Good is great here, very consistent and seasoned well. I would recommend the samosa chat, good enough to share. Eating this solo would probably kill your appetite. Chicken cheese kabobs are outstanding, great flavor and good balance of charred meat to cheese ratio. Naan'a are done well a little small for my liking, nonetheless good for what they are. Butter chicken is excellent. There butter chicken had a slight smoky flavor to it, which is from the Fenugreek. The fish fry, again a bit pricey at 12.99, is a whole fillet of Cod, deep fried in tradition Pakistani spices, served with chipped onion and jalapaneo peppers is Superb. All in all, this is a great solid option if your looking for Pakistani food. It's a no frills kind of place. Their selection of sweets are delectable. While they are pricey on a per pound basis, you can definitely taste the quality. read more

I have become a regular here over the past few months after having ignored the place for 15 years. I keep going back for the same two things though so I probably should be trying something else on the menu soon. Their Bihari Kabab is really good. I've gotten it separately and as a roll and neither have disappointed me once. Definitely one of the better Bihari Kababs I have had in North America. Their Papdi Chaat is really good as well. One order would probably be enough for two people. They have a pretty good selection of Mithai as well. I haven't dined in yet so can't rate that experience but haven't been disappointed by takeout yet. If you are planning on doing a takeout and know what you want, I would recommend ordering over the phone. Parking is available in a nearby lot. Finding a spot during the weekend is a little tough. It is a 3-5 minute walk. read more

Only the naan and kabobs are made fresh .Everything else is stale food that is heated in a microwave and served. Service is horrible.

Been there a few times. Liked almost half of the things I tried. Food is reasonably priced. Service is very weak. If you go in for good food and don't have high expectations of ambience and service this is good option. read more

By far the worse place on earth. Food looks old and taste expired. I'm surprised this place is still open. From the environment to the food nothing is good about this place. Highly not recommended. read more

It is a carnivores galore here, every kind of meat eaten in India, pakistan, Afghanistan can be found here sans poke of course. Dont fool yourself with reviewes of great sweets, once you have got thru their meat and rice dishes believe me you will not distinguish the tase of good sweet or absolute junk. I on the other had don't eat meat but go there as my wife loves meat, the vegetarian and sweets are barely palatable. If you want great sweets drive up to Moghul express up the road... read more

Naan and rest of the items are more far better than any rice item. They make good curries, butter chiken, tikka masala, palak paneer.... read more

The only place to be open 24*7 in the Edison / iselin area that serves decent food The atmosphere is friendly and the service remains of a good standard never mind the hours of the night I am a vegetarian but I still get. A decent selection of daal and other vegatarian dishes So if u are hungry at 2 pm and don't know where to go - u know shalimar is always open to serve u!! read more

Food was ok , but cust svc sucks , the ladies working there just don't care . Food handling did not seem clean , will not be going back .

Food is good, Prices are decent, nothing out of this world but it will fill you up and satisfy your Indian/Pakistani food craving. I should mention however that the food could be hit or miss at times. Few times its been fresh, hot and delicious while other times It's tasted stale, cold and out the freezer. read more

I wish I could give 0 stars. Don't dare try the vegetarian dishes..All food is kept on counter, you order , they microwave and give it you..We threw away everything we bought except the naan and kulcha! read more

Dirty plates, dirty water jug, low quality and dirty environment. Their Chinese food sucks they charge $10.99 a plate serve bad food with smudged white rice with few pieces of raw carrots on top on a disposable plate. The Chicken Manchurian which should be a shredded meat with veggies instead are fried four balls in a gravy this is what they charge for $10.99. They will charge you every penny and won't take off even the food taste bad. The manager is mean, uncompromising, rude staff and does not do anything to satisfy the customer. Never go there again! read more

I'm not Indian, and nor do I have much experience in tasting Indian cuisine, but I can tell you hands down that the food here was terrible. I came with some friends and we ordered a few appetizers and a few dishes and almost nothing tasted good! It was all dry and flavorless almost and I honestly think I could have made better food. Not only was the food bad, but the overall experience was just as terrible. We walked in and weren't directed to a table, so we walk over to a woman and ask her if it's self seating and she said yes. So we go over to the tables and sit down and all of a sudden the same woman tells us to sit at a different table. So much for self seating. Afterwards, we just sat there waiting for a menu, but nope, about 5 minutes passed by and no menu. We had to go up to the front and ask for a menu and that's where they told us that we order up front. So what's the point of the staff if they can't even tell us that when we walk in? The appetizers came first and the woman did not give us water, so we had to ask for it. Then once the food came it was in small plastic plates and bowls, and it tasted horrible! It was just a bad experience overall and I don't ever intend to go back there again. read more

First, this is not a fancy restaurant. If you are looking for ambiance, atmosphere, please keep searching. If on the other hand, you want great tasting Pakistani food, definitely go here. The food is fab. Their 'Halwa Puri' was great. It came with chick pea curry (channa) & potato disk (Aloo Bhujya) as well as Halawa. Everything tasted great. They also carry Paan so that was just icing on the cake. We also tried a few other dishes and they also tasted great. There is no waiter service as you have at other restaurants. You go to the counter, place your order and sit down. Someone will bring your order to your table when its ready. I went there on a Sunday around 2 PM or so. The place was not crowded. However, it is not very large inside. They can perhaps seat around 30 people. Give or a take a few. read more

Worst restaurant ever!! Too pricey for the quality of food they serve. Cold behari kebabs, hot lassi to go with the rude old lady behind the counter who seems to hate her job and taking her frustration out on the customers. They seriously need to fire her or else they will lose a lot more customers like me & will eventually close down. Paid more then $100 for that garbage food yet the lady had an attitude as if we were asking for free food. Highly not recommended!! You will regret it. read more

The food was amazing but the service was not very good. We did not have any waiters asking us if we needed anything we had to call out to them. Also, our food came seperately when it would have been better f they came together read more

Take-outs are terrible. Ordered carry-out from this place on a weekend. Biriyani and some chicken. Everything came straight out a refrigerator. Food served ice cold for a carry-out. They did not mention anything while taking the order. After the food surprise, I called them. They confirmed that this is exactly what they do for most carry out items. If the customer wants it hot, they just microwave it. Interesting business practice. If you need cold food, just go to a grocery store. Wondering if other customers like this sort of thing. read more

Cafeteria-style service that serves Pakistani food. The food is oh-so-awesome. I'm Indian, and I believe these guys make up for the lost love between the Indian and Pakistani governments. Jokes aside, their kababs, rolls and biriyani are very fresh and delicious. Warning, maybe a little on the spicy side for those who can't handle spice. I have yet to taste their sweets, but when I do, I will review that as well. The service, however, is a little slow. Do plan on waiting a while before you get your food. read more

good desi halal food food. cheese kababs are good too I love their chaat. mithai/sweat is good as well read more

the restaurant has no Chutney sauce when dinning in for buffet, yet they will have Samosa, the neighbor next door store, Mirch, will have all 3 color green red orange Chutney but no Samosa, also Shalimar has no Mango & Leeches fruits at the salad bar, when those are the most Indian custom, instead they have can diced pineapple and Peach, the pine apple taste like they reuse them,the peach taste like it was in hand detergent soaked water. Also only on weekends do they have Mango Lassie & Russian drinks, which is rarely or sometimes. read more

I had visited this place with my friends on Sunday, really I had a worst biryani ever had. I don't recommend it. I wish I could have given 0 star. read more

I was disappointed after the way they treated my mother. We drove up from philly after hearing so much about this place but the staff was so rude and disrespectful to an elder. Every time she had a question about the menu or ordering she was ignored. Someone in a Shalimar shirt laughed at her in front of me. They also over charged us on mithai. We bought 9 lbs at $9 a pound and when they gave it to us they wouldn't allow us to leave unless we paid more. I suppose the worker charged the wrong amount but after looking at their menu they charged us the right amount initially. Stay away from this place unless you like terrible customer service. Everyone goes here because of the name. We still ordered food because we drove from so far but it ended up being very average typical buttery Pakistani take out. read more

Food quality has gone down over the years. Other day I stopped by to get some sweets. Ended up getting Barfi. Boy that thing feels like a gummy bear in your mouth. So dry, so chewy. You know its not made of milk. some nasty stuff... I have to say. Only giving them 2 stars just because food was semi decent. read more

This place had really delicious food and I would definitely come back again. However the place was a little dirty and if they fixed up the place it would get a lot more customers. read more

visited this place late last night hungry with no other restaurants open at that time. food has no flavor. ordered malai kabab and it was not better than bland grilled chicken. chicken achari had no flavor as well. the biryani was pretty bad.. unlike the dum hyderabadi biryani. 1 heck of a overrated place.. read more

We got the chapli kabab, chicken seekh kabab, chicken kadhai curry and naan. The only item I liked was garlic naan. I thought of ordering from this place as I always see it decently crowded. I wonder why?! They don't even heat the take out order. read more

Omg! It was like I died and I went to meat heaven. My friend and I went for buffet and there were more than 7 meat items! Crazy!!! The food is very good. The chicken biryani was excellent and there was a chicken dish which was so creamy and yummy too bad i forgot the name of the dish. The only thing is it's not very spicy and apps are not the greatest but entrees are amazing. Best part is sodas and mango lassi comes with the buffet and they are unlimited. You gotta check it out if you are meat lover! read more

This place is a carnivore's dream. My family and I have been coming here for the past 15 years and we've seen it through multiple expansions and makeovers, but the quality of the food has remained quite stable. They make the best naans that I've ever had here. Each one is like a little carby pillow smothered in ghee. Their biriyani is also phenomenal and the standard by which I judge all other biriyanis. They get the consistency of the rice juuuust right every time. The goat korma also has excellent flavor, but is not overwhelmingly spicy. Their shish kabobs are also always juicy and perfectly spice and often made to order. Last, but not least, there are the lamb chops. The cuts are not shaped like your typical chops, but that hardly matters once you've taken a bite. Tender. Juicy. Spicy with just a touch more of ghee than needed and made to order fresh. All the food you get here are very reasonably priced with generous portions. The only complaint I have is that the service is abyssmally slow, so it is essential to order at least 45 min in advance, especially if you want any made to order items. read more

i would definitely recommend a brunch place.. they have amazing breakfast , their chanas and halwa was really Delicious..i would recommend everyone to go try out their amazing food!! read more

If you are from out of town, please don't waste your money at this restaurant. We were visiting from VA and stopped here to get some lunch. Everything was cold at 12 o'clock in the afternoon. Weekend buffet suppose to start at 11:30 am but did not start until 12:15 pm. We walked in at 11:14 and were told at 11:35 that give us 10 more minutes. They were heating up food and filling up food up until 12:15 when buffet suppose to start at 11:30. Everything was cold on the buffet table. When asked customer service to heat up the food, Jandhar couldn't catch her name it (looked like she was in charge) got extremely upset and starting speaking in Punjabi that how she wouldn't do it. Most of the time she just stood there talking to other women. Then I asked another lady to heat up our food. She was nice enough to do for my brother as well. Would not recommend this restaurant for food and they definitely need to fire that woman at the counter. read more

EXTREMELY HORRIBLE! WILL NEVER GO THERE AGAIN. DOESN't even deserve A STAR. Once you walk in you have to look for ur own table no one notices you walking in and I came with a family of 6 and everyone was crammed . Although the food was alright the service was one of the worst I have experienced in a really long time. Their service doesn't do justice. When we left, we even had to pick up the table number sign. DON'T CONSIDER GOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! read more

The owner has a maserati parked in the back parking lot but serves his customers with disposable plates and forks and spoons.. Are you kidding me? When i was upfront ordering, one of the staff members walked into the kitchen and the door swung open and i happen to get a glance inside the kitchen and i was disgusted! I saw grease stains everywhere and filth. I cant believe they cook in there for their customers. Oh and to top everything off, the first bite i took of my kabab i found a hair in it so i went up and showed them and all he did was took it back and proceeded straight to ringing me up for the rest of the food that i odered. Like really? As a owner you couldnt do anything to make up for the disgusting service? I know this place has good reviews but i bet none of those customers who posted the positive reviews saw the nasty kitchen where their food was made in. if you're thinking of going to this place.... THINK AGAIN! read more

Alright so I have mixed emotions about this place... On one hand their kababs and chicken tikka are excellent since they make them fresh to order (not the chicken kababs they're pre made so not as good) but all of the food behind that little glass case is not THAT good. It's all pre made and heated to order so you never know how fresh it truly is. I know for a fact they save whatever is left over at the end of the night and probably serve it the next day. The naan is on point though. Customer service is lacking there seems to be some beef (no pun intended) between the young guys and the aunties.. They always seem pissed off at each other and the aunties seem lazy as hell. Besides all the halal drama try the fresh made food avoid the refrigerated crap and you'll be good. read more

I am Indian and spent most of my early years in India so my review is going to biased towards Indian taste. This restaurant used to be good few years back. I went today with same hope to get good and delicious food but I was disappointed. I took Non Veg platter for eat in. Both the goat items were full of fat. Rice was not at all good and Salad was horrible. Seems it was frozen earlier. Raita was tasteless. I took some seekh Kabab's and bihari kabab for take out. I tried them later and they too lacked proper spices, salt and were too dry. Overall I am disaapointed with this place. read more

I've been to Shalimar before, usually for the weekend buffet, and have had good experiences. I was in the area this last Sunday and decided to go to Shalimar. It was around dinner time, so no buffet. We ordered seekh kebabs, naan, and the chicken chili noodles. We then sat ourselves on a table to wait for our order. We received part of our order after about 15 minutes and were told by the server it would be a few minutes for the noodles. No big deal, we started on the kebabs and naan. No one asked if we needed water so we asked someone who reluctantly brought it over. A good 20-25 minutes go by and still no noodles. I went up to the counter to ask about it and was told they were making them at that moment and it would be over once ready. About 5 minutes later a server brought over the noodles. We were already content with the naan and kebab but I wanted to try the noodles. Now for noodles that are supposed to have just been made, they were on the cold side. Seemed like they forgot the dish and when I went up to ask about it, they heated it up in a microwave. The service was pretty poor. Seemed like no one wanted to help and no one wanted to be there. Food left a lot to be desired. The kebabs had no flavor or spice in them. Naan was the only good part. The noodles were also still cold. I gave this place 2 stars thinking of past visits when the food has been decent and the weddings I've attended where food was catered by Shalimar. If I'm in the area again I may give them another try, maybe only during the buffet though. read more

This place gives you an opportunity to visit emergency section in hospital.

One of the best Pakistani restaurants, not fancy but really good food. Try beef Chapli Kabab or Achar Gosht or Nihari or choley. Also really good mithai read more

Garbage restaurant. Unhealthy food. Bathroom toilet broken. Do yourself a favor and avoid this place. I saw cockroaches and extremely unhygienic place read more

Liars! Thieves! Unprofessional! Disrespectful! ATTN: ABID (IN CHARGE OF CATERING) To show how disappointed I am, I created an account only to leave a review for this restaurant only, and to show what these people are all about! BEWARE!! Recently had them cater for a wedding and we sat down with the guy who handles the catering, ABID. Food was fresh and everything tasted great when we sat down to discuss the price and our entrees etc. He assured us that the dishes were going to Look and Taste exactly what we were having at the time. He assured us that he was going to serve cold and hot drinks and that he was personally going to be there to look over everything. Less than a week later I went down to give him a deposit and he assured us that everything was going to be perfectly fine and whatever we had talked about the last time we met was going to be done. He wrote out the menu on his invoice, but he never listed any hot and cold drinks, and I asked him again if he was going to serve those and he said yes and not to worry. A few days before the wedding I called him up and confirmed the amount of people that we were expecting to come, and he changes his story how he never said he was going to serve any drinks, and that we had to pay for 5 people to serve the food. When on the first day we met he guaranteed us that the price he gave us INCLUDED (hot & cold drinks, and for the servers). So we went down and we had no choice to agree with whatever he said, and had to pay an extra $1,000 for what was supposed to be included and wasn't. If you guys are wondering why we didn't cancel....Who is going to cancel their catering contract when a wedding is a few days away, and loose a $500 non-refundable deposit? Come the wedding day, Abid, the guy who assured us that he was going to be there was nowhere to be found. I called him up and he had sent Mohsin with a few other guys to serve the food, and he wasn't going to come. First off they were dressed like bums as if he hired some guys from the street to serve us food. The food didn't taste anything close to what we had ate that day, when he guaranteed us that nothing will change and that whatever we see and taste here will exactly be served on the day of the wedding. Well he LIED, the food tasted horrible and the bread (Naan), was served burnt! Nothing tasted like what it was supposed to! Towards the end of the wedding one of their servers was asking around for tips on how well they served etc. He went around asking other family members roaming around during a reception for tips when he knew who was in charge, ME. Then he asked for a payment in front of all of our guests including tip while others watched. It was very embarrassing and very unprofessional! After that they had told us that they had packed the food and it was sitting in the hotel kitchen etc. So I basically had to send another family member to pick it up and bring it home, and when they did, there were only a few trays with food, all of the burnt bread, no dessert, and no soda. Now I saw from my own eyes on the amount of food that was left over from the appetizers to the desserts and the drinks. They basically took more than half of what they gave us as leftovers, and the drinks for which we had to pay for; we didn't even get a bottle. I'm only sharing this with you to show what kind of people they really are, and to think twice about catering with them. They RIPPED us off, and stole what wasn't theirs to begin with since it had been paid for. Obviously they are a restaurant and whatever their going to save they will serve the next day or cater to another reception. Thanks for reading and if you guys cater with them, DON'T BE FOOLED! THEY ARE CROOKS, CHEATS, THIEVES, LIARS, UNPROFESSIONAL & DISRESPECTFUL. read more

Simply the best Tandoori Chicken in New Jersey and the sweetest help this side of heaven!