Maharani Indian Cuisine

Oh Maharani, how I miss thee! Today I came by this spot after moving out of Fort Lee a few years ago. I I was a long time customer in the old location and then in the new one hen they moved. I had a craving for the amazing dal makhani and vindaloo we heard the old owner passed, and there is a new place here instead. It is ok, but nothing to compare to the wonderful food and warm hospitality they were serving here before. We miss the old place, the familiar face, the Ganesha at the entrance… RIP Mr Maharani, you will be missed.

So sorry to see that this restaurant is now out of business. The original location was very nice, and I was pretty sad to see it move to the tiny spot it had relocated to. Very limited parking, etc. This place always had great food and delivered. Sad to see it go. Hope the owners can make a go of it in another location at a better time.

Maharani has closed down, RIP :’(
My family and I were loyal customers for over 25 years

I do NOT get why this place is averaging 2 stars? Unless you people are only coming for the Lunch Buffet (dinner food is waaaaaaaaaaay better here. Their lunch is kinda meh).
I love their dinner food. It’s outstanding. I love my food every time and I have eaten at a LOT of Indian restaurants. Plus it has a bar! Indian restaurants in NJ usually never have bars! I always get spicy vegetable curry, naan, veg. samosas. They are always really tasty. I enjoy that it’s within walking distance from my work.
I have to say, whenever I go to other Indian places, I always compare their food to this place and each time I always think Maharani was tastier.

While I absolutely loved the original location, this is what I have been comparing Indian food to. The flavors, serving sizes and little dipping sauces make me return to this little spot time and time again (even after moving to Texas!). I crave this place…

The service is really bad. When we went last time we have to wait for 45 mins to know that our order was served to next table :)

Pros: Food hot
Ok selection of Indian dishes On lunch buffet
Naan excellent
Bathrooms clean and well lit
Cons: warm soda (which cost $ 1.95 — don’t know if that’s by the glass)
Poor waiter service
Overall, I’d eat here again for the lunch buffet, but probably not for dinner. Place wasn’t overly crowded but not empty either.

FOOD
The food was good, especially the lamb kurma which was some of the best I have had. Portion sizes were just right. Normally, a lot of indian restaurants give too much food. I was weirded out by the fact that there was beef on the menu. I think this is the first indian restaurant I have ever seen that carries it.
ATMOSPHERE
However the establishment provides an unwelcoming environment. You walk through these doors or up the stairs of this kind of sketchy office building depending on where you park. The inside just seemed to have Indian artifacts plastered on the wall sporadically. There was no rhyme or reason to the organization.
SERVICE
The service was mediocre at best. When the waiter came with my utensils he just dropped them on the table next to my plate. It wasn’t at all what I had expected.
OVERALL
My mom took me here. Said she had been here years ago and liked it. Myself, I dont think it is worth the trip from Fair Lawn. I will stick to Bhoj in Saddlebrook. However, if you live in the area it is a decent option. Price came out to $ 25 PP before tip.

The service is very bad and slow. The bread became dry by the time curry came.

Craving for an Indian joint close by Washington Heights, decided to go to Maharani against the advice of my fellow Unilocalers.
It was a short distance from GW bridge, once we got there, we opted for the weekend brunch. Wasn’t expecting much for a buffet but there was quite a few selections! From their cold salads, veggies and sauces to the array of curries, and chickens. I’m not an expert at Indian cuisine, but I can at least warn you if the food was terrible… It was pretty darn good and def left us satisfied and full.
So to get your Indian fix, it’s a perfect joint. But fair warning, some of the buffet items were suspect on freshness, looked to be reheated (considering the fact that we were the first customers of the day).
Take a chance and check it out if you’re nearby, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

This place is a disgrace to Indian restaurants everywhere.
Atmosphere: depressing and the décor speaks to how cheap the owners must be.
Food: Soaked and covered in Ghee. The ingredients do not taste fresh at all.
Service: Painful.
Avoid this place

No stars! How can someone go so wrong with Indian food… ordered masala bhindi which came out so watery with raw tomatoes with no salt or the spices that Indians use… Malai kofta which was a total disaster with so much cheese and heavy cream which seemed like a base for Italian cooking rather than Indian… chef needs training in Indian food… If you want to eat Indian do not order from here At all… this not what they cook in India…

The new location is hard to drive to (like, literally to figure out where to pull in). The food is overpriced and only fair. On the hunt for a new Indian place for delicious Sunday night takeout.

The Negatives:
Parking: To find parking is hard and you’ll have to navigate through the back. If you pass it, you’ll have to go farther down River Road and try and make a u-​turn on an impossible busy street.
Entrance: You have to walk in to side entrance it seems to enter the restaurant:
Atmosphere: The place was warm and uncomfortable. The longer you stayed, the more you noticed that there was no air circulating through the restaurant.
The Food:
The dishes were bland. I’m not into extreme spices but I love a little kick and there was none.
The Pros:
The Naan:
It was the saving grace. Other than that, I think you kind find better.
Sadly, this is the only Indian restaurant in the Fort Lee area.

Been eating here since it opened at GWB Plaza. Food has always been consistently great, and i think most of the business was take out. Now it’s moved, and they have a nicer, more open space. Unfortunately though, business seems to be slow. Not sure why, because the food is fresh (my palak paneer is a bright vibrant green, not cooked to death muddy green), naan is hot, crisp at the edges, chewy center, and the service is attentive. I also usually order the mango lassi. I am a regular indian food diner in NYC, and i still consider Maharani one of my top indian favs. Fort Lee is full of korean food, some italian. Dont let this wonderful indian restaurant die. Ambience might not be 5 star NYC reataurant, but the food is always good. Get the naan, biriyani, chicken tikka masala, moghlai, or my fav, palak paneer. Tonight i also tried the tawa chicken. All excellent. I think the Unilocal listing says its closed for dinner, but not correct. Try this place out… you wont regret it if u like indian food.

Bland, bland, bland.
I love Indian food; I’ve been to probably a hundred Indian restaurants all over the country and I cook Indian food at home. This restaurant is on my list of worst Indian restaurants.
The food is flavorless and the curries are watery. We sat down for lunch buffet right when they opened and the food was just coming out. Yet it was all lukewarm and the pakoras were chewy, as if they had been sitting out.
On top of that, no lights were on in the restaurant. That was a first for me. We sat by the window so we could see our food. Also, service was almost nonexistent.
Anyone who thinks this is good food is crazy. I’m not one to make absolute statements like that, but this is terrible Indian food. And it cost $ 27 to boot!

Weird location. Limited access. Confusing signs. Ordered fish, was definately frozen. Edges of fish were dry, seemed like freezer burn.
Dinner mate ordered chicken. Waiter took leftover food at the end of our meal. A minute later, my dinner mate decided to take home the leftovers and notified the waiter. My seat position allowed me site into the kitchen. I saw the waiter in the kitchen look around, then reached deep into the garbage can and took out the chicken, wrapped it in foil and brought to our table.
I’m sorry but this place should be closed.
I’m wondering where they got my fish from.
btw, we left the chicken.

THE NIGHTMARE:
I went with my wife on Indian search near Hoboken. With NYC having tons of Indian places but very few, if any, with excellent health code violations reports… we we’re going to try one last time to get some food (Chana Masala etc…) done the right way but this time near our current hood in Jersey.
Unfortunately for us, yet again, we are let down as the service was insanely horrible, almost non existent !!! and the food was totally inedible for both of us. To say my Chicken Tikka Masala was a salt lick is an understatement. Not to be outdone, the worst part of the meal came when I asked for side order of tamarin (sauce), I figured I’d scrape off the weirdly pink salty masala sauce and bath the white meat chicken in a light tamarin to try to get through the meal (sounds insane but trust me you would’ve done the same). Not to happen! as the tamarin sauce was literally teaming with bacteria and smelled like bad wine. I almost left right there. My wife’s meal was exactly the same issues. Just pathetic.
MORE NONSENSE:
Besides the food issues and lack of service the (nice) guy put his filthy fingers all over my water glass which is rule one in serving any kind of beverage, i mean come the F on already. It took 35 minutes just to get us simple water (forget getting any poppadom) and the bad bar pepsi we thought was to be diet coke was truly disgusting.
if I had to grade them from 1 to 10? They’d get a «1» and thats only because they FINALLY took our order.
A disgrace and should be erased from my memory bank shortly.

My biggest mistake of 2012…
I reallllly wanted Indian and if you’ve read my reviews, I’m an Indian lover without an Indian restaurant. I tried Maharani with dreams that it would be my «go to» place but those dreams faded faster than it took to maneuver into the parking lot. Here’s the 411:
1. Place of business – A number of these reviews, including a photo, are of an older location. Now in Fort Lee, they are having a «Grand Opening». There’s nothing grand about Maharani and as for it being open, at the rate they’re going, it probably won’t be for much longer.
2. Parking – Unless you are going southbound on Hudson Terrace, you’re going to have a problem. Coming north on Hudson Terrace, you’ll cross a double yellow. Coming from Main Street, you’ll over shoot the lot and have to do an illegal turn or deal with the tiny streets to turn on.
3. Parking lot – Not so big, so leave your Range Rover/​Hummer at home. Best to bring a compact car as there’s not a lot of room between spots, nor to park so easily.
4. Entryway – You’ll go up steps, then will go into a door (at that point, it seemed like we were walking into a restroom – it smelled like one which had been cleaned; not the bleach smell either). Then you’ll need to go through another door. It was weird and felt like I had entered through the garage door of a house.
5. Restaurant – We were shocked to see so many people there. The bar had a mirror a la 1980’s. The main room was dimly lit, the door open (read: hello flies – which I did see). There were large brown curtains tied back with crystals.
6. Service – We were given menus and just checked them to ensure they had what we were after, closing them quickly. We then waited. And waited. And waited some more.
I saw others’ orders being taken and was treated to the discussions of those sitting nearby. NOTE: Watch what you say as everything can easily be heard as you’re sitting closely and perhaps the acoustics are good.
Our order was taken. And we waited. And waited. And waited some more. No pappadaum served. When we received water, they left us with a carafe which was a good thing had we decided to drink it. The waiter put his hands on the lip of our cups so not too sanitary. And had we needed water, we most likely would’ve had to waaaait.
6. Food – Since I’ve eaten lots of Indian food at lots of places, I know the difference between regions of cooking. Chole is in a typically dark/​brown sauce so I expected chickpeas with chunks of potato in a dark curry. The dish I was served didn’t look like Chole… neither did it taste like it – at all! There were 2 flavors I tasted: sallllllllllllt and one hint of cilantro. As a vegetarian, it’s been my experience that food is salted when one doesn’t know how to prepare vegetables. Here we’re talking chickpeas — I’m not even touching potatoes as there were none.
Rice – what the heck was that flavor?!? I’ve had rice with a cinnamon hint, but this was like air freshener or something.
Naan – the only edible thing and the chole didn’t even have a sauce to dip it into.
Diet Pepsi – not as bad as a typical «bar» soda, but it tasted a bit Windex-​y.
2 entrees + 2 naans + 2 sodas = $ 41.41 plus tax & tip = WASTE OF MONEY!!!

Breaking News People of Unilocal!!!Maharani has moved!!! Only a few blocks. Thank goodness. I walk over the George Washington Bridge from Washington Heights. To my knowledge there are no Indian resturants in Washington Heights. So it takes about 30 mins to walk from where I live over to NJ. And now it is an even shorter walk because the new location is only like 3 mins from the entrance to the bridge!!! Its right across from the Palisades Park which I think is also the old historic Fort Lee.
OK so my beautiful girlfriend loves a little adventure. So we walk across the bridge to get our excercize. And this has been our favorite stop.
OK so we like to go to the buffett which is from 12am to 3pm. M-​f its $ 12 Sat and Sun its $ 13. And its worth every penny.
My girlfriend loves vegitables. And she thinks she knows all about their freshness and life force and stuff like that. Sometimes she walks into a grocery store and says, «Let’s get out of here the vegitables just look sad.»
So when she gives this place a compliment about how fresh their vegitables are she really means it!!! For me I love the meat. Of the chains and tender and tasty as heck. In amazing sauces and just delicious. Chicken and Lamb. Last time I was in a little meat coma because I couldn’t stop chowing down!
Ok and one last thing I like about this place. They have cool Indian music playing. Last time I asked the waitress about the music and she didn’t get a big snooty attitutude. She was very friendly. But seriously have you ever been to an ethnic resturant and then have them playing like 80’s pop or some crap? Nothing against all kinds of music. But its all about atmospher. I want my ears to be matching my eyes, nose, mouth man.
Oh yeah also my girl had the Mango lassie. And she loved love loved it. I’m alergic to Mango but the guy said he could make me a regular one.
Ok lastly. There is some kind of major construction going on in the parking lot. Its like they are maybe digging up like bolders and rocks and concrete. I’m sure it will be all fixed soon. But the inside of the new place is very nice. Lots of sunlight from the big windows.
I’m also very surprised that a fellow Unilocaler gave this resturant only two stars and a very poor review. I would strongly disagree with his review. The buffett is small but every single dish is fresh and more is not alwyas better. Sometimes It is just more.
So hopefully this review will counterbalance the poor review. I really like this resturant!!!
Ok people of Unilocal happy eating!