Mezbaan Chicago

Like many of the other reviews I have to agree, service is terrible. When I walked in I was welcomed by the manager in a totally gruff manner which made me think if I should even eat here.

My parents raved about this place when it first opened up. So, I gave it a shot and hosted a party of ten for brunch. The food quality was below par and their service was almost non existent. On the brunch menu, it was the usual: halwa puri, paya, haleem, some shitty rice, and the usual. My guests made their selections from their buffet and waited for naan and puri. I swear to god, we had to keep calling the waiter to keep the naan and puri coming. We’d run out and then sit there waiting 15 – 20 minutes each time. Around the third time, the batch of naan they brought wasn’t properly cooked. Worst experience ever! Never, ever, going back.

Update: in Ramadan they have a dinner buffet every day for $ 15. Iftari includes cholay chaat, large samosas, pakoras, and fruits. Dinner buffet had everything from biryani to nihari to Haleem and several vegetarian options too. Dessert included gulab jamun. If you ask they will also bring you an assortment of kulfi from the kitchen. The chai was off the heezy for sheezy.
A couple of areas they were lacking included dishes that were not cleaned properly (plates and silverware) and delay in refilling naan and tea when they ran out.
Overall a very good meal.

Terrible service. I hosted an event of over a 100 ppl here a few days ago because I thought they had great ambiance and décor. Mezbaan had plenty of prior notice of this as I booked the event 2 months prior to and I even came in a week before the event to make sure they would be prepared. On the day of the event, nothing was prepared. The tables were not set up and they didnt have staff on hand to accomodate the large crowd. I had guests complaining about food, drinks, and utensils running out and service being inadequate. They literally had only one woman who was acting as a waitress and one man who was acting as their clean up crew. Worst of all, I had to tell the managers multiple times to address the complaints and they still did nothing! It was completely embarrassing for me to have to put my guests through that. I had to apologize to everyone. It’s completely unacceptable. On top of it all, at the very end, they had the audacity to demand and tried to justify over a $ 300 dollar tip for their services! This is not acceptable service! They should have taken this event as a great business opportunity to promote their restaurant. Instead they just made themselves look terrible in front of over a 100 ppl, many of which stated that they will never come back to this restaurant again. I am completely disappointed.

I really like Mezbaan. We had samosas, chicken tikka masala and chappli kabobs. The chappli kabobs were excellent and the CTM was very good as were the samosas. I’ve seen a lot of negative reviews about the service but my experience was positive. Not overwhelmingly positive but still positive. The food is good and at the end of the day this is what you come to a restaurant for.

Poor service. Terrible food. Rotten meat. Dirty floors and greasy plates. Worst Pakistani/​Indian restaurant hands down. That pretty much sums up our experience of this place.
If you are planning to host buffet for a large group here, beware that they will cheat and add invisible head counts and will charge you more than what you owe.

If there was an option of giving below 1 star i would have given them. It is ridiculously overpriced $ 17 with tasteless food and no variety. I had to scrape the biryani pan and there were not refilling the buffet table. I waited 20 minutes for the naan. There were no chutneys, cmon are you kidding me you are charging $ 17 and not even keeping basic chutneys that go with the food. People dont waste your hard earned money here. Goto Shahi Nihari you will get much better food for your money.

We were here for local event. The food was great. I have not had much from this ethnicity so I can comment on that part. However, the food had good flavor. The staff was pleasant and very attentive to our needs.
The lightning was a bit bright but other than that the ambience I thought was it was beautiful and inviting.
We shall be back!

The quality in their food has gone down drastically since it first opened. I heard they have a new owner, for that reason I’m disappointed. The overall ambience is set up well, it’s quite spacious.

Poor service. Went there for a sunday brunch. Overpriced considering the taste of food and service.
Will never visit again. Only thing good was the ambience.

This place has nice ambience.
Other than that everything is Meh. Food was cold and appeared to be made days ago (stale)
Naan was undercooked. Everything looked Haphazard and unhygienic.

I’m glad there was a first and last time I visited this place. We had carry out and they told us it would be 30 – 35 min and then an hour. We decided we couldn’t make our out of town guests wait any longer so we cancelled. When we called almost a half hour later, we were told it was ready «please come please come lol» and they charged me when I placed the order. They have a very confused staff, Im so sorry but this is exactly why American restaurants do so much better! Time keeping, customer service are essential. Oh and when I walked in I got dizzy with all the «extra» ambiance it felt like too much. Please save your time and money, This place is ridiculous and they have no idea what customer service is!!!

I went here a few weeks ago with a large group to have the Sunday brunch for 15 dollars a person.
The food included samosa, plain rice with chicken on top, nihari, paya, bindi, chicken korma, daal, halwa, channa, puri, naan, and gulab jaman, and kheer.
All the dishes were rich, oily and heavy. We commented that the dishes were dark colored and heavily cooked. The food was okay tasting, and it was pretty spicy.
The channa was under cooked though.
There was also chai, coffee, and a soda machine.
There was a huge 70 or 80 inch hd television that was loudly playing a playoff football game.
I though it was interesting that this restaurant was decorated with fake plants and trees and it looked like a jungle.

Awful service. It kills me to say so, but after my third visit (Mezbaan, I gave you guys THREE tries!) I can’t justify going again. I’m embarrassed; each time I came with guests and you left a bad impression on everyone.
Most recently, we had a hefty order for 5 taken by what seemed to be the restaurant manager himself. Twenty-​five minutes in, a polite waitress comes by to tell us our order was ‘never entered’ (what does that mean?) and that we had to re-​order. Uh, no. We ask to talk to the manager and he says «they messed up your order back there.» Dude, take responsibility, don’t blame your cooks, whether it was their fault or not!
Secondly, our waiter came again and again to tell us things like they «ran out» of one of our appetizers (beef lukhmi) or that the mixed grill platter they forgot about was «coming in a just a few more minutes.» It got annoying quickly.
Thirdly, we ordered about six varieties of naan and, ultimately, only 4 PLAIN naans get delivered. By this point we’ve waited 45 minutes for any sight of food so we start eating.
Fourthly, two of our dishes were cold. Actually, none of them were terribly hot, but we were sick of waiting so we sent the two bigger ones to get reheated. At this point we were all just laughing. How does service get this bad? You would think the manager would intervene and apologize and offer some sort of compensation by now…
Fifthly, turn on the heat! Even the manager was walking around with his puffy jacket. All 5 of us kept are coats on for our entire meal.
And finally, know that they automatically add gratuity for parties of 4 or more — which is absurd. The manager said they were swamped back there. There were probably 3 other small parties in the rest of the entire massive restaurant. Seriously, it was empty. Our compensation (after asking for it) for horrible service was a small takeaway portion of kheer. –_​_​_​–

Service was really really slow, but the food mostly made up for it. I’d go back, but certainly allow a lot more time for my meal.

Food was good. But a huge negative is that big TV screen. We were there with kids and the guy was basically playing dirty near porn movies and songs. Extremely distasteful. Will never go there again nor will recommend any of our friends unless they change this hypocritical attitude.
The staff (some Indian ladies) looked over worked although nothing against them, they were doing a good job.
Unless they create a family friendly atmosphere this place may not last long.

First, the noise is unimaginable and scenes of naked ladies dancing on a projected screen which is not so kid friendly. Second the food in the dinner buffet was not so great. Third they promised to give us grilled chicken to our table as it comes to the buffet but they never did. Fourth they overcharge you and scam you into paying a mandatory 18% tip for a BUFFET. What a waste of time and money. Never again

Horrible service. No waiters around, Not sure owner/​manager but someone was running around greeting people but after that no one paid any attention. Buffet was recommended but wasnt worth it. Was hardly any variety, naan ran out and was a 20 min wait. Besides the initial glass of water at the table no other water was brought until almost end of service. Coke was ordered for 3 people out of 8 at the table and only 2 received the glass of coke about 10 mins later and the last person received it towards the end of service. Once someone came around and picked up the plates throughout the whole service. At the end a $ 24 gratuity charge was added to the bill.
Not sure what the gratuity was for when there was no real service.

Been here for their buffet not once but twice.
The first time we went we weren’t served the chicken tikka that comes with the buffet. For the buffet they had hot and sour soup, haleem, afghani pulao, dal, green beans masala, chicken keema matar, chicken biryani, checked korma and some aloo sabzi.
For dessert they had kheer, which they ran out of by 2:30 pm, and we were told that they will not be bringing out anymore, instead the waiter asked us to try the Zarda for dessert. We managed to scrape off some kheer to try it and found it to be sour.
Oh the drinks were an extra $ 2.
At the cash register to our surprise he charged us $ 11.99. Apparently they changed the price for two weeks now, but have been advertising the $ 9.99 price to reel in customers.
The second time again no mention of the changed price till we were ready to pay. This time they had a couple of more dishes than the first time.
The food is not extraordinary, there are other places within the area for some decent traditional food for that price. The service is also poor.

Awesome food. Mutton karahi is highly recommended. Real nice spot. Will be recommending to friends