Dostana Asia Indisch Resaurant

I went there several times, and there was always some well done meal, but the way they treated you and your needs not offering the menu, not cleaning the table, serving warm Indian wine, because verything else was out or not available with total indifference. Thus, after three efforts, I´m deciding that this is how it is meant, so I´ll try something else.

I ate here a couple of times during my visit as it was handy for my hotel and on a square with several other bars/restaurants. I was looking for a fairly quick meal and both times opted for the Thali, once chicken and once lamb. This was delivered on a platter split into compartments and had chicken or lamb curry, dall (lentils), salad, yoghurt, rice and two flatbreads. The curries and dall were all very tasty and all was excellent value at around EU9. Service was quick and unfussy. The restaurant itself is fairly basic but don't let that put you off.

This place is all about food. Its not where one would take a spouse for example to a romantic restaurant but a place you both go to for experiencing good Indian food. It has a good mix, including south Indian dosa and lots of other northern dishes. Service is great and overall the prices are good. Like I said, not cosy, a bit cantine'ish but great food. Highly recommended for Indian food lovers.

Despite the slower and often inexperienced service (sometimes someone new comes in) they make excellent southern and northern variations of Indian cuisine. the price is not above average, but it is not the cheapest. tasted jalfrezi, madras, vindaloo, tarkadaal, bryani and super. like all restaurants, they have a “day menu” at a cheaper price.

So, this is a famous one among the Indian restaurants in Hamburg as they own an Indian store as well just attached to the restaurant. I have been here 3 times so far and the most recent experience was the best in terms of food, not that earlier ones were bad! :)So you can actually expect to have some good Indian food here. I know its a major issue for anyone looking for Indian food abroad (or for any cuisine outside its home country for that matter!), as many places will not serve the taste people look for when they crave for Indian restaurant food. The proof I got last time when we tried 'chole bhature' and the taste was just wow! We also had vegetarian thali which was great too, it had a paneer dish (cheese), a daal, a simple vegetarian curry, raita (salty yogurt mix), naan and rice so it actually had everything that a normal vegetarian person would order if not having thali, so I think the thali here is a very good and reasonable option. On earlier occasions I tried dosa, pakoras, daal and chilli paneer, not that all were excellent but good enough.Now coming to the not so good part which is the service here, well its simply below average. Probably that is the reason why it's not crowded even though the taste is great. Looks like all waiters don't know much about Indian food, they are not at all welcoming or enthusiastic and at end of the meal I am always in that moment of dilemma where we don't want to tip the waiter because he didn't do anything to deserve that but then we have to tip just to honour the chef's efforts! I am a pure vegetarian and once when we went here in a group, I was about to eat non-vegetarian pakoras because the waitress who was serving us didn't care to check if they are actually vegetarian pakoras, we literally asked her 4-5 times to confirm if they were veg and every time she nodded with a yes, but guess what they were actually not veg and she didn't even bother to say a sorry.This place has great potential I feel but either they have to train their waiters or change their waiters!