Five fellow yelpers suggest Dhaba Express as probably the best Indian food in Halifax. Finding it was a bit hard, as we drove past the side street twice -even with GPS. DE is located in a strip mall but the inside of it is very nice.As you open the doors, the aroma of curries is great. Very clean, nice décor, and fresh cut flowers at each table. The service was excellent. The server was knowledgeable and suggested the "Thali" which is three vegetable portions, rice, naan, salad served on a triangular silver platter. It looked amazing and tasted good. My better half went the safe route and ordered their butter chicken combo. He was more than delighted with his order but wished there was more naan to finish off the rich creamy butter chicken sauce. We were full, but I had to try the rasmali - my favorite Indian sweet. It was incredible.My fellow Yelpers were correct, Dhaba has the best Indian food in Halifax and a reasonable price. The only con against Dhaba would be its location in Bayers Lake. Ugghhh But the trip is worth it for the food at Dhaba. read more

I booked a table at Dhaba for my birthday meal last evening. We were a party of 10 and were quickly seated as we entered the restaurant. We were served crispy papadums as a complimentary appetizer while we browsed through the menu. As a group, we decided to order a helping of saffron rice, chicken biryani, lamb biryani, butter chicken, beef vindaloo, vegetable korma, dahl makhani, channa salad, bread basket, and a few condiments. The food was delicious and perfectly spiced! We particularly loved the spicy beef vindaloo and biryani dishes - similar to the ones I've eaten in larger cities like Toronto and Vancouver. Very authentic in flavour. After our meal, the staff brought out a piece of carrot fudge (halwa?) with a candle and sang happy birthday to me. It was very sweet and unique in flavour. We left a 20% tip and pledged to return soon. We had two servers that evening and both were delightful. I hear the lunch buffets are popular and contain items off the menu, so we will definitely be back for that soon. This is now our spot of authentic indian fare in Halifax. 5/5 for food, service, and atmosphere. read more

Best Indian restaurant in Halifax, by far. I grew up in East India, and I find Dhaba Express has the most authentic tasting Indian food in the Maritimes. Their service is fantastic. They have a buffet every Saturday as well. 5 star in my book! read more

Alright so i am tuff Critic to please. First of all there is nothing authentic about it. The Naan breads are not fresh plus they are not even made them at the restaurant. They from the Indian Store on robbie Street. It cost them 2$ for a pack of 10 naans. They are not even real naan bread. On the pack it is labeled as pita Bread.Moving on to Parathas, they are the exact same thing as naan. Bought frozen and not home made. A lot of there curries are just Instant mix packets, Add veggies to eat and its good to go.It is obvious from the taste as i use those packs often. There is nothing Authentic about those packets.The samosas are the one found locally too, and i assure you most of the food does not taste like real Indian food. read more

We tried Dhaba's on Friday night. We ordered the beef vindaloo combination set and the lamb briyani rice combination set. The beef vindaloo combination set comes with fragrant rice (which was done pretty well). Along with it was the beef, some salad tuck in the corner of the same plate. Over the top of the rice is the naan bread. I would say things get rather cramp on that piece of plate. I would have love to see things separated a little giving way to more breathing space for maneuvering the different edible stuff. Also since things are served with rice, it would have been nice if we were given the spoon as well rather than having to ask for it. I find it rather strange having to eat rice with my fork, don't you think. Maybe for some locals they may think so, but we Asians surely know that its either you scoop them with your hands or a spoon but definitely not a fork. The vindaloo was ok. It was suppose to be hot as they said on the menu but I know based on my standards that ain't hot enough for us. Maybe it is for others. As to the briyani, the seasoning is rather mild for our liking. We would prefer it to be more heavy. The lamb was dry. Overall, if you've never been to an Indian restaurant, I suppose going here wouldn't hurt. But if you know what good Indian food is like, you'd be a bit dissapointed like we did. However, service wasn't too bad. I'll probably give their Saturday brunch buffet a try as a last chance. read more

I've never been more conflicted about a restaurant review in all my foodie life! My restaurant companion and I have heard nothing but amazing things about Dhaba,and were always up for trying a new restaurant, so we went. On arrival we found that the restaurant was quite full, which is always a good sign. When we were seated, we were immediately asked by the wait staff if we were ready to order, despite the fact we barely had our menu's open. Anyway, we brushed it aside, read the menu and decided on what we wanted, we waited for 20 min for one of the wait staff to come back to our table to take the order. We ordered, my friends got an appetizer, a samosa, and butter chicken, and I the Beef curry both as a combination plate, which came with Saffron Basmati rice, Channa Salad and a slice on Naan, to drink we just had water. Our main course arrived, before the appetizer,which at first we just thought that it was coming out with the entree, because it was only a single samosa, so that was fine, but we didn't even receiver our water, until 10 minutes after we had gotten our dinner! Our food was amazing! and as far as I'm concerned amazing food always make up for poor service because the point of going out to a restaurant is to eat amazing food, however, here is where the conflict begins.Our portion sizes were smaller than what we anticipated, that is, it was half a slice of naan, a small dish of curry, a scoop of salad and two scoops of rice , we only had one glass of water for our meal, and the appetizer didn't show up at all until after the meal when my friends had to ask for it. We hope in regards that our poor service, was just an off night, we had checked other yelp reviews and they were all given 5 stars, so yay! but bI'm only giving them 3. read more

Went to Dhaba express 3 days ago when we were visiting Novascotia. Ordered spring rolls as an appetizer, the spring rolls were dripping in oil, agreed it is deep fried, but have had spring rolls in a bunch of other restaurants, nowhere it was this bad. The filling was a bit stale too. Ordered spinach dal, tasted good, but, bit into two pieces of glass. My kids had eaten half bowl already, imagine if it was in their food, I shudder to even imagine the consequences. Glad, I was the one who found it. Let the waitress know, she was very apologetic and kept apologizing many times. She also did take the dal off of the bill. She mentioned that the chef usually cooks food in the early morning and the plastic container in which he had kept may have broken. Some explanation! Any way, the reason why I am giving 3 stars is because food tasted ok and the waitress is a very sweet girl. read more

Amazing !!! I'm originally from the West Indies, and finally found a restaurant in Halifax with excellent curry dishes. Great portions too, and friendly, quick service. We are DEFINITELY going back !! read more

We've been going to Dhaba since shortly after they opened. Most restaurants can hold it together for the first few weeks or months and then everything slides. Dhaba has been consistently great. I'm not from, nor have I visited India, but have sampled Indian cuisine throughout North America. Dhaba is top shelf, reasonably priced and friendly, helpful staff. A "must try". read more

I have been to Dhaba Express more then a few times now, I always enjoy the flavor's of the food very much, I'm originally from Toronto and frequented many Indian restaurants on Gerrard St ( little India ) and this is comparable in quality IMO. The reason I gave it only 3 stars is that its not a good value IMO, I have had their butter chicken lunch special a number of times each time hoping to receive a proper serving of meat and am always disappointed, usually you get 3 small Cubes of chicken about the size of an average 6 sided die. This to me isn't a serving of Chicken you get more in a side chicken salad at most restaurants. And the Dinner is 4-6 pieces of the same size. To me this is very bad value considering that a lunch is over $10.00 and a dinner is just under $14.00, they do however give you loads of rice, and the sauce is very rich so it fills you up. read more

Saturday buffet disappointing, oily, limited taste ... Came today with family and friends and with much anticipation left knowing we will not return. read more

Great experience! food is delicious and fresh! Excellent service , waitresses are professional and friendly. Definitely agree with the awards of Best Indian food in Halifax. Our favourites: chicken Tikka Masala, chicken Vindaloo( if you like really " hot spicy but still flavourful ", carrot halwa.. Wait.. !! actually everything is good!! read more

My partner and I are in love with Dhaba's butter chicken, it's incredibly flavorful and authentic! We have had some of the other dishes and they are just as great but the butter chicken you just cannot beat. The staff there is so pleasant and helpful, and service is always great! read more

We ordered delivery from this place. Most of the food was tasteless - at least the food we ordered (biryani, naan, paratha, gulab juman, paneer tikka masala (which is supposed to be a "special" dish)). It didn't have any flavour at all. No Indian traditional taste. The food was cold when it arrived. It was not worth how much it cost us. The only thing that was good was the gulab jamun and the biryani. I would not recommend this place to anyone. We waited an hour and a half for delivery, got cold tasteless food, and were very let down. read more

Tried this place on weekend with my friends and I was glad to see they had buffet on weekends. They had decent variety of dishes from all major parts of India. As I thought it was perfect things started to go down. First, they don't provide you bowls! YES no bowls in an Indian restaurant where more than 50% of dishes are curries. We asked the waitress to see if she can provide some. She said no and when I was looking over the buffet counter I saw enough bowls for everyone in the restaurant. Why no bowls then, do they want us to pour curry all over the plate? Second, they ran out of chicken curry, acceptable, happens in some of the best restaurants, but they replaced it with fish without labelling or telling anyone. Fortunately no one of our table was allergic but what about others! A label saying "Fish" would be nice. Lastly, when we were leaving another waitress ask about the food and service, and we frankly told her what we didn't like. The response was "well what can I do? I am just a waitress". We laughed and left and decided never to go back. I recommend trying out restaurants near downtown. read more

I visited Dhaba express for take out. I decided to get Beef Vindaloo combo and the Curry Chicken combo. I was told that it would be a 20 minute wait for my food, which was no problem, I went to best buy and farted around and came back 25 minutes later but was told they needed more time. So, I waited for an addition 20 minutes before my food was ready. When I got home, I started with channa salad, which was very bland, which was funny as they looked seasoned, but where was no flavor at all. The Naan bread was hard and kind of rubbery, like it was microwaved for too long. The rice was ok, but again, it was under seasoned. I was also disappointed with the Curry chicken for lack of flavor. However, the Beef Vindaloo was VERY well seasoned and nice and spicy. I loved it. Sadly, I spent nearly $40 and only liked one thing as all of the other food was lacking flavor, so I would not return to this place unless it was someone else's treat. I have had Indian food at many places in Halifax, and this has been the worst. It seems watered down, as the flavor is missing. I'd call it "Americanized Indian food", and find it weird that the dishes at "A Taste of India" from the Scotia square food court is light years ahead of Dhaba express in regards to aroma, taste and all around goodness. read more