Alex J.
Yelp
According to a fellow Yelper, this spot has been getting negative reviews for taking longer than expected on their food orders. Given my own experience, I find that surprising.
As I wrapped up a day of coordinating the order and pickup of over a dozen massive painting canvases from several locations, Uber Eats pinged me to remind me of a nice current promotion - $15 off any order over $29.99. I have lots of fresh produce and a nice slab of salmon waiting for me, but it's also been a long week and I was exhausted enough to consider crashing without having not eaten all day, so why not? I chuckled that it took being reminded of a lovely promotional offer to treat myself to dining out once in a while. Well, take out - close enough.
I was near the Quarry shopping center, so Darbar populated on the list of nearby eateries to consider. So close, in fact, that my order of chicken kashmiri, beef coconut curry, and garlin naan was minutes from being ready by the time I pulled up and managed to parallel a massive transport van directly in front of the place - I maybe hadn't thought this whole parking thing through when I chose to order from this location.
Still, there were only two minutes left to process my order on time - there's no way *hops down from van* that the order would be *locks doors* done in time. *turns towards the restaurant entrance with phone in hand for order verification - *ping!* "It's ready! Time to pick up your order!"
My phone read 19:39 - the exact deadline given for the order. Impressive.
In hopping onto Yelp to write this and find the comment about long prep time leading to negative reviews, I wonder if the restaurant took note of said reviews, and if so, what changes were made to make prep time so efficient now that they met the expected time down to the exact minute estimated on my order. I'm game to reorder to test the timing.
My interaction with the servers was all of one minute to verify who I was, but they were friendly and engaging. The brown bag was nicely packed and made the van smell like curry all the way back.
Everything was lovely. The portions were as expected. Nothing stood out, but everything was decently good. I've always wondered why my curries from Indian restaurants never have vegetables in them, but I chalk it up to cultural differences. I'm used to Thai, Japanese, and Viet curries all being heavy on veggies, whereas my Indian coconut curry came with none, as is typical with my Indian curry orders - again, simply curious cultural differences, not a negative.
If there was one thing I was (pleasantly) surprised at, it was the fact that "mild" meant, well, mild. I like a hefty dose of spice when I want spice, but when I specifically ask not to have it, I prefer not to get surprised by a hit of it. I get amused at how often I've dined out with non-spicy friends who don't even bother with the gray area of specifying "mild" and instead directly say "zero spicy," yet still get a fairly nice kick in their dishes anyway. We've even gone as far as to replace orders at local Indian restaurants only to still have my guests gulping down every glass of water at the table, fast. So yes, kudos to Darbar India for respecting requests for "mild, please."
I love cooking at home and dining out with friends. It's rare that I order in for just myself aside from poke bowls, and I forgot that I typically eat smaller meals throughout the day alongside lots of fruits in between. I'm four meals in now, and there's one serving left - at basically $4.20 per meal, that's $21 very well spent: Thanks, Uber Eats + Darbar India!
Uber Eats literally just pinged me as I was wrapping up this review tonight to remind me that I have two more $15 off of food orders over the next two weeks. Hmm, what should I try next? Any suggestions?