Address: | 22 Battery Park Ave, Asheville, NC 28801, USA |
Phone: | +1 828-254-4003 |
Site: | chaipaniasheville.com |
Rating: | 4.4 |
Working: | 11:30AM–3:30PM 11:30AM–3:30PM 11:30AM–3:30PM 11:30AM–3:30PM 11:30AM–3:30PM 11:30AM–3:30PM 12–3:30PM |
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Aravinda Ramakrishnan S
Food is supposedly great but no self respecting human deserves their services. Zero or negative stars if that options were available!! More details ..... The context: I am Knoxville resident and was camping in smokies for the weekend. On my way back instead of directly driving to Knoxville I decide to take an hour long detour in opposite direction of my home town to Asheville to just eat at this supposedly good place (Chai Pani). I couldnt reach by lunch hours so waited for 2 hours outside their palce on a sunny afternoon for them to re-open. The incident: I was the fourth customer to enter after they re-opened at dinner hours. I was refused service point blank! I asked for to go and they told they are busy and hence only dine in! Their reason was they get so many customers and they have only small kitchen to cater!! I felt for the first time that I was discriminated against by someone since my arrival in USA. What If a customer had just ordered food for dine in and ate a mouthful and asked for a to go box? On another note they could definitely honor each customer order in the order they arrived whether it is dine in or take away. In nutshell: I felt that I was discriminated against by them and I would definitely not encourage anyone to support an unethical business
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Payod Panda
Visited on March 08, 2015. It was a Sunday, not overly crowded at 1230 pm. I liked the ambience and witty posters and signs around, and chuckled many times as I saw Hindi being used in funny ways - places where Id never see it being used back in India. On to the food. Ordered bhel puri, Bombay spicy fries something (keema, fries done in Bombay Street style), kaathi roll and tomato cheese uttappam. Two people. The food was pretty good, and way more than we could eat. I liked the chaats more than the proper food. The bhel puri and spicy fries were pretty good. Kathi roll was above average and uttappam was okay. These subjective evaluations are based upon an Indian background and upbringing so believe me when I say youll be hard pressed to find a much better place for Indian food here. My friend, who is from the USA, really liked the food too. The prices were reasonable too, and the service was really great. The people took an interest in where Im from and talked a bit, and in the end as we were leaving they changed four dollar bills to quarters that I needed to slot in the parking meters. Small gesture, but meant a lot because he actually had to go and get his wallet from somewhere else since they ran out of quarters on their cash register. Highly recommended.
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Prasad Rajamohan
We, a group of 11, arrived around 7 pm for the dinner. At the first sight, it was all good when you see people waiting outside - the food must be really good... 2 hours wait time - no table for that many - we said fine, will walk around Asheville downtown and come back. In at 9 pm, menu had few options, but the waitress listed many of them were sold out.... you must be kidding... That was not the end of it though... ordered some food, waited for another 30-45 minutes, and then came the news that they ran out of couple of items we ordered... Finally, I gave up... I shared the food that was lucky enough to reach our table... some were really good, but Kale Pakora was so salty... My friends who were with me make much better Bhel Puri and Chaats... We just wanted to have a good time eating out in a nice town.... but turned out to be a big disappointment... Its time restaurants really understand what it means to get 4 stars...
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Nicolas Yarosz
tl;dr The most flavorful and authentic Indian cuisine Ive ever had. Our new favorite next to THC and Doc Cheys Noodle House. We heard good things about this place from friends but didnt realize it was going to be THIS GOOD! We were lucky to be first in the line waiting for them to open for dinner, which grew to a small crowd by 5:30. Within minutes the entire place was packed. My wife and I started with two spiced Chai and a Samosa which was crispy, moist and spiced perfectly - our two-year old loved it and we only got a couple of bites. Then the three of us shared the Butter Chicken Thali with lots of extra Roti (bread) - the combination and depth of flavors here were insane. Spicy, savory, tangy, sweet. We werent sure it would be enough to share but it was perfect. We are so happy to have discovered Chai Pani and will recommend to our friends and make sure to stop every time we visit!
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Rajul Patel
Tiny restaurant with awesome food. Being from Atlanta and having patronized the other location their, I think the Atlanta location is better. Spacious and easy to serve. No free parking. Gotta drive around for parking on a busy day/night. There is no waiting area so waiting folks are hanging over the heads of folks seated closer to the entrance. They had space constraints to accommodate a 17 person party. We were split across 3 tables. The food is more of street side snacking foods. Their Sloppy Jai (Kheema Pav) is to die for. Most of the food we tried was very tasty, full of traditional Indian flavors. Staff was very helpful, prompt and accommodating. The Atlanta location has a few more selections on the menu. Tomorrow we try out "Laughing Seed".
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Karlton Kemerait
Its always nice when there is a single thread that flows through not only the food items but the staff as well ... this place had such a thread and it was evident everywhere, sadly, in this case, the thread would be best described as pretentious. The food was lackluster at best, the service was slightly better but still struggling to achieve a rating of average. Our waitress offered no help in explaining what the items actually were (no photos or descriptions in the menu, simply the names). Pricing was OK, but considering the food quality not entirely justified. I cannot recommend this as a stop when visiting Asheville, except in the case of someone considering opening their own restaurant, where it can serve as an example of what to avoid.
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Jeff Schertz
Wish I could find places like this around home. Great place that lands somewhere between traditional, upscale, and express Indian. Dishes are unique arrangements of some standard Indian foods alongside other things not commonly seen stateside. We want to go back 3 more times just to try all the things we couldnt decide upon, and our server was super helpful and patient while we narrowed it down. You can get half orders of most everything under the Starters menu. Small list of local craft beer bottles and cans for $4. We opted share the Samosa Chaat and daily Thali special which was all excellent. Ask for extra Raita to cut the heat of any spicy dishes if you prefer.
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c lawing
All the flowery reviews I read before going to Chai Pani did not prepare me for the reality. In fact, I should have listened to the negative reviews as they seem to have it dead on. Atmosphere: cute, Food: Small portions, bland, cold and some things undercooked. Service: really? They have service? confusing, lacks direction and cohesion. Dishes came out sporadically (dinner before apps). Service pt.2: bus your own table while employees stand around. Overall, Im only offering this review because someone has to tell the truth. While Im sure there are isolated times where they are firing on all cylinders, others we spoke with reinforced our impressions. Diner beware!