Disclaimer: Before I write anything, I am of South Asian descent, so my description of the flavors…read morewill be a bit different from what non-South Asians might expect. Also I'm a little of a stickler when it comes to certain things at an establishment of this caliber. That said, I also do realize (because my wife has pretty bluntly told me) that sometimes I'm looking for too much. That being said, you be the judge.
There are a lot of good things happening for this place, but a couple of things need serious improvement. Let's start with the food. We ordered a couple different things. Dahi Bhalla. The fish and the dosa as appetizers. The dahi bala was way too sweet. This was common feedback from everyone at the table. The fish, which was just for the two people at the table (with me being one of them), I thought was okay, though it wasn't anything great. I kind of see where they were going with it but I don't know. It just did not do it for me.
The dosa was excellent. The first time I ever had this kind of dosa was in Bangalore, India, at what was supposedly one of the top five best places in Bangalore, if not the best. The dosa that Nadu does outdoes the one in India.
For the main dishes, we ordered the chicken makhani, the paneer dish, and a side of the dal makhani. The dal makhani was absolutely epic. I love their dal makhani. It's one of the best out there. I don't know why they sell it as a side. I'm sure there is a good reason for it. I would pay more to get it as an entree. It is so good.
The paneer, again, was way too sweet for everybody at the table. The chicken, which was just for two people, in my opinion, missed the mark. For chicken makhani, you expect there to be butter in the gravy. The butter should be enough to bring a certain sheen to the gravy and also give it a slightly velvety texture. The sheen and velvety texture were missing from this gravy. The flavor of the gravy also was kind of mediocre for a chicken makhani. I would expect this flavor for a different kind of chicken dish, but not for a chicken makhani. It almost felt like this particular dish lacked the subtle sweetness it could have had, and instead the spices were slightly on the bitter side, which is surprising for a makhani.
The chicken pieces were plenty big and cooked soft enough that you don't need a knife to cut them. You can just separate them with your fork, but they did lack the juiciness you find in well-cooked chicken. That is something I would recommend they work on.
For the dessert, we had the mawa cake with ice cream, which was absolutely amazing. All of us loved it. The meal ended with the signature mouth freshener that Nadu gives in its unique take-home boxes, and they were filled really well.
Now for the uncomfortable part.
We had a reservation for 5 at 6:45 and were there on the dot. The hostess is the first person patrons always meet with. She is the face of the restaurant and sets a certain level of expectation, or rather, the tone for the rest of the evening. At least for me, this hostess, while not rude, had absolutely no smile and had more of a robot-like attitude.
Next, we were seated at the table, and waters were brought (waters came with no ice). Thank you. More and more restaurants are following this route.
Until 7:01 pm, nobody came to check in on us, ask if we'd like to start with some drinks or some appetizers, or check in. It was at 7:01 that we flagged down one of the servers to request that somebody come and take some drink orders. Not a good start, and for the record, about a third of the restaurant at this point was empty so it wasn't that they were ultra busy.
As an insult to injury, we had a special guest who had come from out of town, and we wanted to take the guest over here since we had good food the very first time we came, many months ago, I happened to also message the restaurant prior to arrival about this.
20 minutes in, our server, Sydney, came. She was really friendly and amazing. I'd say she probably saved the evening, in my opinion. She was very attentive.