Banjara Indian Cuisine

Good food, terrible service, and restaurant is extremely crowded, stuffy, and loud. Not exactly how I wanna eat my food. Especially when I’m yelling in attempt to communicate with the person sitting 2 feet in front of me.
Oh and your clothes need to be washed to get the smell out when you get home.

I ordered take out from Banjara last night. And it make both my partner and I very sick. (I won’t go into too many details of how sick. But you can use your imagination) This isn’t my first time eating Indian food either. I eat Indian food monthly, and this place was not good. I’m still sick this morning, I am definitely never eating/​ordering from here ever again.

I love this place! Best indian food in the city!
The butter chicken is very tasty. Spice level hits the sweet spot of spicy enough without scalding, and encompasses the flavor the butter, tomato, fenugreek leaves etc. The chicken, on the regular is cooked quite well, without being dry! As for leftovers (if there’s any!) The consistency maintains itself (as opposed to getting that weird separation that some sauce can)
My personal favorite: the mutter paneer! This is amazing! By far the best in city! It is flavorful and creamy! There are enough peas that is filling but not so many that you’re worried about not having enough sauce. The paneer is firm on the outside and soft on the inside, and tastes wonderful! If in doubt… do it.
The Naan is great too! It’s never burned, and always great!

Live nearby and have dined here with friends family and even bring our baby.
Everyone loves it, except small town folk who consider pepper and salt spicy ethnic seasoning. In other words, take people who will appreciate great non-​hamburger food.
The staff is attentive, while the owner keeps an eye on things near cash.
If you go for the first time, you may find the design and décor lacking but once you eat, you’ll forget everything that could be wrong.
Made to order, no hot tables.
Enjoy enjoy, the price is right. We usually get the combo platters, which are a great value with a few items served. I have a large appetite and it is very filling. Oh, and if you are like me and can take the heat, tell them very spicy! This review created in 2010, but it was saved as a draft.

We got take out from Banjara and we were very pleased. The food was tasty and very plentiful! I find that many Indian restaurants offer very small portions, but not this place. The prices were reasonable too. Theirs is the type of Indian food that is «street style» and is heavy on the sauce. They remind me a little of the Pakistani restaurant Lahore Tikka House (which is quite compliment, as I’m a big fan of LTH.) If you’re looking for more refined Indian food, you may want to try the Host, Babur or Pukka.
They have their own website for ordering and it’s very easy to use — even grandma can do it. You can specify the amount of spice you want on each dish individually. They do require 60 – 90 minutes for delivery, but they were nice enough to deliver all the way to Eglinton for us. Here’s a description of what we ordered:
Tandoori Chicken — full
Price: 17.99
Rate: ⁴⁄₅
Nice tandoori, but a bit heavy on the spice rub, a bit too salty and a bit dry.
Seekh Kebab
Price: 12.50
Rate: ³⁄₅
As far as Seekh kebabs go, it was only average. It was a little salty, and unbalanced in flavor. The consistency of the minced meat was a little mushy.
Butter Chicken
Price: 12.99
Rate: ⁴⁄₅
The sauce was very nice, but the chicken itself was a bit dry.
Chicken Curry
Price: 11.99
Rate: ⁵⁄₅
Very nice dish. Meat was nice and moist.
Daal with Spinach
Price: 10:50
Rate: ²⁄₅
This wasn’t my favorite dish. It was a little watery and a little bitter.
Chana Masala
Price: 9.95
Rate: ⁵⁄₅
Very tasty dish. The beans were cooked perfectly.
Butter Naan
Price: 2.50
Rate: ⁴⁄₅
Very large naan, nicely charred from the tandoori oven. It was tasty, but a bit too dense.

We always order from this place. I love the chicken. Saag and my partner loves and the somosas are yummy. A must try restaurant in Toronto.

I’ve been going to this place since 2006 when it opened up. It is the best Indian food in Toronto, in my opinion, for a reasonable price. The décor is not the best and it can get packed sometimes, which means a wait, but it is well worth it.
We generally go as a group of six and get 3 veggie, 3 meat dishes, 7 nan, and a few rice dishes. They give you all the pappadom you can eat, which is great.
The only bad meal I’ve had is when we all ordered a platter each. For some reason the platter is not nearly as good as a la carte. But the take out combo is always good.
Really, this place is great.

Good food– and lots of it.
The bread is delicious. Usually get the meal platters with various selections.

I heard good word about this place so I decided to try it myself. Needless to say I was extremely pleased by Banjara; the flavour and quality of their food, the friendly service, the unique seating arrangment… it had it all! It’s also not too out of the way as it is located within a 5 min walk from Christie subway station.
I sat in their full windowed seating area wherw I was given a complimentary basket of chip/​cracker things (I have no idea what they’re called, but I attached a picture and can assure you they were veeerryyy tasty!). I went with the chicken tikka masala, my brother and dad ordered the chicken vindaloo and the vutter chicken platter respectively. We also ordered a side of garlic rice and plain naan.
Everything was delicious! Average sized portions, and even a little cheaper in price than standard Indian restaurants charge. Nothing was too spicy, or chewy; zero negativity! The plain naan was perfect for all the sauce included in tue main meat diah. Although the platter certainly offered more variety, I would recommend that if you know what main dish you enjoy (like chicken tikka masala in my case), have an order of that and get either a side of rice or naan to conpliment the main dish.
Only thing I wasn’t crazy about was their rice pudding (included in the platter), I simply found it very sweet, but I can see how others may enjoy it :)
I will most certainly return to Banjara, and if you’re ever craving Indian cuisine, this is the place to come!

Within the Annex neighbourhood, Banjara is among the better Indian cuisine restaurants. The curries are typically good, and quite large portions… you can definitely share 1 order between 2 (maybe even 3) people.
They seem to always be busy, so if you are doing take-​out or delivery, order well in advance. I had a delivery order take close to 2 hours the other day, and the items all arrived a mediocre «warm»… disappointing after such a long wait.
We have tried their kormas, masalas, vindaloos, etc… never been disappointed with a curry. Their raita is quite watery, and I prefer a much thicker raita… but that is my personal preference. The naan’s are usually quite fresh as well.
Overall, it’s decent food… I would say, a bit overpriced though. A meal for 2 usually runs near $ 50… which is pretty expensive for take-​out.

I’ve now upgraded to regular customer.
Staff are not so familiar with English, but the food is what I came for.
Great portions, meat dish each for you and your partner and 1 rice dish will suffice.
Food was tasty and filling!
Highly recommend the butter chicken!
Got the tiki masala chicken both of the 2 types and neither was up to party.. Not enough gravy. But tasty yes but I’ll always from now on have the butter chicken.
GREAT FOOD.

Food was good, I bet it would be delicious if it arrived faster. the Naan was cold unfortunately.
Ordered delivery (2 butter chickens + naan) at 6:10pm, food arrived 8:15pm. We live 3.8 km away.
Maybe because it was such a rainy day they were saturated with orders, I’ll give it another try, as the food was still worth the wait.

Very good food. For vegetarians, I will recommend Malai Kofta.
Great customer service. All servers are very nice. Although, if busy you may have to wait outside.
Will certainly recommend if looking for good Indian food.

I came to eat here yesterday to satisfy my s/o’s butter chicken craving, and it did just that.
Once seated, we were given some fried tortilla-​like thing to munch on. Sorry, I don’t know the name but it was delish regardless. My s/​o ordered butter chicken, and I should have done the same but I figure i would go for something different. I opted for the tikka masala. We also ordered one plain naan and an order of saffron rice.
The food came out pretty quickly. Let’s just say — the butter chicken was immensely better than the tikka masala.
This place, although the food is good and the service is subpar, the décor is a bit off. I hated the buzzers we press to call the server over — I felt that was a bit degrading :(
After leaving, I went to class and the food coma sleepiness hit me hard. I could not stay awake for the life of me and had to leave early to go home asap. True story!
Will be back to try some more food items!

My favourite Indian food in the city
Aloo gobi
Beef masala
Butter chicken
Garlic naan and rice
Good times!

I went here this weekend with my partner on a Saturday night without reservations.
Disclaimer: both my partner and I are of Indian decent and we eat a lot of Indian food on the regular so our standards/​expectations are quite high. Also we prefer a certain level of spice for our indian food. Please keep this in mind when interpreting this review.
Environment: on a Saturday night it is very busy and if you show up without a reservation you can expect a wait. They are not very accurate with their estimates of time. We were told 20 and it was closer to 45. The environment is low key. Not much for décor. Seats and tables are close together. There is no music (probably a good thing) however due to the crowd it can be quite loud. Not an ideal place for an intimate date night.
Food: I ordered a chicken quick combo which came with chicken madras, Nan, rice, rice pudding, aloo gobi and veggie pakoras for about 15. My partner got the same thing but veggie with paneer makhani. We ordered medium spicy. Our food came quickly since we ordered prior. Both orders were quite mild by our indian standards (so if you prefer spicy order spicy explicitly). Overall the food was ok nothing special as far as indian restaurants go.
Service: staff was friendly but overwhelmed with customers and orders. However if you order your food before you are seated your food can be available for you as soon as you sit down which is nice. Aside from when the food was given to us we did not see our server at all (not even for water refill until the end).
That said, this place is decent. It’s very busy so some people do like it alot but for us it didn’t meet the cut.

I went here for lunch a few weeks ago and ordered the butter chicken combo. I’m not too familiar with indian cuisine but the combo included naan and a bunch of other side dishes. I really liked the butter chicken and ended up finishing it really quickly because it was that good. At first I was sceptical of the portions because the plates made it look like there wasn’t enough food, but the meal was actually very filling and unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish everything.
Some of my other friends didn’t order combos and regretted it because having an entire bowl of biryani gets boring after a while, vs with the combo you get a nice variety of foods. If you’re in the area and craving indian food, check this place out.

Banjara, the perfume of Christie Pits.
The thing about Indian food for me, is that I crave it, and when I’m eating it the aromas are beautiful… but the smell of other peoples’ vindaloos, curries and paneers often turn me off. So when I lived near Banjara and got a whiff when the wind changed, I wasn’t into it… but now that it’s not part of my day to day life, man do I want it. I want it all of the time.
Their dine in experience, is a red velvet treat, but I usually go for delivery. Delicious, delicious tandoor straight to my door.

The B in Banjara actually stands for BEST. Seriously, dinner here a few weeks ago was just so delightful, flavourful and filling that I can’t think of another word to describe our experience.
This place runs like a well oiled machine and the staff (whom I might add are in abundance) are all about top notch service. My beer, not my water glass ever went a minute without being topped up by someone.
For dinner we went with their butter chicken and the palak paneer, and shared a side of Jasmine rice and garlic naan. We shared everything and I really wish we hadn’t because I selfishly wanted all the butter chicken to myself, it was so good. I did think that the portion side overall was a bit on the small side, but maybe that was my desire for more that got me flustered.
There aren’t a lot of great Indian spots in the city, and Brampton/​Mississauga is sometimes just too far when you want a quick fix, so I’ll definitely be back here.
Eatcrest Out

Seeing that I go to the Madras Masala which is next door, my fiancée decided we should try this place for a change. I was game since I love indian food!
The place is very small and quiet. They have a «indoor patio» which adds to the place for seating and makes it a tad unique. The one thing that I found interesting is there is a small button like buzzer by your table. It’s to notify the waitress/​waiters that your ready to order or if anything is needed. I always felt a little hesitant to press it at times– but maybe that’s just me! The service was very good! Attentive and quick.
On to the food! We ordered Paneer Makhani, butter chicken, butter naan and saffron rice. When they came to the table, my tastebuds were jumping for joy! However, when I tasted the Paneer I felt that some flavour was lacking. The butter chicken was good once I ate more of it. But at first bites, my tastebuds were begging for more flavour. We also asked for «Medium spice» on everything and seemed to get very mild. The naan and rice were delicious though! So perhaps we needed to try other curries or get more of a mixture instead of two similar ones.
Verdict? I will be back again to try it out and will order different ranges next time. But, as a first impression it was just A-​OK.

Banjara est l’un des must pour la gastronomie indienne à Toronto. Je recommande le butter chicken accompagné d’un bol de riz. Comme accompagnement vous pouvez également prendre des galettes. Le service est très pro et souriant.
PS: chaque table est pourvue d’un buzzer pour appeler la serveuse. Tres pratique quand le moment de calculer l’addition s’eternise…
/​/​Banjara is one of the must go places to have indian food in Toronto. I do recommend the butter chicken with rice, you can also order some chapati for appetizers.
PS: each table has a buzzer which is very useful when you need to call the waitress and not make her wait while you go over the bill.