Your F.
Yelp
I'd love to say the 4.9 Yelp rating is accurate, but perhaps taking a read through my experience is worth a few minutes, before you rush to Jashan, expecting a phenomenal dinner.
$50 poorer and one legendary case of food poisoning later, I cannot say that I will be planning my return to Jashan any time soon. It's disappointing to say, as I was incredibly excited when they opened the restaurant only two blocks from my home earlier this year. But after my most recent experience, it seems that it may be a ticking time bomb.
Two nights ago, I had a reservation at Jashan for 7:15p. Upon entering at 7:10p, there were 10 other people waiting at the host stand with no host in sight. Any time a server or the man who appeared to be the manager, would walk by us, they avoided eye contact for dear life. Ten minutes passed and not a single person acknowledged any of us standing there. (You'd find a more professional welcome at TGI Friday's.) Eventually, I asked one of the servers if anyone had plans on helping us. She looked at me like four-headed dragon, no words to say. But it led to the manager coming over and getting us sat at our table a few minutes later.
After sitting down, our waiter, who seemed scared for his life, greeted us by first saying how busy they were and things might take a little while. Had I known what was on the horizon, I would have asked what "a little while" really meant. (It's important to note, this is not the world's largest restaurant. A busy Friday can be stressful, but by no means should it be completely unmanageable for your kitchen or floor staff. Otherwise, you're in the wrong business.) It was 20 minutes before he even took our appetizer order, of which we only ordered two. Now comes the fun part. We waited over an HOUR to receive them, one of which was cold. All the while, we looked on as chaos spiraled throughout the restaurant; customers were waiting endlessly for their food, not one table received all of their meals at the same time, and the whole staff seemed like they had never had a day of training in their life. Perhaps one of the strangest sights was the manager constantly running from back to front with bag after bag of takeout... it appeared as though they were prioritizing Uber Eats orders over the customers who were sitting right in the very restaurant. This was later confirmed by our server. (What restaurant puts to-go orders ahead of tip-paying customers?!)
A few minutes before our starters arrived, our waiter took our main course order. We hesitated to order at all, since it was now well past 8:30pm, and we hadn't even received our apps, but we put the order in for two dishes and a side of naan. Not shockingly, the main courses did not com to the table until 9:50pm. By the time we were finished, we had spent over THREE HOURS in the restaurant for only four dishes.
As the parade of to-go bags continued, I realized we weren't alone in our experience. Every table around us spent more time waiting than eating. And while the food was fine, it should never take 3 hours for a simple dinner service.
Our waiter was apologetic, but nothing was done or offered on behalf of the management. Taking $50-100/pp for a sub-par dining experience with no effort to balance out the bad parts is bad business and doesn't speak much to the professionalism of Jashan.
The real kicker came as we left -- exhausted, by the way, from the marathon of waiting all night. The manager asked, "how was everything?" I replied, "the food was good, but wow--it sure took forever." He then said, "was everything hot?" I said, "yes, for the most part."
"Well, that's all that matters."
I was speechless. No apology, no effort to make the obvious wrong right. If "hot" is the standard you're setting for your restaurant, you've got a problem on your hands. You can get "hot" at McDonald's for $3.99, and you'll have it in 120 seconds. I walked out full, but totally dissatisfied.
The only thing worse than the experience in the restaurant was what followed. The food poisoning. 36 hours of intense nausea and d*arrhea. Perhaps that was the complimentary gift from the management.
Save yourself the time and the money and skip Jashan. With the success of Sindoore, I would have expected it to be a well-oiled machine after 6 months, but it seems all of the parts have already rusted.
