the first ones there. The waitress sat us down and almost gave us menus, but then told us that they only had the lunch specials listed on their white board available.
She didn’t understand how it worked, so the guy I’m guessing is the owner came out to explain. Basically, they had three dishes (chicken curry, chicken tandoori, and a vegetarian dish). I don’t understand how or why the waitress didn’t understand this, because she had to have the owner come out to explain it to customers at least one other time.
We got our food quickly (I guess that’s the beauty of only having 3 dishes…) but I saw this other poor couple that looked like they were in a hurry just sit and sit waiting for the waitress while she served other parties who arrived after the ones who were in a hurry.
The owner is nice to the customers, but a jerk to the waitress. I heard him kind of yelling at her. I don’t know what they were talking about, but I heard him say to her «I don’t give a sh*t.» Very unprofessional.
I got the chicken curry lunch which was pretty good. My husband got the chicken tandoori lunch which basically tasted like any other roast chicken. They both came with daal, a soup which at first, I thought tasted pretty good, but then I noticed it had a sharp taste. (The waitress even forgot to bring the daal and naan, we had to ask for them.) I thought the naan was pretty good, though.
The décor is kind of cute, but the building itself is pretty small. It was nice at first, but then as more people came in, it got pretty loud.
The worst part is, the lunches were $ 15 each! I don’t think the food was good enough to pay $ 15. $ 15, I think, is more like what you would pay for dinner. I would come back, but my husband was pretty adamant about not going back because of the price, the service, and what he called «average food.»
Hopefully, they get better. I feel bad leaving a bad review for a new place, but I’m just being honest.