Kiran Indian Cuisine

Kiran has been done for years. However, as unmemorable as I'd like it to be, the myriad of lackluster experiences still eats away at me to this day. The food was a mess and the service was even worse. Yet, it was one of the only places open in Hell's Kitchen in the wee hours and given my penchant for late night fare, I bit the bullet (and subsequently paid the price -- literally and figuratively) one too many times.

Granted this was years ago, but their continuous markup for food never translated to better tasting stuff. The delivery was painful at times, slow enough to make me wish I had cancelled the order, but never enough to deter my insatiable desire for Indian fare. When desperate, sometimes one is willing to truly pay for it. (#1)

In terms of the food, there were misses left and right. The pizza was laughable and many of the chicken dishes (especially chicken dupiazi and the watery chicken curry) were incredibly mediocre. I stuck with mainly veggie friendly dishes and even those didn't bring much comfort. The keema paratha was solid in a pinch as were the samosas. Everything else was always a big gamble.

The current space is now Coffee Project (#2). There is a happy ending after all.

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(#1) Me. Always me.
(#2) https://www.yelp.com/biz/coffee-project-new-york-hells-kitchen-new-york-4

A few months ago I saw an offer on KGB deals for this restaurant; $2 for $15 worth of food. It was a pretty insane deal and I thought I'd amuse myself by buying it because I do like Indian food and wondered what they could possibly offer at such rock bottom prices. I went tonight and it was indeed amusing....

I arrived at the restaurant at about 7:15pm and was the only one there. I took a look at the menu and noticed there was a pre-fixe for $9.95 which included an appetizer, entree, and dessert. It appeared to be a pretty good deal, but I assumed my KGB deal wouldn't work with the pre-fixe and just ordered off the regular menu...

When i was ready to order, I called the waiter over and then presented my voucher. His face immediately became sullen. As he walked back to the counter, he slams both the menu and my voucher on said counter. I've been to plenty of restaurants with nonexistent service as that's the norm in Chinese restaurants. But what he just did was simply unacceptable...

As i waited for my food, i watched random Bollywood videos on the TVs. I also took the chance to observe my waiter catering to patrons that had just arrived. He didn't seem helpful as his replies were short and abrupt. He was just going through the motions where waiting on tables were like a chore to him...

DISCLAIMER: he was the only waiter handling 5 tables and probably phone orders. He still should make an effort to be helpful as opposed to slamming things on the counter all frustrated...

Anyways, here is what I ordered:
1. lamb rogan josh - tender lamb cooked north Indian style for $13.20:
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/ouLjnTlU2ueDN8mnSqlLIQ?select=4CZMqPBm_7fMUHg0IglFXQ
The dish was small, the tomato flavor was too prevalent, and it was a little watery. But i did taste the spice (requested spicy) and most (about 70%) of the lamb chunks were tender.

2. complimentary basmati rice for my entree:
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/ouLjnTlU2ueDN8mnSqlLIQ?select=cETr0D9vgRLM4Wygd5pdeA
The rice was sad. Nothing was added to the rice and it was extremely small. For kicks I counted how many spoonfuls there were: 11-12.

3. roti for $1.95
http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/ouLjnTlU2ueDN8mnSqlLIQ?select=P1OqS-PnziWD1ELzd_pe6A
Good thing I ordered this, kinda. The roti was very dry to the point it was like a saltine cracker and not TASTY at all. But it did come in handy as my rice was gone in 11 spoonfuls and the rogan josh was in desperate need of a companion.

After I finished my meal, the waiter brought my check of $4.22 with tax and tip included. The smallest bill I had was $5. But after he slammed the counter with my voucher, I didn't feel it was necessary to leave more than the 18% gratuity he had already included. I handed him a $20 bill and he brought me back $15.78. I took the 5, 10, and three quarters while leaving the three pennies to let him know he did wrong. Hell hath no fury like a Yelper scorned....

Summary: The food is average and nothing to write to your friends in India about. But it's a cheapy way to satisfy a crave for dinner as value buffets are mainly for lunch only and a la carte prices can get very expensive. I'll give it three stars as its pre-fixe and deals serve a purpose. I just hope the waiter who served me doesn't serve you...

I have dined at Kiran 3 times so far and can say that their dishes are really authentic and delicious!

Their specialty lamb dishes (Madras and Lamb Pasanda Nawabi) are consistently fresh & tender and the sauce is so good that I could not help drinking it all from my bowl after I finished my rice =p

The archari fish (salmon) dish was very fresh and cooked to perfection according to my dad. Not to mention, we love their samosa and banana pakora so much and yes we would definitely go back soon...

As far as the service goes, for dine in, the wait staff is very friendly, attentive and polite.

Apparently this joint is still slinging food online.

Anyway if i could give them a lower rating i would - delivery took over an hour and a half and the lunch portion was so small i had to go out and get something fro McDonalds...FROM MCDONALDS!!!

I had rabbit and it was way overcooked and dry, when it should be succulent and delicious. The peppers and onions under it were decently cooked.

Oh and because it took so long to get the food to us, it was cold...yes it's a cold day outside...making this not nearly as bad as if it were any other day of the year.

I'd say...hard pass on this joint.

Considering how active this restaurant is online - Groupon, Scoutmob, Yelp Deals, etc etc, you'd think they'd be savvier. I had a horrible experience using a coupon.

But first - let's talk about the food. It's mediocre, cheap-ingredient Indian food. Really nothing special. There are a few Indian restaurants within a few blocks that have similar prices, have much better food and infinitely better service.

Ah, the service: they are slow to great you and do not attend you well. The servers disappear for 20 minutes at a time and despite a completely empty restaurant, it took 40 minutes to make our food. They were unfriendly and made us a bit uncomfortable.

Now let me get to my Scoutmob: I had a stupid $20 off coupon. I tried to use it. But since I ordered one of the "specials," ie an app/entree combo which appears as the main part of their menu, they told me that it counted as a "coupon" and couldn't be combined with the Scoutmob offer. The Scoutmob offer listed no such condition, and there was no warning about the dinner special being a "coupon" on the menu.

I tried to be reasonable - I said I understood, so don't discount my entree, but surely we can split up the bill and my friend's entree, two appetizers and dessert would be eligible. They said since we ate together, we were sharing the coupon benefit.

Throughout the whole debate, the server had a really bad attitude about it (I swear I was nice as could be) and treated me as if I was trying to pull a fast one on her (all over the difference of like $4 based on the savings of my dinner special). No apology, no courtesy. In fact, she said it was my fault: "you should have told me you wanted to use a coupon."

If this restaurant is SO savvy that they are in every single digital/social space, they should be smarter about having clear terms & conditions on their coupons and better training their staff to handle the new business.

Congratulations, you lured me in with your Scoutmob and got a $30 dinner from me. Now I'll never go back and I'll tell everyone I know to avoid you too.

Avoid this place! For Indian in the neighborhood I recommend Baluchi's or Basera...or really head across town to Brick Lane.

Okay so here is the deal. I went to this place specifically because of the yelp check in deal. Supposedly the first check in gets you 25% off. More on this in below.

The food was fantastic. I had vegetable samosas and chicken tikka masala. A friend, who is a vegan, asked for vindaloo with no cream and the wait staff was happy to oblige. Service was excellent, although we were on the only group in the restaurant on a friday night...odd. anyway, no complaints in the service or quality of food department.

My complaint is with them not honoring the yelp checkin discount. I showed the staff and the owner numerous times as well as letting them take my phone in to the back of the restaurant to get clarification. In the end a gentlemen came out claiming to be the owner and said he had no idea how the discount was set up but that he would not honor it. Pretty crappy considering we just spent a bunch of money and ordered two bottles of wine.

LUNCH DELIVERY REVIEW

This is one of the very few Indian restaurants on Seamless Web that has beef and Daal Puri on their menu. That alone is enough for me to order from these guys once in a while. I suspect the chef is either Pakistani or Bangladeshi. The daal puri was very good. If you aren't familiar with this, it's a small flat circular bread stuffed with lentils and spices and then deep fried. This was my comfort food growing up before I moved to NY and turned to pizza and mac n cheese.

$8 for a lunch special that comes with rice and naan is a pretty good deal. So far I've tried the Karahi Beef and the Achari Beef, both of which tasted okay but not amazing. However the spice level was good. I ordered it spicy and had to wipe off the sweat from my head after I got done eating - that's a good thing! Can't say I loved the naan though - it lacked depth and texture.

Overall 3.5 stars but I am rounding up cuz of their plethora of choices for lunch specials and for having daal puri and beef on their menu.

As we're walking to get there, my boyfriend and I pass by this other Indian restaurant right next to it.

"I think we've been there"
"Are you sure, I don't think so"

We walk a few more steps and there's the restaurant we're looking for: Kiran [Living Social deal]. Immediately I do a double take to the nice, lively looking restaurant and the dungeon-like, lonely restaurant we actually bought the deal for. I almost wanted to ditch the restaurant, ditch the coupon, and run into the warm, homey one next door.

It was a Sunday night and the place was entirely ours. The food was ok, but now that I'm reading about rats in others' reviews, the hairs on my body are standing up! Though it's not completely surprising----the restaurant does not look like the cleanest of them all; the bathroom speaks for the place. Pretty disgusting. I'm glad I went in there after the meal, as the bathroom is a pretty good indicator to me for the cleanliness of the kitchen.

Chicken Tikka Masala---the Americanized version? It was like a chicken Campbell's soup.

Chicken Makhani---this was actually a delight. Very good sauce, very good chicken.

Garlic Naan---enjoyed half of it. Some were full and good while most were very thin, which I strongly disliked.

Onion Kulcha---my very vocal Indian boyfriend did not say a word about his which probably means it was very average. He usually raves about food he enjoys.

The overall food experience was not impressive.

Conclusion---not coming back.

Dang it, Kiran - I wanted all the bad reviews to be WRONG about you!!!

Stay far, far away from their naans because they are dry on the outside and not fully cooked in the inside. Until I came to Kiran, I didn't think it was possible to screw up naan. We ordered the garlic naan and then another order of some sort of onion naan - disliked the both of them. The garlic and onions were still pretty much raw and just slapped on top of the naan. That is NOT garlic nor onion naan!

Ordered their fresh mango juice, pretty good, took a really long time to bring out.

Portions are itty-bitty for the prices they are charging you and the taste isn't even that great. We ordered the chicken makhani (comes with a side of basmati rice). The rice was fragrant and flavorful, I liked it a lot, but that was basically the only highlight of my meal. The chicken makhani definitely was NOT as flavorful as other restaurants and tasted more like a mild tikka masala.

Service is slow and the server carried a very "whatever" sort of attitude, even though we told them we were in a rush and trying to catch a show. I noticed that the 2 other tables who were seated there also had coupon deals from various discounted sites and this is what is driving their business.

Decor on the inside is nice, rather cramped table spacing, but it would be festive if the place was filled. Their bathrooms are scary-looking and they seem to follow Chinatown standards (not good).

They added 18% gratuity for the 2 of us --- this bothered me because I am accustomed to paying what I want to pay and that is generally more than 20%. Also, I didn't feel the service was worthy of 18% tip. Needless to say with all my gripes, I certainly won't be coming back here in the future, even though I did unlock a check-in offer for 25% off my bill.

Went here one night with a groupon. The guys had an impossible time redeeming it and, at a point, sort of implied that I had a fraudulant or bad groupon. The service was extremely slow. This is partly because they had the whole staff fussing with my groupon, but it was 20 minutes before they took our order and 80 minutes before we had finished our meal. The food was mixed. Half the things we ordered were very bland and half were tasty.

I would recommend that this place be avoided. There are a few other really good Indian spots nearby. My favorite is Brick Lane Curry.