Khyber Tandoori

BLACKLISTED! Khyber Tandoori Indian Restaurant (Halal)

Cnr Symonds St & Khyber Pass Rd, Grafton Auckland (or Shop 3A, 19 Khyber Pass Rd, Grafton, Auckland)

Food Hygiene Grade B. Last inspection on 25/07/2005

Parking: There's a pay and display park around the corner at the corner of Symond St and Mt Eden Rd, next to Galbraiths. Also there's a few parking spots in front of the restaurant as well as on the side streets near by.

Excellent location for those use public bus transport.

Previous visits: 23/2/6 and 26/2/4

Reviews for 23/2/6 visit:

pp - FYI, the waiter/owner is not an Indian. He is from Pakistan

Lin - In a nutshell, auckland.thursdaynightcurry.com are never going to visit this venue again.[1] Where do I start. Firstly there as only one person in front of house. This person was responsible for taking orders, payments, serving both dine in as well as take away customers. This meant he didn't really have time to clear away empty glasses etc.

Food took a long time to arrive, servings were small and was almost inedible. Examples include: Rice tasted like it was rinsed in cold water after cooking. The Keema Naan was like the last time, basically a very thin hamburger patty with naan bread wrapped around it. I didn't like it. Very waterry/runny gravy.

Serving bowl were the size of single serve veges or side dishes you get a restaurants. Everyone finished their curry and still some didn't feel full. Our normal order of entrees was insufficient to feed half the people there. Yes I do scale the orders based on how many are at dinner.

Michael ordered a whole baked chicken. That was the last main to arrive AND was sent back because the first piece of chicken he cut up was uncooked on the inside. There was another main that arrived about 20 mins after the first tray of mains arrived. My main didn't arrive till someone had nearly finished theirs. Gravy was the same colour as Steve's next to me (who I believe ordered Rogan Josh). When the waiter brought out the Rogan Josh he said it was a Korma. Did he mishear the kitchen or was the Rogan Josh and Korma the same thing at this restaurant?

I had explained to the staff before we ordered that we were regular curry eaters and if someone said he wanted Indian Hot he meant it. In case you wondered why, it was because everyone's curry was mild last time regardless of what they asked because they assumed (or this was the excuse given) we may have found it too hot. Unfortunately as you can see from comment by Liz below, it wasn't hot enough. How can an 'Indian Hot' curry be mild?

Maybe the cook at this place lacked any taste buds? That would be the only way to explain how a Korma gravy looks like a Rogan Josh (to the waiter) or how the Rogan Josh looked like Goat Babri to me. Also explains how everything was mild.

One of the cheapest curry bills we have had. $23 per head. Butter Chicken $13.95; Korma, Ragon Josh, Vindaloo $11.95 each. KingFisher $6 per bottle. Orange Juice $3.50. Rice not included in price of main. $1.50 for 4 papadoms. $2.50 per glass of coke/diet coke.

Lastly bill too ages to arrive. He had to get help from someone in the kitchen to add it up. Also asked us how many Kingfishers we drank. Luckily for him we remembered!

Only improvement since 26/2/4 was the last time we had to BYO coke/dietcoke because they didn't have any.

[1] Will reconsider only if 8 tnc regulars have dined there and found it has changed to an acceptable standard. Receipt and photos required as proof of patronage. You will also be named as people recommending this place for another try. 8)

By Scott (Bender) - Not recommended, we didn't receive our meals until around 2120 (we ordered about 2000-2020ish), and the portions were very small and not very spicy at all. On the upside, it was cheap, and the naans (well mine) weren't bad.

Michael (token) - I hereby ban this place from future TNC attendance. Slow, small, and shit.

RKD - I pronounce this place to be sub-par. When some arabs dressed in their sheets turned up the 6 of them had their food within 15 minutes while we had to wait over an hour. My naan got lost somewhere and the "spicy" was absent. It's like they made curry with sour cream - it was not there. The waiter seemed nervous like we made him miss his session with the crack pipe or something. How hard can it be to look down the list and see how many cokes we order 10 minutes ago ???? RATING: -100

Liz (wishes) Never again! half the ordered items never turned up, service was so slow it was dead and portions were tiny. my 'Indian Hot' tasted like a mild.

Will Steele (mhmm/^god) - the expression on the indian guys face as Lin was shouting "DON'T TAKE HIS CARD IT'S STOLEN!" was priceless. I think the toilets in one of my many Auckland Central Police cells were probably cleaner than the one at this place. The kitchen didn't look terribly clean either…