Jewel of India

This is a great spot for Indian food! Highly recommend the buffet on weekends! The options (and naan) are endless! I think the prices can be a bit high for take out/​eating there based on the portions, but everything I’ve tried has been delicious. The saags are spicy and flavorful and the Palak paneer is creamy and soo yummy! The standard tikka masala is good too– although a little sweeter than what I use like. Overall a great option with awesome service during Buffett!

Indian buffets don’t generally thrill me, due to the similarity of texture in so many of the dishes – soft, squishy, and mushy (three of the little known cousins to Sleepy, Dopey and Happy). All five stars, therefore, are due to the extreme fabulousity (yes, that’s a word) of the Masala Calamari – fried squid mixed with Indian spices and sautéed with onions and bell peppers. I tried it the first time I went there and have ordered it every time since. The squid is tender, the veggies perfectly cooked, and the sauce is delish.
My companion always gets the buffet and is a big fan. He’s offered me a couple of bites of his favorite things and they’re all tasty but I’m sticking with my fave. It’s an appetizer that’s a generous enough serving to work as a meal (unless you share, which I don’t).
This place stays busy and the buffet is clearly the star of the show, but I encourage you to try the Masala Calamari one of these days. I think you’ll like it, even though I don’t know you and have no idea what you like…
Share review

My FAVORITE Indian place. My friends and I always come in for the buffet. They did increase the prices within the past year so now its $ 14 a person I think?
But the service is great and the waiters are always alert.
There buffet closes at 3PM EST so make sure you get there before they remove all the buffet food!

My family and I love Jewel of India! We’ve only been here for the weekday lunch buffets, but we keep coming back. The food is delicious and flavorful, and there is a large variety of dishes (equally for meat-​lovers and vegetarians). Dishes include a salad bar, samosas, rice, chicken tikka masala, tandori chicken, lentil beans, goat curry, creamed spinach, and rice pudding. The service is great, quick, and attentive, constantly serving us fresh warm naan after we devoured each basket. I definitely recommend this place for those who have Indian food cravings and love a well-​priced buffet.

Ordered fried rice and manchurian to go. Manchurian disappointed me. Portion is too small for $ 14.99 a plate. Manchurian was nothing like indo-​chinese. Rice were good but had lot of green peas which were more than enough. They gave me steam rice which directly went in trash.

One busy Saturday night, I was craving Indian. This was on my way home, and so I called in my order for pick up. I was told my food would be ready in 30 minutes, it actually took longer — like 45 minutes but it was super busy — and I get it.
I waited at the bar for about 20 minutes before my food came out. The bartender was attentive and offered water while I waiting. Overall, the service was good — friendly and attentive.
I ordered;
Vegetable Samosa $ 4
Eggplant Bharta $ 13
Plain Naan $ 3
The prices are very reasonable for the portion size. My eggplant bharta was good for two days! The entrees come with basmati rice which is nice since some Indian restaurants in the area don’t, and you would then need to pay additional for rice.
The samosa was DELICIOUS — the crust was crunchy and a tad doughy inside — which I love!
The eggplant was fresh, flavorful and the peas weren’t frozen — another added plus. It was medium spicy and not overwhelming. Again the portion was perfect and well worth the $ 13.
The naan was okay, a little too burnt. I wouldn’t order it again — I ended up not eating it.
I will definitely be back to try some other dishes, but I am a huge fan already! :)

Horrible service. I had heard about this place from a friend. We went on Thursday (Diwali day) and were seated within 10 – 15 minutes.
Our server was Robin, he was not attentive to our needs. We waited 45 minutes to order and another 1 hour and 15 minutes to receive our food. Chicken tikka masala was cold and sweet, garlic naan was stiff like a rock and the reminding 2 people in my group of 5 people received their food much after I had already finished eating.
We insisted to make the food a ⁸⁄₁₀ spicy.
It got worse when we got up to leave and talk to the manager and notify him that we won’t be eating here after 2 hours of wasting our time. We were going to pay for our appetizers and drinks and leave. They requested and insisted us to stay and the ‘dinner was on the house, to not pay’ and got us back to our table. Also waited another 20 minutes so they had ‘a chance to correct it and try it again especially in the context of the special occasion’. Robin didn’t bring us four hung except the $ 120 bill. We told him we only stayed because the manager requested and we have no intention of eating this tasteless cold food. Nonetheless the entire situation was embarrassing and ruined our evening. We left very un pleased.
I’ll never be going back. Dear manager uncle guy, if you want to keep your customers to stay please don’t embarrass them with holiday and religious occasional sympathy to manipulate them to stay. This was very low.

Had the lunch buffet and it was pretty good, Chicken and Broccoli dish was fantastic. Inly reason is not a 5 star review is because they didn’t have butter chicken or chicken tikka masala on the buffet and usually every indian restaurant has one of those.

Jewel of India is the main reason why I dont feel homesick! A real Jewel :)
This restaurant serves one of the best Indian food outside India. Their lunch buffet is well appointed and offers great variety for vegetarians too!!!

The hostess was rude and made sure to cramp our 6 person party into small tables fit for 4 people. Server was excellent and he kept the water and naan coming to the table. The buffet was decent, but the food was just ok and the options were very limited. The ambiance is very nice. The waiters are dressed a bit over the top for a buffet.

This was my first time here. The Samosa’s were very good, the naan was excellent, the mango lassi was very flavorful and fresh. We ordered butter chicken and that was very good. I also ordered the chicken tikka masala, and that wasn’t the best I have had. It didn’t taste like a tikka masala to me, it tasted more like chicken curry which is different.
I had brought it to the restaurants attention and they made a new dish for me, and still it didn’t taste like i had expected. Overall though the ambiance was great, customer service was great and very very friendly.

The Jewel of India is more like a tiger’s eye than an emerald. The food was okay, but the service was lousy. The place was very noisy, partly because the tables are too close together. I heard every word of the conversation from the table next to us. They might as well have been sharing our naan.
When we got there, we were seated promptly. The restaurant looked full, but there was no wait. It took quite a while for the waiter to take our order, and then he informed me that the vegetarian meal was not available on weekends. Since that was not marked on the menu, I had to reread the menu for another option. It then took a very long time to get our food.
The price is more like that of a downtown DC restaurant than a stripmall in bordering the Beltway.
I’d been to Jewel for lunch before, and I think we will stick to their buffet. Dinner was too loud, too pricey and the service was too slow.

Front of house was confused. The waiter would take extraordinarily long times between stopping by the table, and seemed overwhelmed, confused and was amazingly inefficient. He brought our to-​go food, but took nearly ten more minutes to deliver the check (which was ultimately handled by some other guy, who also took our check, but never asked for instructions). Worse, the manager asked «How is the food?» I responded that the lamb was excellent, but that the chicken seemed like it needed more time stewing, since the center was quite bland. He responded with general confusion, then stated, «I’ll be right back.» He never returned.
Other: Garlic naan was tasty, but the portion was tiny. Samosa Chat appetizer was delicious, but served nearly lukewarm.
While the atmosphere appears impressive, with price points to match, the service quality was not becoming to the atmosphere.
Pros: Samosa Chat was an awesome appetizer.
At $ 30/​head (with one drink apiece), this is a very hard sell. I won’t be returning.

Great Indian Food!
For three people, we ordered the Lamb Roghan Josh, Malai Kofta, and 3 orders of naan. It all tasted absolutely great!
Service was great too as waiter was attentive and courteous.

Great find.
Excellent and attentive service even when very busy. A bit dark inside but also manages to have lots of open space between tables as well for some brighter space.
Standard Indian fare though, with some real nice gems. Tandori vegetables are a real surprise, charred peppers, cauliflower, onion, loaded with spices, apple pear, wonderfully charred and smokey. Real treat.
Standard lamb and chicken dishes are attentively rich, spicy, and quite flavorful. As always watch out for the hard chilis (ooops yeah I ate one of them… surprisingly tolerable but big).
An even bigger surprise, Palak Chaat here is delicious, loaded with spices, tinges of tamarind yogurt, and crackling good spinach. Rivaling Raskias probably not, but stands out easily on its own and incredibly delicious.
A worthy Indian spots when needed.

Decent lunch buffet. The food and service are good. The ambiance is perfect for a business lunch or catching up with a friend. All of the food is good but everything is very heavy, not surprising considering if you are here you opted for an buffet of indian food for lunch!
Everything was good and they have about 4 – 5 dishes that are veggie friendly as well as a variety of meat options. The nan is thin and crispy which helps since you will need the room in your tummy for all of the delicious food! My favorite part of the buffet was the samosa chat at the front of the buffet. They have figured out a way to put it all in a round buffet server and still have it taste like a custom bowl was made just for you!

Outstanding Indian food! A great place for friends and family with delicious food. I frequent this place a lot since it’s close by. Here are some of favorite dishes.
Chicken tiki masala ⁵⁄₅ — very flavorful with smooth creamy tomato sauce filled with spices and nice big chunks of white chicken
Chicken tandori 4.5÷5 — nicely packed with heat! If you like spicy, this dish is for you. But beware for those who can’t handle spicy. I would recommend ordering a lighter veggie dish to balance the heat
Garlic Naan ⁵⁄₅ — perfectly baked Naan
Samosa ⁵⁄₅ — crisp crust with good enough of filling. Tip — drizzle some of their complimentary sauces on the Samosa for added flavor.

Surprisingly good for a strip mall restaurant. We had a wonderful Friday girls night out dinner. The staff was great, very accommodating and friendly. The food was reasonably priced and the portion sizes were generous. Everyone enjoyed their meals with the exception of one person. The manager was gracious and offered to change her order. Try the Vegetarian Thalia; it includes smaller portions of 3 vegetarian dishes and comes with daal, rice, and naan. It’s a good way to sample multiple sauces. I am always searching for good Indian restaurants and this one definitely hit the spot.

I trekked out on an 11-​degree weather sort of day to Jewel of India in Silver Spring and was really looking forward to it, after hearing rave reviews from friends and on Unilocal.The food was pretty decent, but the service left something to be desired. Though they have a lunch buffet (as many Indian restaurants do), I opted for the Chicken Tikka Masala a la carte instead. My entrée was pretty tasty, though slightly bland for tikka masala. Portion-​wise it was decent and I had some to take home, but it was still a bit pricey at $ 15 for a lunch portion… They also brought out naan, but it was a bit dry. Not super impressed with the food, and I’ve had better, but it was decent. Atmosphere was nice. Not super classy, but certainly not a carry-​out type of place either.
My main qualm was with the service. Though it was attentive and they were quick to fill our waters, one of the waiters seemed offended and then subsequently was rude after I asked if he would bring out a box for me to take my food to go. I generally like to box things up myself, as I tend to nibble on more of my food as I’m waiting to pay the bill. He seemed offended /​upset that I would ask for a box and finally brought out the box for me. As I was boxing up my food, he literally reached under my hand to grab the finished plate and ended up knocking one of my to-​go containers to the ground. I’m not sure why he couldn’t wait until I was done boxing up my food to clear the plates off the table, especially since we hadn’t even finished paying yet. I thought that was pretty rude, if it was intentional. And it certainly lessened the experience.
As far as cleanliness, the place seems to be kept up pretty well, but there were a few things they could improve. They don’t have sneeze guards for the buffet, which I think would be a nice courtesy for their guests, and I know other Indian restaurants do have sneeze guards. Also, the bathroom was not super clean.
Overall, not a bad experience and the food, while not amazing, certainly hit the spot on a blistery cold day. But I doubt I will be wanting to visit again anytime soon, unless there were some specific occasion to.

I finally understand why this place has such high reviews. Located in the Hillandale Shopping Center, Jewel of India was certainly a popular lunch spot yesterday, on a Wednesday around noon.
Our group was more than 20 strong, and yet, the staff was very accommodating and helped bring over extra chairs as more people continued to arrive. At the end, they were good about keeping track of who ordered the buffet (most of us). I will say, the one downfall was payment. I wish they had split the check because I leave it to my amazing colleague for trying to settle the bill with a handful of credit cards and cash piled in front of him.
Onto the food, wow! There was such a huge spread that I went back twice to try everything. I was not disappointed by anything. The food supply was tremendous and the flavors were fantastic. Nothing was too spicy and everything was delicious. From the typical tandoori chicken to an interesting and surprisingly delicious carrot dessert, all of us were very pleased with our meal.
I also liked that they were good about refilling our glasses of water and giving us naan.
I would love to come back and highly recommend the buffet as a great lunch option if you are working nearby and want a delicious meal for a great deal.