For sheer chutzpah, audacity and brazen lying, it’s hard to beat Mirch Masala on Street Road in Bensalem (near Philadelphia), PA.
Yeah, Hitler Loved Jews Too
Monstrous Liars.
We’ve heard too many lies in a long life but one of the biggest of ‘em all, a monstrously hideous one, is Mirch Masala calling itself a restaurant that offers “Fine Indian Cuisine.”
Ha ha ha ha. We haven’t stopped laughing. Make that crying.
Kinda like Hitler saying he loved the Jews after he gassed and burned 6 million of them in his ovens at Dachau, Treblinka, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and other concentration camps or Saddam Hussein discovering love for the Kurds after he unleashed chemical weapons against them. 
When you sport a name like Mirch Masala, the least you should do is add enough chillies to your curries.
Alas, much of what we ate at Mirch Masala was plain awful, so horrible, so bland that we wouldn’t offer it to our dog, raccoon, guinea-pig or cat.
Well, that is if we had one.
Mirch Masala – Inviting Misery
Murder Most Foul
Appetizers, vegetarian or non-vegetarian entrees or desserts, Mirch Masala spared no effort to heap agony on top of misery to our meal.
Tandoori Chicken, an eternal favorite for us, was disgusting, a poorly marinated travesty that yielded no joy.
A common dish found on the menus of most Indian restaurants in the Philadelphia area, preparing Tandoori Chicken is not like finding a cure for cancer or building a car that runs 200-miles on a gallon or helping Sarah Palin win the White House.
Yet, most Indian restaurants couldn’t care to deliver on a palatable Tandoori Chicken. The lazy bozos just can’t be bothered to take the trouble to do a proper job on the marination.
But that was not the end of our agony.
As Winston Churchill would say, merely the end of the beginning. Of our ordeal, that is.
Tandoori Chicken (orange-red) – Awwwful
More grievous pain was inflicted on us before we could escape from these wretched, cruel shaitans at Mirch Masala.
With its hard Chicken pieces in a not-thick, not-buttery gravy, Chicken Makhani was nothing less than a stunning act of cruelty. An assault on our taste-buds.
How one human can stoop so low as to serve such garbage to another is beyond our ken. Is the Mirch Masala (mis)management head of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Torturers Anonymous club? We wanna know.
Chicken Kadhai was not in the least spicy. Where’s the heat, schmuck?
Vegetarian Food – Dante’s Inferno
To get a glimpse of Dante’s Inferno, all ye need to do is take a leisurely stroll through a bunch of Mirch Masala’s vegetarian items.
Sambar was way too sour with the texture of a sauce while Coconut Chutney was cold and smelled bad!
Say, were any green chillies added at all to the Coconut Chutney?
You Call this Shit a Dosa?
As if to prove to us that Mirch Masala’s kitchen was equally bad at North Indian fare too, Punjabi Saag turned out to be a green monstrosity with the unpleasant raw flavor of the greens coming into the mouth.
Rajma was a watery mess and tasted like we were served Rajma boiled in warm water.
Mint Chutney was cold but, mercifully, flavorful.
The Spinach Pakoras were a bit high on salt and the Medhu Vada hard and tasteless.
Hey, the small Masala Idli Pieces were nice but sadly its traditional accompaniments Sambar and Coconut Chutney were not.
Samosas were another rare exception to an otherwise depressing meal.
Alas, the Mutter Paneer was too sweetish and watery to offer any comfort.
Mixed Vegetable Curry was so badly bland that Idi Amin wouldn’t have thrown such garbage to his prisoners. Surely, even Pennsylvania prisons must offer tastier food!
Forget tasty. Forget palatable. The Masala Dosa and the Onion Dosa were not even edible.
The only thing missing on the Dosas was the label – Not for Humans.
Masala Dosa was sour, not crisp and the garlic flavor dominated the potato filling inside. Sick.
Spoiled Desserts
Among all the venal sins humans are capable of, serving spoiled food to paying diners ranks high in our not so humble opinion. Very high.
Hell, Spoiled Rasmalai Syrup
The milk syrup in the Rasmalai was spoiled. Are these Mirch Masala folks even human?
We silently hurled vile curses upon the kitchen staff for such despicable crimes against paying diners.
Gulab Jamun is a common Indian dessert. If not 100% of the Indian restaurants, at least 99% in the Philadelphia region offer it.
But the clueless jokers in Mirch Masala’s kitchen couldn’t even get that basic sweet right. The syrup was low on sugar and the Jamun was not cooked/fried properly. It had the taste of raw flour in the middle.
Rice Kheer was alright but nothing to get us wet down there.
Awful Service
Poor service often accompanies bad food at Indian restaurants.
And Mirch Masala was no different in this respect!
It took an eternity for our Naan Bread to arrive, even after we asked for it.
Our water glasses were not replenished and we had to hold our glasses high in the air for sometime before we could catch the attention of one of the lazy waiters.
The waiters do not bring the check to your table and they don’t tell you either. Upon seeing other diners waiting at the counter, we realized that we were expected to do the same.
Bottom Line, Mirch Masala is a disgrace, a stain on the reputation of Indian cuisine.
If there were any justice in the world, the management of Mirch Masala would be handed down long sentences and hauled off to prison with no possibility of parole for duping customers into believing they’re being offered Indian cuisine.
To visit this crappy Indian restaurant a.k.a. Mirch Masala is to hand a whip with sharp iron spikes to Marquis De Sade, pull down your pants and invite him to make merry on your bare flesh.
Recent Comments