Masala Bay is a fine indian cuisine restaurant located in UpTown Waterloo, Ontario.We are open for lunch and dinner every day except for Sunday, and we offer a full lunch open buffet Mon-Fri, as well as a delecteble a la carte lunch and dinner menu all week long. We also offer catering services.
Dear God! How bad can a lunch buffet get? I was swindled by the extremely poor quality of food and high prices! I can only handle one of the two - bad food, and high prices! Not both!
Do NOT eat here, ever!
I've been trying indian restaurants for couple of years but until Masala Bay I had no idea indian food can taste like this! We ordered (dinner) - about 6 different items and tasted all of them. Wow! Extremely delicious! Was reading the reviews and I don't quite get why some customers are expecting the owner to talk to them... I prefer to be left alone. Anyway, the place needs some cleaning, the glasses and the water bottle were full of calcium stains. The restaurant itself could use some painting - the atmosphere is dark, heavy, sinister. But I'll go again for the amazing food.
I am not sure whether or not I should recommend this place as I feel very ambivalent about it.
The good: I thought chicken tikka masala and naan were excellent. Chicken tikka masala was not greasy and very flavorful. The naan was crispy and perfectly baked.
The bad: We also got lamb curry which was a disappointment. It was fairy flavorful, but very greasy and the meat you couldn't chew as though it was two weeks old.
The worse part, however, was their service. It was a Friday night and the place was completely packed with all tables taken, about 5 people waiting for a table and people coming in to pick up take out orders. With all that, there was only ONE (!) waitress working. Some guy from the kitchen was helping her out a bit, but he was rather rude and completely clueless about customer service skills. Needless to say, no one checked on us to ask whether we needed any water (actually we did, and had to eat spicy curries without drinks) or if our food was ok or if we wanted to order something else. Then we waited for 30+ minutes to get our bill. Terrible terrible service. Just because of that I probably won't go back even though their chicken tikka masala was probably the best I tasted in KW area.
We have been fans of this place for many years. However our last visit left us with a very bad impression. First, our server took our appetizers before we were finished with it so that she could clear the table for our entrees. She did not even ask us prior to doing this.
The entrees was not up to their usual standard. The veggie pulao was bland and unusually tasteless. I found the fresh cilantro was completely missing. My rogan josh tasted off too. The spices tasted like it was done by another chef. I've tasted this many times and it had never tasted so bland. Our side order of naan was as dry as cardboard and almost unpalatable because of the blackened air pockets. The only thing that tasted like usual was the bhuna gosht, which was my fiance's entree.
Both my fiance and I felt ignored by the server and owner of the restaurant. The female owner decided to put her back on us and only ask for feedback from the mature patrons in the restaurant. We were the only people whom she did not come by and ask how our food was. She completely gave us the cold shoulder. It made us feel really uncomfortable and uninviting. We do look young for our age, but we are both working professionals who tip 25% to 30% every time we go out to eat. It offended us greatly that they had completely ignored us and gave us sub-par treatment.
The food, service, and atmosphere all left bad tastes in our mouths. I don't think we will ever suggest this place to our friends and family again. The quality has really gone downhill.
