The award for the best Indian Food on the island goes to Cafe Maharani. I’m pretty certain that by now I have been to all of the Indian restaurants here on the island and I can say with absolute certainty that Cafe Maharani is the best. I really didn’t want to like them at first. Every time I come here it’s pack and I usually have to wait. I hate waiting, it makes me bitter. There’s also an Indian Restaurant called India House just down the street, but they get no love from me because they suck major dingle berry ass. Anyhow, Cafe Maharanl is the best so lets celebrate by all going out to eat there, tonight, not on me because I’m a cheap ass. But if you happen to see me, go ahead and offer to buy me dinner, I won’t say no.

I like coming here because the inside is small but very vibrant.

I ordered a Mango Lassi for my beverage. It’s a yogurt drink. The first time I ever had one of these it was really weird for me to get use to drinking what tasted like a runny yogurt drink, but soon I got use to it and now I love them.

We started with some Nann. It was served to us with a pizza cutter. I believe this was the Kabli Nann, $5.99 and it serves up to 3 people so bring your hommies.

Or you can just order Plain Nann, $2.75.

There’s just way too much sauce in Indian food for you to not get rice.

I apologize but I don’t remember what any of this was called. All I can say is that is was all lamb, one fish and everything ran about $15.00. All of it was phenomenally delicious, that’s why I’m going back there for dinner tonight.

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Cafe Maharani
2509 S King St
Honolulu, HI 96826

Get Directions(808) 951-7447

Located along the strip of Ala Moana Bombay is probably the first Indian restaurant that tourist encounter. When I first moved here I was thrilled to see an Indian restaurant so close to my home. However, after scanning their menu and checking out the prices I quickly turned around and headed straight out the door. A year later after becoming slightly numb with the bull shit prices around here I decided to give Bombay another shot.

The restaurant is nicely lit with dim lighting. To me this is probably the larger and nicer of the Indian restaurants on the island.

This is Gulab Jamun, $4.95. I saw it on the menu and quickly recognized it as one of my all time favorite Indian treats, grated carrot dessert flavored with rosewater and cardamom and enriched with pistachios and raisins. The thing with Indian desserts is that I could seriously eat all of it in one bite, no joke. It’s always very disappointing, which is exactly how I would describe this dessert. It was very greasy. If I pressed down on it with my spoon long enough, oil would ooze to the top. Along with that it was just overall boring and bland.

We ordered Garlic Nan to go along with our meal, $3.50.

Ray and I shared the Lamb Rogan Josh, $15.95. The menu says it’s tender peeces of boneless fresh lamb cooked in a yogurt based creamy curry sauce, enriched with a select blend of spices, chef’s special. My picture makes the meal look larger than it really was. The scoop of rice was puny, not even enough for one. The lamb was delicious, but for sixteen bucks I didn’t get much of it, just a lot of sauce in a bowl. It seemed more like soup than a dish, and even came with a spoon.

For our dessert I ordered the rice pudding, $3.95. Don’t let my amazing photo skills fool you, the pudding is way smaller than it appears in real life. This was just a close up shot. All of it could of easily fit on a medium size ladle. Like I said before, for some reason Indian dessert is always freaking tiny. Me, being a dessert whore, is a little bitter about this.

Bombay is definitely a place that doesn’t like to give you your money’s worth. The food is forgettable, service was pretty boring and portions are small.

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Bombay Indian Restaurant
1778 Ala Moana Blvd
Honlulu, HI 96815

Get Directions(808) 942-3990

The India House so far is the last Indian restaurant I have left to try. I may not have written on all of them, yet, but oh, I’ve been there alright. It’s kind of sad because every time I drive by business looks dead. What makes it sad is that there’s another Indian restaurant about one block down the street and they always look packed. I’m one to believe that packed places are usually packed with sheep that don’t really know any better, I also believe in sharing the love so Ray and I took our happy asses one block over to India House.

The place is really small. When we walked in no one was there. Hello, is anyone there?

We ordered the Lamb Madras, $14.75. As you can see there was a whole lot of sauce and not much meat or other stuff. The food was alright. It’s pretty hard for me to hate Indian. However, just looking at the amount of food I was really disappointed. What is it about Indian Restaurants giving the skimpiest portions here on the island and for not very cheap? It’s so disappointing. Of course Ray had to hear me bitch during dinner. “They just need to get off that high horse because it doesn’t look like business is doing so good. Maybe, just maybe if they gave more food, then they would have more business?” Anyhow, that’s how I feel about most, not all, Indian restaurants here. I feel like they give the smallest portions for a lot of money because they take advantage of the fact that there’s like 5 Indian restaurants here.

The naan was horrible and tasted microwaved. As a matter of fact, I heard the microwave go off several times during our dine in and we were one of only two tables there. Naan should come out warm, fresh, light and super soft, after all we do have to pay for it, $2.50. This was a bit stiff in the center, like it was over-baked the first time and then just left out till someone ordered some and then microwaved.

Another disappointing factor was the rice. We ordered plain rice and we got plain Chinese white rice, $3.75. Who the hell sells Chinese rice at an Indian restaurant? Great attention to details guys, and then to charge $3.75 for it. It’s a joke. I don’t know about you but when I order just plain rice at an Indian place I’m expecting Indian basmati rice. Needless to say the rice just didn’t go right with the entre.

As you can probably tell I’m definitely not a fan. Next time I’m walking with the sheep and taking my happy ass down the block.

Here’s a few more post I found. Apparently I’m not the only unhappy customer.

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I would of love to linked to some positive feedback but I couldn’t find any. Doesn’t surprise me. This place is a horrible example of Indian food. Shame on them for not caring about the quality of food that bares their name.

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Indian House
2633 S King St # 105
Honolulu, HI 96826

Get Directions(808) 955-7552