Bollywood Bites

Went for Sunday lunch with a large group of friends. We arrived at noon and had no trouble nabbing a table to seat 18. Buffet was tasty and very reasonably priced. Service was friendly and accommodating. The food was at least as good as most any other Indian restaurant in Portland.

Yum yum yum! Just tried this place last night, and got mixed vegetable pakora, chicken tikka masala, and some nice fluffy naan. Service was friendly and quick, the place is neat and bright, with fun Bollywood videos playing on the back wall, and the food was absolutely delicious. Only warning is that if you ask for your food spicy, they will by God give you spicy – they don’t mess around (my husband loves spicy food, so he was a fan). I’m excited to go back for more!

Had lunch here after seeing the solid 4-​star review, but we found the food to be fairly average. Tried the lamb pasanda and the chicken korma, both of which seemed similar and did not have the depth of flavors that we’re accustomed to with these dishes. Don’t get me wrong — it wasn’t bad. But we just found it rather ho hum. The mango lassis were great and the staff were friendly. The atmosphere also was bright and clean. We probably will not go back though.

If I could I would give it negative stars.
Terrible food, I have been feeling sick in the stomach since I ate there. We ordered Papdi chaat, paneer tikka masala, chicken kebab and naan. Sorry to say, none of the items met expectations.
Please stay away from eating at this place!

4.5 stars for food quality. Excellent samosas.
Knock off a star for a couple of service issues. They forgot part of our order once. On another occasion, we went to pick up some food and the man who gave it to us stood there and asked us how we wanted to tip. Are you kidding me?
Anyway, we like their food so much we continue to eat there, and the woman there is super nice.

It’s great to see a new restaurant in the neighborhood which is close and authentic. The place is very clean, spacious, big Bollywood movie poster, a projector screen playing Bollywood movies or music videos. I went there couple of times for lunch buffet and also dinner. There are many options in the menu. There is also free tea provided with the lunch buffet. The staff is nice and helpful and merged the tables when I went with a big group of friends (15) so we can all sit together.

Yuck, yuck, YUCK!
We were looking for a new place to try and after reading some reviews of this place and looking at the pictures, we decided to give this place a try. The waitress was nice albeit a little slow.
The food is what I have a major issue with. I have had mediocre Indian and superb Indian food. This was just downright gross. In all the pictures that I have seen on Unilocal,it appears that they have used fresh chicken in the past. This is not what we received. Instead, our dishes both had rubbery and obviously prefrozen grilled chicken strips. No joke. I have attached a picture of this. It made the food inedible for me. It was such an unpleasant and off-​putting texture when biting into them. I’m not sure if they ran out of the fresh stuff and were too lazy to get some more. All this for $ 22 a person with a drink and samosas. I threw the food in the trash when I got home.
I never write bad reviews but in this case I felt it completely necessary. Save your $$

Excellent customer service, waitress/​hostess was extremely friendly and polite. Traditional Lassi drink was authentic. Both curries were booming with flavors. I do recommend if you want spice order it higher, I had the medium hot and it tasted more like mild. I recommend their tomato soup, it was dairy free, yet VERY creamy. An added bonus, on the menu it specified if it was halal. Overall A!

We try this joint for the first time. They had our order mixed up, and brought us several wrong item. However, the owner was extremely nice about it, and fix the issue. They also let us have the fog food free of charge. They’re tender chicken was succulent, and also came with dipping sauce that was really good. Chicken tikka marsala, was average, good as every other tikka Marsala. There Brianni Was the best I had in many years. I would definitely be here again.

Tip: if you have entered the restaurant but haven’t placed an order yet, please get out at the earliest and head to any other restaurant. I am down 40 bucks with nothing in my stomach and headed to Bollywood theater, easily the worst restaurant in Portland.

My pallet is different from anyone in the India region as I have grown up here in Oregon. That being said I found this place to be pretty great. The woman that served us was very friendly and even turned up the heat as soon as my family came in and said «that it was cold outside».
We had 4 different dishes as well as a couple appetizers, we could have done with 3 dishes or no appetizers since all four of us ended up too full. I also enjoyed that this place has beer imported from India, opposed to many if not all Japanese beers are now brewed in the US and still marketed as Japanese.
This is another place I am reviewing that I hope receives more business. There was one gentleman in there when we showed up and a group of four showed up as we were leaving, so I saw a total of 9 people in an hour. The prices are very reasonable and we left very full. I will be coming back here soon.

Awesome Indian food. Spice, heat, freshness, wonderful thick and chewy naan, rice kheer, carrot halva, and hot chai tea.

Great food and large portions. I cannot wait to go back there.

Good new and conveniently located place near home. Restaurant is very nice, staff is super friendly, super clean environment and good food.
Food was not quite as good as some of their nearby competitors, but I have a hunch that’s not the norm.
I look forward to a second visit.

Solid 4.0 stars. 1^st time here, Sunday afternoon lunch buffet and the place was almost packed with patrons. We really liked the vibe here.
BB is tucked in a shopping plaza near Sherri’s and Safeway.
The décor is bollywood posters and a large screen TV that shows, well of course! Bollywood films! So you could be having lunch with the striking on screen couple of SRK Kahn and Rai. BB could use a few more screens to keep with the theme of the restaurant. Those that sit in the font are not able to view the films. A clean, modern, and comfortable environment.
We were greeted when we came in, eventually they came over with the water, no other beverages or menu of beverages were offered. The restaurant might want to consider offering a beverage menu to buffet clients. Later I saw that they offer a rosewater lassi. This is something I have not seen offered at other restaurants in this metro area, but have experienced in my old stomping grounds. I love a thick rosewater lassi! I would have ordered one if I had known that was on the menu.
I enjoyed the selection of this buffet very much. I have never seen chaat on a buffet. Good concept. Other featured dishes we experienced that day were; saag, matar mushroom curry, chicken tikka, tandoori chicken, lamb biryani (w/​bones :(ouch!) and some sort of Manchurian stye breaded cubed fish in tangy sauce with onions and peppers.
I understand that the buffet menu changes often. My husband the vegetarian, came back to the table with his plate piled sky high so I know there was no shortage of vegetarian items. Also patrons want to take note that they offer many gluten free items.
I love spicy food. I can eat habaneros. I want to say that this cuisine’s spiciness was at a good level. I would say the use of the chili pepper is above average compared to other metro are Indian/​pakistani restaurants. I am happy for that as many in area are a bit tame for my tastebuds. But it wasn’t so spicy that a person couldn’t enjoy it. My husband likes mild. He was still able to eat it and finish two big platefuls with a smile.
One thing I will say over all about the cuisine is the thing that was missing was the intensity of the other flavors. The depths of flavors/​spices/​seasoning were missing. They might want to look at the dates of their dried herbs and spices and update them with fresh. Fresh cinnamon, cardamom, masalas etc could make a big difference. It wasn’t bland, but it wasn’t robust either. Some flavor, just missing that pizzaz.
My favorite from the buffet was the chaat, the saag, and the Manchurian fish.
The chicken tikka was too sweet for me. I don’t really care for added sugar that much. I am more of a savory person. They need to watch the cooking of the naan and the tandoori as many areas on both the bread and the chicken were burnt, but still flavorful. I suspect that they do make the naan in house. It was flakey and buttery on one side, burnt on the other.
We liked Bollywood Bites. We would recommend it to friends, and we would dine there again to test out some of there other menu items.

We had a terrible horrible no good very bad day.
Rather than go to Australia I looked on Delivered Dish’s website for dinner. Comfort food.
Lately, comfort food = Butter chicken.
I found this new Indian place on the list. Its in a strip mall at Cornell and Murray that also houses our fav Thai/​Viet place.
Sweet.
Since we ordered via DD, I cant speak to the ambiance or service. I can tell you Delivered Dish called me an hour after the order (the promised delivery time) to tell me that the driver was at the restaurant waiting for the food to be cooked. It showed up 40 minutes later. So it took an hour and forty minutes from ordering to arrival. We live maybe 10 minutes away at the most.
We ordered our usual suspects:
Sag paneer: spinach with tender cheese cubes, nicely spiced, tons of ginger, it was good. Very creamy.
Butter chicken: BIG chunks of chicken breast in a tasty if somewhat oily butter chicken sauce. Also well seasoned.
Matar paneer: Full of cheese cubes and peas in a tasty sauce. Lots of ginger threads in this.
Rice: meh. Somewhat dry and in clumps.
Naan: a little thicker, fluffier, and softer than some other naan we eat. No crispy charred edges.
Also «fresh green salad» which has two choices of dressing. My kid chose Caesar. She is currently obsessed with Caesar salad so this was great. It had romaine lettuce, nice tomatoes, and crunchy cucumber slices. One side salad could feed two people easily.
All in all a successful dinner for three with lots of leftovers. We will eat their offerings again. They have an extensive menu with a lot of variety/​dishes to try.
Indian food is good. So happy to have more choices in our area.

Tried it again ¹²⁄₁₁ — no change:
A fair amount of good Indian cuisine on the W side of Portland if you look around. I want this place to be just as good or better than Swagat or Abhiruchi, but it continues to fall short. For a solid lunch menu for cheap, check out India Sweets and Spices off of Cornell. That place is legit!
Original review 11÷4÷2015: Visited this week with my sweetie. We had high hopes for this place since it is pretty near our home. Tried the Bollywood special curry, lamb curry, and channa masala.
The good:
–Nice clean dining room
–Fun Bollywood films and film posters, colorful paint
–Not crowded during the week
–Plenty of parking
–Friendly attentive staff
The not good:
–Service is VERY slow
–Do you like ghee? All three dishes we tried were VERY oily. A quarter inch film of oil on surface of all three dishes when they were served.
–All sauces were quite heavy on the ginger with big wads of ginger paste that were not mixed into the sauce
–Undercooked naan with strong flavor of baking soda. It was really pretty nasty
–Medium spice level is about as spicy as ketchup
We really enjoy Indian food and had hoped this place would be a winner. We’ll keep watching the reviews and hope that service and food quality improve. There is strong demand for a good Indian food in this part of town. Really hoping that this place improves!

Perfect Butter Chicken and rice. Sweet, spicy and will make you sweat in all the right places.
Homemade Garlic Naan was awesome.
Great service and a super clean place. Will come back and try the buffet that is 9.95 on weekdays very soon.
The only negative was in regards to the décor, which is too bright and harsh due to the large ceiling fluorescent lights.
Maybe change the bulbs out to a lower k temp to make it warm instead if bright white.

My review for this place. Overall, I will give this place 3.5*.
Kadai Paneer 3.5* delicious but very greasy. I felt too heavy after eating it.
Gobi manchurian 3.5*.Cauliflower florets were over done so lacked the crispness. Sauce was fine.
Roti 5* Fresh, large portion, soft and tasty
Service 4.5* Prompt and friendly
Ambience 3.5* spacious and kid friendly
Free Papadums 4*. Tasty papad but chutney were too cold. Straight from fridge.
Will try it for buffet and other breads next time. Wish they reduce oil quantity from their curries. Loved their roti!

Great addition to the community.
Excellent service — there’s something very endearing being called «My Buddy» by a middle aged India woman.
Came in for dinner. Excellent ambience with the requisite video screen showing Indian music videos — hence the name Bollywood Bites.
Particularly enjoyed the Indian Chinese food dish I had. Will be back to explore more.