Maryland Tandoor celebrated its grand opening on Sept. 22 on the street level of The Varsity College Park apartment complex on Route 1.
Colorful balloons and signs decorated the exterior of the restaurant to welcome guests to the fast-casual Indian restaurant. Customers enjoyed free chai tea and mango lassi, a yogurt beverage, with their meals.
The menu features a variety of authentic Indian dishes, including butter chicken, goat curry and kabobs.
“I think the best thing [about the restaurant] is that there’s nothing Indian around here,” Neel Kamal, the owner and chef, said.
He said he focused on making good-quality, affordable food targeted toward College Park’s large student population as he planned the restaurant.
Customers can purchase combination curry platters that include lamb, chicken, goat or a vegetarian palak paneer with rice, naan and chana masala, a chickpea dish, for less than $16. The restaurant is open every day from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. for dine-in and takeout meals.
Kamal owns multiple fine-dining restaurants, including Maharani Palace in Herndon, Virginia, but Maryland Tandoor is his first venture into fast-casual dining.
He said he wants to be a source of help to the community by opening the restaurant for fundraising events and offering jobs to students.
“So far I am absolutely loving it,” customer Aditya Bajaj, a senior mechanical engineering major at the University of Maryland (UMD), said at the grand opening.
“The naan is fresh, the biryani is absolutely delectable,” Bajaj said. “The chicken is soft, the rice is warm and also soft.”
Many customers, including Bajaj, said they are happy to see an Indian restaurant open in College Park. The most unique thing for Bajaj, he said, was how hospitable and polite the staff was when he entered.
Shane Perrault, a psychologist who owns a counseling practice in Greenbelt, shared that he had been waiting for three months for the restaurant to open. He ordered lamb curry, goat curry and lamb biryani to share with a lunch companion on the day of the opening. He said he was excited to eat at an Indian restaurant, noting he had only tried the cuisine at buffet-style restaurants.
“This is exquisite,” Perrault said. “It really has a very posh feel to it, very upscale.”
Yvette Winkfield, a retired nurse from Chicago, called the salmon tikka “the best [salmon] I’ve tasted at an Indian restaurant or any other restaurant.” Winkfield noticed Maryland Tandoor while walking on the street and was attracted by the interior of the restaurant.
“The table and chair decor is very modern, just like everything is new,” Winkfield said, pointing out the wood flooring, high ceilings and chandeliers.
Devesh Ratra, a senior computer science student at UMD, said he appreciated the large portion sizes and said the restaurant would be a convenient place to pick up food after class.
“Get the box, you get your chai, you get your sauces, and pick up and leave,” Ratra said. “That’s what I see it as, and I think that’s what it should keep gunning for.”