Salt and Pepper Grill II

Just ordered delivery. The butter chicken portion was unbelievably tiny. Just sauce and a few small morsels of chicken. Total rip off!

I just ordered delivery from Salt and Pepper Grill for the first time. Their middle aged delivery guy stood outside my door at night slowly counting his tip (the bill itself was paid via my credit card) in order to tell me that «this [the $ 3 I gave him in addition to the $ 3 delivery fee] is not good!»
My order:
Chicken Korma: $ 12.95
Butter Chicken $ 11.95
Garlic Naan $ 3.50
Tax: $ 2.84
Delivery Fee: $ 3.00
My Tip: 3.00
$ 3 is a 10% tip (you don’t tip on tax). In conjunction with the $ 3 delivery fee for driving 0.7 miles, that’s 20%. If you don’t like my tip then simply never deliver to my address again (although it’s not like I’ll ever order from you again). To stand angrily outside my door at night was classless and threatening.
The food tasted okay for what it was (delivery Indian food) although it was too sweet. Small portions (one portion of rice for 2 entrees) and a lot of sauce to distract from the small amount of meat. Next time I’ll order Thai.

We ordered from here and the food was never delivered and my card was charged for the delivery.

Just ok takeout, mildly disappointing.

Having now visited all three locations of Northern DC’s premier Indian takeout food, I have determined that this is the easiest one to get to and park near (at least from my perspective). Portion size (large) and quality (solid) has remained constant across all three locations.
Seeing as how I do like spicy things and I like to test whether places are willing to oblige, I asked this location to amp up my daal to the hottest level, and I received a hefty dose of democratic socialism (i.e. I was #feelingtheBern). Their aloo chaat was less impressive and perhaps a tad bland, particularly given that I had a similar dish done better recently. In general, I find that S&P does better entrees than appetizers.
That being said, it’s veg-​friendly takeout that produces decent flavor and value for the money.

This is my go-​to Indian delivery place and one of my favorite delivery options. It does take awhile, usually around 45 minutes, but it’s always delivered within the quoted window. Service is friendly and efficient. It is leapyears better than Salt and Pepper Grill’s Georgia location, which I used to frequent. The dishes at this location are much lighter and fresher, less creamy, more like a hoke cooked meal. My go-​tos are the palak paneer (spinach and paneer cheese), chana masala (chick peas simmered in a tomato sauce with herbs), and the novrakam korma (a more creamy, slightly sweet sauce with mixed veggies, albeit likely a frozen bag of carrots, peas, and other veggies). Dishes come with basmati rice, and the garlic naan is quite good. Our friends have ordered the chicken and spinach, and chicken tikka masala dishes when we’ve jointly ordered takeout, and they also couldn’t stop raving about it. This is such a wonderful neighborhood joint.
Note that there really isn’t anywhere to eat so eating at the restaurant isn’t an option. It’s a takeout and delivery shop.

This place is easily the best Indian-​Pakistani carry out in the area. They have all sorts of vegetarian and non-​vegetarian options and the food is always hot and ready on time. Flavors are great, but the dishes do come on the spicy side so if you don’t like spicy make sure you let them know. Butter chicken is always cooked perfectly and the okra dish is so flavorful. The portion sizes are substantial so you’ll feel full even with just one vegetarian dish and some naan.

My go-​to neighborhood spot for Indian-​Pakistani food. Love their lamb Biryani (spicy) and Aloo Bhindi (okra and potatoes). Great comfort food.

This place has been hit and miss with me. Today I got the lamb rogan josh and it was amazing, probably the best I’ve had. I take issue with the fact that they charge double the price for garlic naan versus regular naan. I love vegetable indian dishes and they have a large selection however a few of those I’ve ordered have used a lot of mixed frozen vegetables rather than fresh vegetables.

We just moved to the neighborhood and had a craving for some good Indian food. Reviews seemed to indicate this was a good gamble — but it was just so-​so at best. What people see in this place’s butter chicken — I cannot for the life of me think. It’s bizarrely SWEET– what’s up with that? The Chaat Papari was thin on flavor, and the breaded bits were hard. We ordered Boti Lamb Kabob, and I’m pretty sure that’s not what we got, but what we got was very tasty. The Onion Kulcha & Raita were nice. All in all — there was just zero depth of flavor in the food. It just tasted like something slapped together with very little talent.
It pains me to say this, but I don’t see us eating here again… and we SO wanted to love this place!

This is my go-​to carry out place in Columbia heights! The butter chicken and green curry are my favs!

We feasted at salt and pepper last night and really enjoyed our meal. The butter chicken was fantastic, and I really enjoyed the extensive vegetarian menu options. The cauliflower and potato option was spicy but delicious. The price is on point as there is more than enough for two meals.
Order out only. Certainly not the fanciest of places, but certainly hits the spot late at night!

This is a difficult review to write. The food is really good. I love the fact that they use oil and salt in the wonderfully unapologetic manner that all good food from the Indian subcontinent should. However, for a delivery place, their planning and execution is terrible. I’ve given them a few chances, and delivery has always been late. Really folks, if you’re consistently taking over an hour to get to your orders, perhaps a modest increase in your operational capabilities is in order?

You like Indian food? Well I highly suggest you put this yummy shiznit all up inside your mouth.
Their Chicken Tikka Masala is so good, it’ll make Ganesha feel stupid. What what!!!

Pros:
Great food
good service
the front dsk is helpful and has good tatses
Cons:
Pricey for what you get (BUT SO GOOD)
I like this place, its my go to for Indian, mostly out of proximity — I usually recommend it but it does get pricey quick so just be aware of that. I like spicy food and they have gone out of their way to make it much spicier than normal for me!

Salt and Pepper kills me, because with the name of the restaurant you would think they serve soul food or at the very least fast food. Nope, this is an Indian carry out joint that is more casual takeout (see what I did there) to «take your food and go!!» A fellow Unilocal fanatic gave me the scoop on this place that was in his neck of the woods when we were jonesing for some grub after the Denver Broncos were putting a whooping on another AFC West foe.
I digressed for a second, as a person who is not that adventurous on his food purchases I was skeptical of ordering take out Indian food, maybe Chinese but Indian has the world gone mad! It actually was close to exceptional, I ordered the chicken with spinach and rice (completely forgot the actual name for it), it was surprisingly good. Good enough that I dusted off the old laptop computer to make me write a review for it 2 months later thinking about it. The food was not greasy, messy or left me with indigestion. So that is all to the good in my book. I advise everyone in this local area to try Salt and Pepper at least once to make their own assessment, but I give them a solid 4 stars. Why am I leaving out a possible 5^th star, because of a bit of a wait but that is my own idiosyncrasy that gave the deduction… Salt and Pepper has the flavor to stick for a looong time.

This is the second time I’ve been back for lunch, and I haven’t been disappointed! Yes, there are some snafu’s, such as wait times and the last time I went the phone was busy so I ordered in person instead, but the food and service are both great, in my opinion.
Last time I got Dal Masoor, and this time I got Aloo Mutter. Both delicious and definitely worth the money.
This is definitely a great place for lunch.

I ordered dinner from S&P II last night and it was the bomb! I am a huge fan of Indian food and have some pretty high standards and this place seriously delivered. Their spice level is on point — meaning it is actually spicy and flavorful. The chicken tandouri is just perfection and naan is super soft. The chicken tikka masala was the probably the blandest dish — justifiably catering for its audience.
As one of my friends said after dinner «It is dangerous to know this place delivers»
Will definitely order from here again!
Oh, and they were about 20 minutes late delivering the food so don’t get too worried if they’re running late, your food will eventually make it!

So… S&P has been super disappointing the last few times. We’ve ordered chicken saag, chicken curry, aloo gobi, samosas, butter chicken, and chicken tikka masala and have found everything except the samosas waaaayyy under salted and generally flavorless. In the case of the chicken tikka masala, it was a little too sweet (their tikka masala has always been on the sweeter side, but the last few times were sickly sweet). The chicken saag tasted how I imagine spinach baby food would taste. It def was not Indian food.
I don’t know if they’ve changed chefs or what, but I wish they’d go back to the S&P of yore. I live a few blocks away, but have stopped ordering from them… totally bummed.

I really wanted to like this place but I just didn’t. I was recommended the first Salt and Pepper Grill in Columbia Heights by my good friend who is Indian and has great taste. Unfortunately, I hardly ever find myself in Columbia Heights for dinner. Then this place opened up within delivery of my home and I was thrilled! Thrilled, I say! Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to the hype. However, I will do my best to give the original location a chance.
FOOD:
— Chicken Tikka Masala: This arrived bright orange and the sauce was so dense that I could barely recognize it as Tikka Masala. It was almost syrupy. And definitely tasted sweet enough to be syrup. Not sure how they messed this up but I was excited to introduce my younger sister to this classic Indian dish and it was an epic fail.
— Bhaingan Bharta: This was good, however also not what I was expecting. It was almost like pureed eggplant with garlic. A bit odd. But the flavors were there so I will give this one 3.5 stars.
— Goat curry: To be fair, I think this would be good to most people. However, it was a bit too «game-​y» for my taste. I love trying goat dishes at restaurants because even though I don’t really enjoy lamb that much, I feel that goat is usually so much more tender and has a milder flavor. This one tasted pretty much like lamb. Maybe it was? We’ll never know.
— Garlic Naan: This was great — 4 stars.
SERVICE: We ordered delivery. They estimated 45 minutes. Took them 1 hour 15 minutes. That’s fine, we weren’t in a huge rush but I called the restaurant after an hour just to check that they had the right phone number and everything, and the person said that the delivery guy had left the restaurant 20 minutes ago. So I guess he was out and about delivering our food for ~ 30 minutes before he got to us? Thus, all our food was pretty cold and I had to rebake the naan, which was kind of a bummer. But I guess all of that is the risk you take with delivery…