Diwali Dining

Great service, good food, small portions, downtown prices. I would have given it four stars with the exception of the leather booths that were screaming to be reupholstered. Seriously, they were peeling!

Ambiance was very good. Good service too.
However the tomato was somewhat undercooked in both chicken tikka masala and goat vindaloo. The taste was way off. Overall not good Indian food at this place.

One of my favorite restaurants in downtown. Great Indian food and appetizers. Always have a good time there with my family and great service. Everardo (waiter) always is patient and very nice, he makes sure we have our food on time and have us very satisfied.

Definitely one of my favorite places in San Diego! The food is amazing and the service is excellent! Ask for Everardo, always has something delicious to recommend. Oh and have Lucky make you a cocktail! My favorite is Mojito. Have a coffee. It’s delicious!

I went to this restaurant last week. Interior is beautiful and staffs are very friendly and helping. They have lot of options for drinks and you can spend some quality time there. I ordered chicken manchurian and kofta and we liked it. Food is better than many indian restaurant I have been to in San Diego.

No doubt, ambiance was really classy but the food was just average. Not very Indian, how it should be.

New OWNER Alert and the NEW OWNERS have made this place a hole in the wall. OK the nasty buffet food was cold and old — full of nasty sauce. I knew it was something about the place that did not set well with me before however I took notice of the complete bit. I returned my food. Thank God the staff did not give me trouble because I was ready to unleash the fire and call the health department on them — When I went to the dirty restroom the water pressure was really low and very little water came out of the faucet. And the restaurant had NO hot water at all in the restroom so of course the restaurant did not have hot water in the kitchen area. This place USE to have the best Indian food it was a very nice place to dine Now — the place looks dirty the chairs and booths are nasty and the seats are torn. I sent my food back and I will not be coming back.
The buffet food is all leftovers covered in sauce so you can’t tell its old.
Eek! Methinks NOT!!!
NASTY FOOD– NO WORKING HOT WATER — Go ahead and get sick I’m not…

I was hesitant to try this place based off the not so great Unilocal reviews but decided to give it a try once I read the menu.
The restaurant is nicely decorated incorporating both Indian and modern influences. The ambiance is a little more formal not your tshirt and sneakers type of place.
The staff there is friendly and readily available in case you need something. They are helpful in providing recommendations if needed.
The food? Ehhhh not so great. I ordered the chicken Manchurian to start off with and since I didn’t care for the taste of that I didn’t order anything else. The chicken Manchurian lacked flavor and spice. It was a bit too sweet for Manchurian and resembled something more along the lines of sweet and sour chicken rather than Manchurian.
Overall, the place is cool but the food is not up to par with the prices they charge. However, considering I only tried one dish it’s hard to judge what the rest of the menu is like.

Stopped here for dinner late in the day and was very dissatisfied. We ordered Paneer Tikka and Veg Manchurian as appetizers. The Manchurian was not bad, but the Paneer Tikka had no flavor to speak of. We also had the veg Biriyani, which turned out to be just rice with some oil and vegetables. And oh, their drink menu is almost non existent! Would not go back to pay so much for flavorless food.

Average food little on pricier end. Empty restaurant, need not make a reservation.

Great Southern Indian food experience, service was exceptional with recommendations that covered our tastes. Definitely, will revisit and bring friends and family.

Each year my family goes out for dinner and a walk around the holiday season and this year we chose to go to Diwali since it was close to Petco Park’s Winter Wonderland, and we love Indian food. We made a reservation on a Friday evening at 5 pm and when we arrived, we learned we didn’t need one– the place was empty. The décor was lovely and the restaurant was spacious. Only thing I didn’t like was that there were Tv’s everywhere you looked playing either music videos or a movie, I couldn’t tell. It was somewhat distracting, however. The food is not super traditional, sort of a fusion type which was refreshing. The appetizers came fairly quickly, and so did our entrees. I don’t often write reviews but I had to for one reason: the lemon grass salmon. Literally the BEST salmon I will ever and have ever eaten. Would definitely go back again!

I am very picky with Indian food. It’s hard to find high quality Indian food with a wide variety of choices. I had the best Indian food here, and I’ve traveled a lot.
We had chicken biriyani, lamb karavali and calamari. The service was really good. Very impressed.

I had cauliflower, Quinoa & spinach kofta curry, Roti was dipped with burned oil, fish was stale.

Diwali Dining has nice interior and some yummy food, we ordered vegetable manchurian… its soooo good!

After a long day and some time at the convention center my hubs and I were walking back to the hotel trying to decide what to do for dinner. I wanted to take away but when we passed Diwali with all its glittering allure we decided just to stop in, the baby was sleeping anyways so it seemed like good timing. We were seated right away, and the restaurant is just beautiful. We wanted to share our favorite dish chicken tikka masala and get an appetizer, on the spot I randomly ordered the paneer with scallion app and hoped for the best. We also got the cilantro garlic naan, because naan is the whole reason for Indian food as far as I’m concerned. The paneer dish was not at all what I expected but it was fantastic, rectangles of firm paneer covered in a sweet chili scallion sauce were just the right amount of sweet and spicy, not something we have ever seen before. The chicken tikka masala was also no run of the mill dish, the sauce was flavorful and complex and the chicken tender and tossed with fresh herbs. The naan they brought out was giant and beautifully crisp, the perfect accompaniment for our amazing meal. The mango lassi my husband ordered was a bit of a let down it was sort of tepid in temperature which made it like drinking a warm smoothie… Not so great. I would definitely recommend making a stop here.

In town for a conference and enjoyed lunch here. Very close to convention center. Reasonably priced lunch menu and you get a perfect amount of food. I had butter chicken which came with fragrant rice, naan, a samosa with sauces and a salad. It was melt-​in-​your-​mouth good.
I would give this place 5 stars but for 2 things: First, the hostess ignored me, then midway through finally walking me to my table she took off literally running to help another customer, leaving me standing awkwardly in the middle of the restaurant. Second, it was HOT in there. Bearable, but uncomfortable nonetheless, but I can overlook both of those things for good food, good and unobtrusive table service at a reasonable price (particularly in an area that could price-​gouge tourists and visitors if they wanted to.) Would go back.

Horrendous food, empty restaurant, rude waiters and dilapidated interiors. Apparently they give 5% off on good reviews.
Long story short — do not go here or you will just wasting a lot of bad tasting over priced food

First time here because of comic con 2015. The restaurant is kind of pricey. My sister and I paid $ 15 – 17 on the main dish. For us, they did not over charge the tax like the other Unilocalers had mentioned.
The interior décor was kinda bland and kinda dark. The walls has brown curtains draped around. When we were there there wasn’t a lot of people since it was the last day of comic con and everyone probably are leaving or left since dinner time. We were a bit hesitant on trying the place out since there was hardly anyone in the restaurant.
When we did, the food was amazing! We ordered Chicken Tikka Masala (which the server recommended) and Chicken Chettinadu. The masala was sooooooo good! I would highly recommend it if you haven’t tried it! In case you don’t know, both dishes are sauce based and added onto rice. Similar to curry with rice. I didn’t know until the dish came out haha.
I took off a star for their poor customer service. I couldn’t really understand him when he was talking and he doesn’t come by to check up on us. We had to tell him if we can have water. When we were done, there wasn’t servers around so I had walk up to the bar tender for our check since no one was around. We were seated so it was hard to see the workers. But other than that food was pretty delish.

This is some of the best Indian Food I’ve had here in San Diego, it’s not just a matter of spiciness either. They’ve nailed the small details that a lot of places miss out on, location is great and the décor is wonderfully elegant. The naan was great but the flavors of the chicken tikka masala and the samosa’s were what really took it to the next level. I’d highly recommend this place over the others in the Gaslamp district if you’re in the mood for Indian fare.

My husband and I went here the first night of Comic-​Con (6÷8÷15) on our way out of the convention center. It wasn’t too packed, so we thought we’d try it out.
Reasons why I am giving this such a poor rating…
* When asked how spicy I wanted my food, I said very mild. What was delivered was far from it. I know I am a wuss when it comes to spicy, so I asked my husband and he agreed that it was pretty hot.
Most importantly and disappointingly…
* when we received the check, we did the math on it and realized they overcharged the tax at a rate of 16%, when it should only be around 8−9%. We brought it to their attention and on the corrected ticket, rather than showing the right amount for tax, it just gave us a credit. We mentioned it to the table next to us and they too were over charged on tax. We could only suspect that they were fleecing the out-​of-​towners. It is really a shame that leeches like this establishment will reflect on an otherwise pretty damn great city.

Our waiter was so rude yesterday. We got a table and started to order food and drinks. My friend ordered a shot of Jameson with a sprite back. He brought it back all mixed together. We told him it was incorrect and he said it was the same thing and would not exchange it!
When our food came out, there were no plates, utensils, napkins. Serving spoons, nothing! We asked for some and he throws it on the table with no napkins or serving utensils still! We had curry with only forks and no spoons! Our food was cold by the time the spoons came out.
I then tried to order another drink and 20 minutes later it doesn’t come out. I call our waiter out and tell him nicely we’ve been there for a long time and never saw him. He starts getting aggressive and yelling that he’s so busy. That really is NOT my problem as a paying customer. The manager had to actually come and hold the guy back because he was so aggressive.
He then tries to give us 2 glasses of wine free, instead of fixing our bill. My friends had left and gone across the street to grab dinner and drinks instead, so the wine did no good for us as you don’t gulp wine, it takes time to sit there and enjoy it with your food.
Sorry, you have lost me with your mediocre food and no care for customers. You had a chance to make it right and you didn’t. We barely touched our food or drinks. I would not come back and would not recommend this place to anyone.

I would not come here!
Our waiter was very curt, didn’t help with the menu, made bad suggestions, and seemed to occupied too bother with us. Maybe he was having a bad day, but it seemed the other waiters were the same.
Just one example: we asked to for a take home box, and when he brought out the boxes and a bag (yes we packed it ourselves), he dropped the plastic bag on my plate of leftover food. When I asked him for a new bag, he just looked at me walked away and the manager overheard and had to bring a new bag.
The manager seemed friendly though.
As for the food, average at best. I asked for the spiciest food they had and got something that was maybe as spicy as tabasco sauce.
I’ll keep searching for a better Indian restaurant in Gaslamp this is not it.

Very good environment. Haven’t tried many Indian cuisines before, and my Indian friend helped me to order. Tried butter chicken and chicken masala, both are pretty good. Their garlic naan is soft and nice B)

The food is average and a bit overpriced but I had to Unilocal because of all the errors on the menu lol! You must try the Girled Chicken Quesadilla, or the Peaking Chicken or the Lamb Ghost hahahahahaha!!!
How can you open a restaurant and not check the menu for errors???

So I haven’t been to San Diego in years. Fun atmosphere all around, but I wanted something different for food… and I happened upon this place.
Beautiful décor, romantic setting (although I dined alone) delicious food. and a full bar that included a variety of beer, wine, specialty cocktails.
I had the best server (Dre) super friendly and very knowledgable on the menu. All of the items she recommended were delicious starting with the Cocktail (Basil Prayer) the Appetizer (Chicken Manchurian) and my entrée (Chicken Tikka Masala). Oh, and who could forget the Pesto and Cheese Naan… It paired well with the Tikka Masala.
Wish I lived closer, this would be a regular hang out for me… I will come back next time we’re in town.