Overview
- Signature Dishes: Lal maans (mutton cooked in red sauce)
- Opening Times & Days: 10am to 11pm, daily
- Address: MI Road, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
- Contact: 141 221 8520
- Reservation: Yes
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Summary
A multi-cuisine restaurant in Jaipur, Niros Restaurant is over rated by many standards. ‘Bland’, ‘insipid’ and ‘tasteless’ are the words that come to mind when I think about the food we ate here. To make matters worse, they charge exorbitant prices for their dishes and then add a hefty tax on top of it. The redeeming features of this restaurant are its friendly, attentive waiters, and the atmosphere here makes you feel like you’re eating at a top-class restaurant. However, the quality of the food is what we primarily look for when we eat at a restaurant, and this one failed completely with its unappetising dishes.
Niros Restaurant Jaipur
Niros Restaurant Jaipur is a high-end restaurant located on MI Road in Jaipur. It provides a range of cuisines – Indian, Chinese and Continental.
The interiors are quite plush – air-conditioned, with glass fit-outs on the ceiling and walls, and complimented by murals designed by internationally acclaimed artist, Satish Gujral.
When we entered the restaurant, at 7pm, the tables were filled with foreign tourists. Given that Niros is Lonely Planet’s top pick for restaurants in Jaipur, this comes as no surprise. However, by the time we left after 8pm, the tables were slowly filling up with locals and there were more locals waiting outside for tables to be available inside the restaurant. It is a popular restaurant for both foreign tourists as well as well-to-do Indian locals.
We had a booking for the evening so when we entered the restaurant, we were immediately ushered to our reserved table. We had a table near the wall, in the middle of the room, thereby giving us privacy and yet having the ability to people watch as well. There was plenty of space between each table, which we really liked, as having to listen to other people’s conversations during dinner is not enjoyable.
Soft, Western music was playing in the background, which tells us that the clientele is predominately Western tourists and Indian locals who have Western taste.
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We started off our evening with a fresh lemon soda. This is one of my favourite drinks in summer and, in India, this drink is refreshing and invigorating after a hot, balmy day walking around the attractions.
Graham wanted to try their banana lassi. Compared to the lassis we had at LMB and the Lassiwala shops, this one was not up to scratch. It was watery and didn’t have the right consistency that a banana lassi should have. We did like the ‘silver goblet’ looking glass that it came in.
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For our dinner, we ordered two mains – fish amritsari and lal maans – with jeera (cumin) rice and naan bread.
What Niros does exceptionally well is customer service. The waiters were friendly, spoke and understood English very well and attended to our every need with efficiency and promptness. Even during and after our meal, they asked us whether we enjoyed the dishes and if there was anything else we wanted.
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The fish amritsari – tandoori fish cooked in a Punjabi sauce – is a popular street food of Amritsar, Punjab. The fish kebab came with some sliced red onions and lime.
It was a well-cooked fish kebab that was missing a lot of flavour in the marinade. It didn’t come with any dipping sauce which could have added some flavour to the fish. The fish itself was moist, however that was as good as it got.
There were pickled red onions, preserved in white vinegar, and mixed vegetable pickle on the table. The preserved onions and vegetable pickle went really well with the tandoori fish as it gave the fish some flavour.
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The lal maans – mutton in red sauce – is a Rajasthani specialty, prepared in a sauce of curd (yogurt) and hot spices. This dish is typically very hot and rich in garlic, with a thick, rich, red hot gravy.
This dish was supposedly cooked and eaten by Rajput warriors who had passion for hunting in the wild. They usually hunted deer or wild rabbits, or a variety of birds such as bustards and partridges. The preparation was very rustic with only basic spices as it was cooked in the wild.
The mutton was nicely cooked but once again the sauce was disappointing as it didn’t have any flavour to it. It wasn’t hot as it’s supposed to be, perhaps because the food was aimed at Western palates. More than that, it was simply bland with no taste of garlic or any other spices. Worst of all, it was hard finding any meat in the dish as it was full of bones.
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The one saving grace to dinner was the pickled red onions, mixed vegetable pickle and the pudina chutney (coriander and mint sauce) that was sitting on the table. Even though we were not sure how long it had been there, it tasted better than our main meals.
While I’m not a fan of pickled red onions, Graham does like them, and enjoyed eating these with the tasteless meals. I enjoyed picking at the mixed vegetable pickle, which had a lot of spice and heat to it, and added some flavour to my meal. The pudina chutney went well with the fish amritsari, as it provided some flavour to the bland fish.
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The naan bread was the highlight of our dinner and that is not saying a lot. It was soft and doughy on the inside with the edges nicely crisped.
The bread accompanied the mutton dish well, as the thick gravy could be mopped up by the bread.
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The jeera rice was pretty average, as this dish didn’t have a lot of jeera to it. The lack of jeera made it taste like steamed rice which was a shame, as it would have added some flavour and depth to the main dishes.
One redeeming feature of the dishes was the quantity of the meal. All the dishes were sizeable, so we left feeling full. However, I cannot say that we left feeling satisfied, as all the dishes were bland and lacked any flavour whatsoever. It didn’t feel like we ate Indian, especially since we picked dishes that are popular and well regarded in the Indian subcontinent.
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For dessert, we picked the kulfi pista, which is a popular Indian milk-based frozen dessert made with pistachios. Kulfi has similarities to ice cream in appearance and taste, however, it is denser and creamier. Traditional kulfi is flavored with cardamom, whereas this dessert was flavored with cardamom and pistachios. It was served with vermicelli noodles in a rose and vanilla essence sauce which added another dimension to the dessert.
While the flavours blended really well together, there was hardly any kulfi and plenty of vermicelli noodles, such that we ate the kulfi and left most of the vermicelli.
To add fire to our already dissatisfied dining experience, the bill arrived, and to our horror we were charged a hefty 22% tax, which consisted of four different taxes. We ended up paying Rs 1,400 for our dining experience at Niros, which is hugely expensive by Indian standards. Moreover, nowhere on the menu was the service tax charge of 22% mentioned making it very insulting indeed.
One comes to Niros Restaurant Jaipur to enjoy the ambience and the decor, certainly not for the high quality of the food. Someone needs to give the kitchen a course in cooking authentic Indian dishes with proper spices, and preparing the right combination of marinades and sauces. If Niros Restaurant Jaipur want to charge top prices for their meals, they should provide top quality dishes and we would be happy to pay for it. There are top quality restaurants in India that we ate at, and the food was superb, and we didn’t mind paying top dollar at these restaurants, however, Niros Restaurant Jaipur isn’t one of them.