Ginger Indian Cuisine - Auckland

We arrived at the restaurant for dinner with a party of 6, but found that nobody was there. After waiting for a while and ringing the bell, a staff member eventually appeared and moved tables together for us, even though we had made a reservation. We had to ask if we could order drinks, and were only given one drink menu. The staff member took only 3 drink orders and then disappeared, leaving us waiting with no drinks. Eventually, he returned with 3 menus for the 6 of us, then disappeared again for 10 minutes. Despite being the only ones in the restaurant, we still had not received our drinks, so we decided to leave. When we tried to go, the staff member told us to wait, but we refused and left.

We have been dining at this restaurant for over 10 years, but have mostly been getting takeout in the last 3 years. The food, whether dining in or getting takeout, has always been very close to authentic, tasty, and a good value. We highly recommend it. However, in the last two weeks, we have gotten takeout and had the same selection as always. We always order medium flavor, but oh boy, last week's meal was not good. We thought it was just a one-time thing, but tonight's meal was the same - floating in oil, very liquidy, and spilled on the counter leaving a deep stain. It was overly sweet and at best, super mild. It was a disappointing experience, and they need to put in more effort to regain their reputation. We are not sure if we would try again, which is not what we prefer, but this experience was very poor.

The food and service at this restaurant are excellent. It is a nice place to visit for dinner. The price per person is between NZ$20-30. The Butter Chicken is a recommended dish. The service, food, and atmosphere all receive a rating of 5 out of 5.

Dreadful. Google should really have a no star option , because this place is so bad it wouldn’t be fair to give it a one star rating. When we initially walked in, we weren’t even sure if the place was open or not . There were no staff , diners ,music or heating on , even though it was a really cold night. We had to hunt around the venue looking for someone to ask if it was actually open or not. When we finally tracked someone down , and asked if they were open , the guy just stared blankly at us as if we shouldn’t be there , we thought he said something like “the usual guy wasn’t here” . We asked for the heat pump to be turned on, as it was a cold winters night , he seemed reluctant to do it . Instead , he turns on a small oil heater at the opposite end of the restaurant to where we we seated . When I explained it wouldn’t do anything to keep us warm, he explained the heat pump, was “ broken” which I didn’t believe because all the standby LED's were lit up. When the food arrived, a chicken Madras, it was very average and not much of it. They didn't even bring the rice at the same time as the main dish, we had to remind them to bring it. It would be impossible to forget the rice as we were the only people there. Had we not been short of time we were attending a play we would never have stayed. In no way can “Namaste Howick “ be described as a restaurant . Simply put, it's just a cold, sterile room containing some chairs and tables, on which to eat your very average Indian food.

Poor amount of meat and rice in the dish for the price.