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.
The restaurant is tucked away from the main street in downtown Waterloo, and seemed quite quaint out front. We were looking forward the meal as it was named a top restaurant by The Record newspaper. The decor inside was appropriate for an Indian restaurant. Cut to our meals arriving.........the chicken had an off-smell as if it was several days old and it also tasted quite dry. The lamb in the biriyani was tough as leather and greasy. I would have rated the food higher if it wasn't so expensive. I will definitely not be going back to this place again. I had tried the other Indian restaurant down the street a few months earlier and definitely preferred it over this place, in spite both of them being quite expensive.
Piggy is not impressed. The food seems to be getting worse, and every time I visit I only notice more and more faults in the restaurant.
The place is in dire need of a make over. The ceiling tiles are all different colors, with some of them sagging due to a flood or rain leak. If dirty ceiling tiles aren't enough to put you off your food, then the metallic smell that the menu leaves on your hands surely will. The papadum rolls that are served while you order, come with a minimal amount of raita, chutney and whatever other sauce they put in.
The meats especially lamb are inconsistently prepared. Sometimes the cuts of lamb are more tender while at the same time they can be quite tough and chewy.
The Nan bread is definitely not worth ordering. Crispy, overcooked, and stale.
The fact that the garlic nan is really a plain nan with garlic butter rubbed on it, says it all. They don't even have keema or peshwari naans.
I'm not sure what happened to the lassy, but this time it was more like a salad, with pieces of cilantro leafs and stems, cumin seed and coriander seed floating around. Personally I think that a plain lassy should have at most salt and ice.
I will try my best not to visit this place again unless I hear that they have really re-done the way they do things. It seems the owner is still stuck in his past days of glory when it was the only restaurant around that offered something different than burgers or wings.
Be careful! The "good" reviews are OLD!!
Based on old reviews we were looking forward to trying Masala Bay's buffet, and finally made it in today. This pretentious little place is overpriced beyond belief for the variety and quality of food they served. My portion of butter chicken had several pieces of undercooked near raw chicken in it, and it was sweet tasting. The tandoori chicken pieces were dried out and overdone. My water glass had crusted food on the rim as did one of the dessert bowls. There were rotting strawberries (and I do mean grey and rotting) on the fruit platter, the naan was the consistency of shoe leather. The goat curry was flavorful and spicy, probably the best item there. The various masala dishes all tasted much the same and were overcooked to a consistency of mush. I would have felt cheated had we paid $8-10 per person for this and the bill was just under $28.00. Two other diners left without finishing their first plates of food. I wish I had seen Piggy's review under Masala Bay Fine dining and we would have avoided this place altogether. Is it better at the dinner hour ordering from the menu? Who knows. At these prices we won't be giving them a second chance. Definite candidate for Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares. One last comment - We were both grossed out to discover the bathrooms open directly onto the room where the buffet is laid out, in fact they are less than 8 feet away and there is NO soundproofing.
Atmosphere: The restaurant is quite small so when we visited in a large group, I think they were overwhelmed.
Considering our group size it is understandable that the sercive may have been a little slower. The athmosphere is interesting and they have menus with metal covers, which I don't think is really a good idea as it leaves my hands smelling of cheap jewelerry.
To be honest the food was not really great and maybe I would have tried more things on the menu if they were not so ridiculously expensive.
Starters are between $6 and $10, and a Lassi whichi s really yogurt, water and salt costs more than a beer would at most places.
The mains are between $15 and $20 and you still have to add rice or a Nan bread to that.
And at these prices you would expect that the dips and accompaniments to be free? No, guess again, expect to pay for your yogurt dip or mango chutney.
I'm surprised that salt and pepper are not on the menu.
Anyway, the point is that south indian food should be inexpensive and if you want the whole indian experience here it's not worth paying the price. Maybe the owner things that since he was trained at the Taj Mahal Hotel in India, his approach to this very traditional and classic cuisine is superior.
Everytime my partner and I go, we have a fantastic time. It is always great food, and no one does Naan like Masala Bay!
Best Indian food in Waterloo region!
Definitely check this place out!
They've got a delicious lunch buffet, with perfectly cooked butter and tandoori chicken and delicious goat curry. Not to mention the best naan I've ever had.
What a GREAT lunch.
We came for the lunch buffet... WOW... Its better than I make, which REALLY impressed me. The food was hot and tasty and even though we came near the end of the buffet service, there was still a lot of food. The only complaint was the parking... But any decent restaurant downtown has sucky parking... Try parking on one of the side streets and you'll be fine. Definately worthy of coming if you like indian food
We've been here a few times now and have always...
We've been here a few times now and have always had a great experience. The food is fresh, hot, fast and delicious. The service is efficient and friendly. And the atmosphere is cozy and authentic.
Some here have said it's expensive, but most dishes are about $15; and worth every scrumptious penny! btw, we've ALWAYS had left-overs which we take home, cook more chicken and get another full meal out of!
We'll definitely be back! Shukriya!
We wanted to cater Biryani for around 50 people...
We wanted to cater Biryani for around 50 people and bought one plate of lamb biryani to be sampled. The sample was good enough for us to decide on a YES. It was the worst decision we made ever. Firstly the Biryani that we paid $200 for was tasteless and not even close to the sample that we had eaten. The quantity did not seem enough and when we shared our concern, we experienced the worst customer service by getting fed up attitude. Extremely disappointed and will never ever visit Masala Bay ever again. No matter what you do do not ever cater any food. What they show is not what they give you.
We came here once before for dinner and got the...
We came here once before for dinner and got the vegetable curry and it was so good, all there food was really good. Then we came back for the lunch buffet and it was also really good. We decided to take an order of vegetable curry for later but it was not the same at all. Then we realized that it was one of the same dishes they had at the buffet. It was about 2pm so they may have been lazy to cook the curry and put the leftovers from the other one and gave it to us. I find that very rude, you pay about 15$ for a dish and you except to get it freshly made, not something that has been sitting there for 3 hours and that they were probably going to throw away. Also when there was no spoons the lady handed me one holding the spoon side where you eat from!
I often go for lunch. They have an excellent lunch buffet. The butter chicken is especially good. The tandoori chicken ranges from good to heavenly. If you want it closer to heavenly, wait for a fresh batch. A bit more selection would be great, but I am nitpicking. This is as good as it gets as far as Indian food goes. My only complaint is that parking is a big hassle.
My cocktail was served lukewarm with no ice, but I decided not to speak up about it. The Samosa appetizer included only 2 of them. They were garnished with a huge hunk of lettuce, 2 dry slices of cucumber, a thick wedge of dry tomato, and onion with food colouring on it. Substitute all of this garnish for one more Samosa, serve them hot, and it's worth the price.
The main course was excellent; butter chicken, a lamb dish, and Channa Masala. All large quantities and served hot. The naan bread was wonderful, best we've had.
I've eaten at a lot of Indian restaurants, and have even visited India, so needless to say I'm very picky when it comes to good Indian food, and this place is fantastic (in fact, one of only two restaurants in Ontario I've tried which I find really good).
The food is very well prepared, the spices are just right. The service is slow, and the decor is dark, and the prices are definitely high, but good Indian food is hard to come by in my opinion, so suck it up and enjoy the experience. Of course, as students, high prices are a problem, so our visits are far too seldom :-(
Obviously some people have had a bad experience at this restaurant, but I couldn't have been happier. This was some of the best Indian food I've ever tasted. Great presentation, super fast and friendly. I'm looking forward to eating the left-overs.
I don't understand the bad reviews. Maybe they are talking about a different restaurant. I've been there twice and friends have been there several times, always consistently good. Of course I haven't been there when crowded.
Good food, served quickly in a place with it's own character, what can be wrong?
