User Review
Aroma Featured
by
Dinesh
Good Food, Poor Service
Aroma is a newly opened Indian and Pakistani restaurant in the Bentonville Rogers area. Given the lack of any Indian restaurants, Aroma is a welcome change to the Indian residents in this area. We went to Aroma on a Friday evening and we were happy to see that the restaurant was reasonably busy. The interiors are fairly simple as you can see from the images so don't expect this to be a fine dining establishment. We decided to try the Dinner buffet so that we could sample all the food. The buffet had three types of biryanis, Chicken, Lamb and Vegetarian. There were a few vegetarian dishes like Bhindi Masala and Aloo Palak along with some daal as well. The non-vegetarian section had a couple of chicken dishes and some Pakistani items like Haleem. Fish tikka was the appetizer and there was some nice bread as well.
Overall the food was very tasty, almost like home cooked food. The restaurant is run by a Muslim family and maybe thats the reason it tasted like home-made food. We really enjoyed the meal and I think most of the visitors to this restaurant will also enjoy the meal. The $13 price-tag may be a bit high but I guess people will be willing to pay for it.
Since the restaurant is new, their service was pretty poor. It seems like they know how to cook but don't know how to run a restaurant. They did not have all their heating equipment ready and were serving the Biryani in the Crock-pots. Some of the food was actually cold or luke-warm. They did not fill up dishes that had emptied out and had to be constantly reminded to fill up their empty dishes. They almost never spoke to their customers and I had to call them 2 or 3 times of get my check.
Overall, I would give this place a 4-5 star for its food but a 1-star for its service. In a tough economy, its even more important to attract customers and keep them happy. The restaurant may survive and do well because the food is good and there is no choice in Bentonville/Rogers for Indian/Pakistani food. I would hope that as the restaurant grows, its realizes the importance of keeping a high service level.