Zaika - Permanently Closed

Lovely evening spent on restaurant's patio. Great lamb vindaloo, spicy just OK to not want jump right into fountain bellow. Vegetarian food was tasty and many options to choose. Service helpful, talkative, let us stay alone a while after closing hours. Highly recommending.

Planning to dine in DC area? Here is the restaurant for you! Let me warn you... It may be crowded sometimes and it was full when we went there! The people were noisy but the service and food was excellent. I normally do not prefer Indian food, but this was really cool.

Delicious Indian food - both rich and flavourful. I'm a huge fan of the Palak Paneer, as well as the Chicken Tikka Masala. Always get the Pakoras! The service was great, and when we ordered a drink that we didn't end up liking, they replaced the drink and even brought us an extra shooter (for free). The atmosphere is modern, and while the space is large, they have maintained an intimate feel. Be sure to let them know if you need parking validation for the garage!

A great place to try Indian food with a groupon. The food is quite rich and has the right amount of spice. They also offer gluten-free meals as well! Garlic Naan, Chicken tikka, and asian beers - what's there to complain? Parking is a bit hard to find around the area without paying a few bucks. Otherwise, this is a fantastic restaurant to try Indian cuisine.

hosted sweet 16 at zaika.. AMAZING. So its midnight right now. .. why am I doing a review so late?? Because I don't want to forget any details. I have posted for this restaurant and for a gentlemen name sunil before but that was only for dinners. My review today is based on an event I hosted at zaika today. It was my sisters sweet 16!! Such a beautiful milestone for a girl. I came in for dinner one night stressing about a venue and food for her sweet 16 which came by so quickly. I just happen to ask sunil about their food and was surprised to know that they can accommodate a 80 people party. I already loved the food.. and by favorite server sunil has been promoted to management... and they can accommodate my guest. I didn't need to hear anything further.. but as women we tend to question things. This was going to be my first huge event that I wanted to surprise everyone with. Growing up with my father being a banquet manager I only expect the best. I always thought of nightmares when thinking to host an event.. but sunil made it into a dream. He acted as a host/banquet manager/even a psychologist at one point ;-). I didn't need to pop a zanax (not that I ever do). Sunil had everything covered from A to Z. Before I could even finish my sentence he already knew what I wanted and needed. He did everything according to my vision and maybe even more. He stuck to my theme /color which was purple. I was on crunch for time so he even put in my cake order for me. I went to a few cake tasting some were okay... some were outrageously priced. At the end I trusted sunil to do it. Everything was amazing. All my guest who attended were surprised with all the details. They loved and I mean loved the food. I mean a few guest made reservations for next weekends dinner before leaving. It wasn't a surprise for me... but they were all surprised because some of them don't even eat Indian food. We had a mix crowd and everyone left happy. My picture doesn't do justice but I will definetly attach it. I could write a book on the whole amazing experience.. but I'll stop before I bore anyone here. Definetly work with zaika.. and not only that if u want an amazing experience like me and the 80 attending guest talk to SUNIL!! Thanks to all the waiters who moved in quickly to have all the food hot and available as well as clearing the table at the right timings. I been to so many restaurants where the waiters are so out of sync that they grab ur plate before you are even done with it. No issue with that at all at zaika. Also I have never met the owner but I did do some research his name is manjit... and I wish I would have met him so I can shake his hand and thank him for hiring and operating so smoothly with the best employees in town. Everyone is always nice and smiling. That's all folks!!

Pricey but good food. If you are the person that eats indian food once in a while, this is the place to go to. To enjoy fine Indian dining. You will pay the extra dollar, but it is worth it. The dal makhani was delish

Excellent Indian dining, very good service and lovely ambience !

Very nice ambience, tasty food

The service was good. Food was quite tasty. Nice decor. They validate parking in the garage underneath (no need to look for street parking or feed the meters.

Price to food ratio is not good, but the food you do receive is excellent. Lost a star for poor condition of the bathrooms, rear hall and broken booth.

Our recent visit at Zaika was fairly rewarded with great food and service. I am glad that the service has improved a lot compared to our previous visit.

Good service, slightly above average food and nice ambiance. I would avoid the mango lassi as it is too sweet.

Been here couple of times, Food is tasty with reasonable service. Hard to find parking even over the weekend so have to use garages.

Pretty good Indian food. They also have good ambience and service.

Good tandoori and bread. Samosas were good too. Service could be better.

Zaika is a very good place. The decor is wonderful with the curtains and candles. A very nice tough. The place fits a romantic dinner, a corporate meal or even with children. Only doable because they have such a big space for tables. While perhaps not the best Indian food I've ever had. And I hear the Indian places in Fairfax are out of this world. Zaika, regardless is very good. And the prices are with in reason for such a nice atmosphere.

This restaurant, upstairs next to Barnes and Noble in the former Tandoori Nights space, features standard Punjabi offerings in a large and nice setting. Would be a great banquet or rehearsal dinner space. Buffet is above average. Many vegetarian offerings, a surprising number of which are dairy-free.

Got the livingsocial deal. All you can eat lunch nice selection. Food was very spicy. Service was a bit slow. No one seems to be at the front so you have to walk to the back. Decor is beautiful. There's usually only 1 person running around serving, seating guests and taking paymentd. They also validate parking.

The ambience is spot on, but the service is slow. It's understandable when it's a full house, but not when there are just 5-10 guests in the restaurant. The food is delicious and has a Mughlai touch to it. Special mentions are the Chicken Tikka Masala and the Chicken Tandoori Wings.

Loved the ambience but the service and quality of food was lacking. Street side parking in the complex would take quarters only; others were too far or too expensive.

Cane for lunch, ( writing review as I attempt to ear). The place was empty which is fine by me, I have to say I expected better since the reviews were so great. The rice seemed undercooked and the butter chicken was not tasty at all gave the tandoori chicken a try nothing special. I love Indian food and I'm glad that I know many other great spots because this one let me down . The two stars are for the ambiance and service which were ok .

Horribly managed Indian Restaurant with great food. They have a very generous Groupon ($22 for $40 for 2 people or $44 for $80 for 4 people) which makes up for horrible service. I have eaten at this restaurant multiple times with the Groupon. The waiters are incredibly aggressive in seeking tips. I saw one literally chasing a guest to the door for not leaving a standard 15% tip. The guest argued that it is customary to not leave tips on buffets, but the waiter continued to be confrontational. Anyway, keep in mind that all entrees come with rice, since the waiters never mention it when you order rice with curry. Vegetarian entrees are $13 ish. Meat entrees are slightly more expensive. Food is really tasty, if you are willing to put up with the horrendous service. Not a place to take family or date, but a good place for carry-out or delivery.

It used to be my favorite restaurant. We have been ordering takeout at least every other week. Same dishes because we could never get enough of them. Safe to say that they were ALWAYS inconsistent, but good. Our ask for "mild" was also disregarded for a least one of our dishes, but oh well. This week was just inedible. I called to complain and talked to a manager who really knows no customer service. :( I will miss this place.

Pathetic is least I can say. indian curries were watery. We found big hair in desert. I've been there multiple times. This time taste was pretty bad that we will probably not go back. Oh and yes the pricing is very steep for this quality!

The decor of the restaurant is nice but the food is dissappoimting. The first time I ate there I got sick, I thought it might have not been food. But last night I went again to eat dinner, I got very sick again. This time it was worse than the last time. Very dissappointed

The food is terrible and service. They don't know how Chinese food at all. Their chicken smells and when they asked me about their food and I gave them my opinion and they said this how they make their food. Completely does not worth for that price

Average food, good decor and location , untrained staff.staff do not know restaurant's policy. PS: Bad business sense.

Mediocre food, horrible service / attitudes or staff and mgmt. There's a reason this is always on Groupon...Surprised they are still in business

Changing review. Had Stomache ache for next 2 days! Don't go! Dont have mango lassi!!!!!

We were there last Saturday 07/13/13. We chose this restaurant because of its nice outdoor settings. Other than that, dishes were mostly overpriced especially when they served us old tandoori chicken thinking that we couldn't tell the difference. We started having our dinner for about 30 minutes then the rain started falling; we rushed inside with ...food, instead of helping the customer by arrange a new table, the manager asked if we were finished, of course not, so he ignored and left us at the waiting area to figure out on our own how the handle the food without any utensils. No one else seemed to worry about our unfinished dinner either, service was ridiculous, the experience we had was no good, we'll never come back. Even though the restaurant is located in a nice area and the restaurant itself may look nice but the manager and all others have no class.

Just to let the owner of this restaurant. Authentic Hyderabadi Biryani doesn't come with " NUTS & RAISINS ". Don't bluff to the customer who never had Authentic Hyderabadi Biryani. Am a chef who can make better Biryani than your sweet and oily one. And kindly change your manager, the little guy who don't know how to speak with customers. At least not when they serve cold food and take the full price which doesn't even meet your food standards. Don't let the brand name "Zaika" down with bad quality food at your restaurant. Thanks for good service!!!!!!

-Food is spoiled despite reminding the staff for twice the food item still served to the guest on Buffet. -The front desk server is not a customer friendly -It was Sunday Buffet ( 09/07/2014) -I dont know the ambiance is good and well decorated but the food quality is a way sub standard. -I will not visit this restaurant again.

The food is a total abomination to anyone who has ever eaten real authentic Indian food. I almost wanted to give a disclaimer to anyone non Indian sitting around that this isn't Indian food. The so called Hakka noodles were chicken tikka masala mixed with some - get this--- fettuccine pasta!! (What??) and the so called "Dumpukt" biryanis was again chicken curry mixed with plain rice.. If you have ever eaten the good food served in India will never be able to appreciate the food here.. Never again!!

Food is overpriced, waitstaff is slow, 3 hours for dinner, good thing I had good company. not sure about other dishes but chicken dumpukht dry and tasteless, thankfully I ordered spicy. decor is neat.

The one star is because 0 or negative stars are not an option. The service and the attitude from the top down at this restaurant are just disgusting! I got takeout buffet from this place on 2 separate occasions. The first time, I was given a small styrofoam box to fill with anything at the buffet, along with a tiny plastic container for "lentils". For almost the entire time I spent getting my food, the waiter stood and stared at me to see how much I was taking. After I was done and went to pay, it was pretty clear he wanted to say something, but didn't. I made the mistake of going back this past weekend, only because there are no decent options for Indian food that are also walkable in Clarendon. The same waiter brought me the same little styrofoam box. This time, I had to ask for the additional tiny plastic container so that I could get dessert separately. After I got my food, the nasty waiter did, in fact, confront me in front of other patrons, telling me that I had taken too much food and that he would have to charge me more money. This blew me away, given that it's an ALL YOU CAN EAT BUFFET and I did nothing but fill the little styrofoam box with food! I briefly exchanged words with him and left in anger. I later went back to get the waiter's name. When I confronted him, he REFUSED to give me his name. Luckily, I got it from the other waiters. His name is RAMESH. I completely went off on him, given what he had done and I walked out. I attempted to contact the owner of the restaurant to tell him what had happened. After several calls to the restaurant, I spoke with someone name Manjit Singh, who claimed to be the owner. As I was relaying the facts to Mr. Singh, it was obvious he did not care at all. In fact, he had the nerve to tell me that the waiter SHOULD have said something to me, just not in front of other patrons. According to him, the waiter should have pulled me to the side to say what he did. In other words, he was supporting what the waiter had said to me. He also said that he would speak with the waiter, but it was obvious he had no intention of doing this because HE NEVER BOTHERED TO ASK ME FOR THE WAITER'S NAME! Mr. Singh proceeded to tell me that he owns 4 restaurants and that at all of them, he charges by the pound if you get takeout buffet, but you can eat all you want if you sit in the restaurant. First of all, this is NOT POSTED ANYWHERE in the restaurant, so I'm not sure how or why Mr. Singh feels customers can and should be charged by the pound if they get takeout. Second, the logic makes no sense, given that: 1. IT'S AN ALL YOU CAN EAT LUNCH BUFFET, 2. they give you a very small takeout box to begin with, so they are deliberately trying to limit the amount of food you can take out, 3. IT'S AN ALL YOU CAN EAT LUNCH BUFFET!!! If you are expecting customer service or an overall good experience, DO NOT GO TO ZAIKA! They are nasty individuals and making money is their only concern. Just look at what I experienced and I did nothing wrong. Mr. Singh is a piece of work and has no sense of customer service, and his employees are a reflection of this. I am NEVER going back to a place that confronts and attempts to embarrass customers in front of other customers!

Placed an order for egg biryani, and got something that was definitely not it. Not a milligram of spice or flavor - literally. The closest thing it resembled to was a very bad egg fried rice. What kind of 'biryani' has stir fried scrambled egg and looks white in color!? As this was a take away order, I got to taste this 'delicacy' only after getting away from the hotel. Whoever cooked it probably had no clue what a biryani should be. Pathetic food. SHAME!!!

The quality of food was good. but they were rude. Service was very bad. We bought a groupon. They tried to overcharge us even when we told them. If their attitude is going to change for groupan purchases, then why they are selling in groupon!

Their quality is going down the hill..I come from all the way from Virginia and everytime it's getting worse...the menu said wings were 8.99 charged us 15 and gave one side burned wing... the waiter said that's how they come burned

Horrible service, staff have bad, bad attitude, we went for lunch buffet and everything was stale and smell terrible. I would not recommend to anyone. Generally I never give bad reviews if there is little issue, but this place is absolutely horrible, owner should fired their staff or trained them to be courteous and respectful.

Service is poor and if you ar using Groupon then you are least considered. Food is below average and they say they will validate the parking but they just pay 2$ and you have to pay the remaining amount.