Being in the area and not having tried Indian food for a while we were keen to give this place a shot. We've been to India and tried real Indian food there. So our expectations were clear. Unfortunately in Australia you rarely find anything close to authenticity (home cooked meals excepted).
The place is a bit dim with kitsch lining the decorations kept to a bearable limit. We soon settled on the dishes and were really looking forward to letting the kids in our tow try the food. To be on the safe side we asked for non-spicy dishes.
I have four improvement suggestions for Castle Taj, which is why I can't award them with more than 1.5 stars (barring half star ratings, I'll have to reduce it to 1):
1. The dishes took a long time to arrive (about 40 mins), despite reminding. It's hard to entertain little ones when there's not much around to entertain them with. A group arriving after us even got their complete order first. I think eventually the staff realised "why are there no dishes on that table?" Hmmm, yeah I was wondering about the same.
2. I'm one for food hygiene, especially since I experienced "inner cleansing" on my trips to India*. So seeing that food was handled with bare hands was a bit of a shocker. I didn't need that part of authentic Indian cuisine relived... Unfortunately the kids experienced it :(
3. We asked for food not to be spicy (you guessed it, because of the kids), and while the spiciness wasn't chewing through your oesophagus like a wild Tasmanian devil on a carcass, it was still too much for children. So, as hungry as they were, they had to stick with the bare-hand handled roti and naan, plus rice.
4. And as if this wasn't dulling the experience enough, I got charged an extra $3 surcharge for an Amex payment. Castle Taj, please let your customers know that there are surcharges! More so, please don't overcharge on fees. This is illegal! You're supposed to *pass on* the charge from your bank (which would've been $1.50), not make a profit on it. According to Consumer Law making a profit from a credit card surcharge fee is indeed illegal, but who's going to complain for $1.50!
On a positive side, the dishes were quite good for the adults and we would've loved to return since we're in the area sometimes, but given the experience we probably won't.
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* Not so much spiritual cleansing, but gastrointestinal cleansing. read more