Nirlep Indian Restaurant

Came for dinner here. It was an unpleasant experience.
The lamb was tasteless. The rice had hard pieces.
The only thing that was good was the garlic naan. Even that is not worth going through the gastronomical torture of this failure of an indian restaurant.
Will not eat here again.

Came for buffet lunch and maybe that is where I went wrong — the food just sits too long. The samosas and pakora were squishy and greasy, but the aloo bonda held up. I was so happy to see chili chicken on the line, but it had been sitting so long and so overcooked that you could not distinguish the food items in the dish. They had everything you would expect in a good Indian place, (to include pappadums!) but just not very tasty. And you couldn’t get a smile out of the two gentleman that work (own) at this place as much as we tried to engage. So, my dime goes searching elsewhere.

Love this place! Their Lamb Vindaloo and Tikka Masala are absolutely A+. I live nearby, and the delicious smells coming out of this place tempt me to eat here at least once a week. The owners are very sweet couple, who always make you feel welcome to dine with them.

I love this place and really do like the lunch buffet. I stop in pretty regularly for a very solid Indian food buffet. I have never ordered off a menu. I wish I could remember the name of everything but do know that I love the Tandori Chicken which never disappoints and the Curry dishes along with the fried cabbage. The deserts do not give me reason to eat them. Maybe they are good but don’t look it. Not worth trying when I enjoy all the other stuff too much. Will be back!

Great Indian! Always have incredible food. Get the garlic naan-it’s to die for. Saag paneer, chicken tikka masala, and chicken curry are all great. We always order a ton of food because we want to try everything. Also try the Haywards 5000 beer.

There is a reason this place is annually selected as the best Indian food in Charleston. The buffet is very good. The prices are very reasonable. True, I have had better, but not in Charleston.

Personnel très gentil, cadre très indien, authentique.
Nous avons pris un curry d’agneau moyennement épicé avec nan et raita accompagné de riz Basmati.
Toutes les saveurs étaient parfaites.

I visited this restaurant on the way back from Charleston with 4 other friends. Reason for picking this over a nearby Indian restaurant was its rating on Unilocal and the only reason am leaving this comment so as to save fellow food lovers a horrific paid experience.
This was by far the worst Indian food experience in the US. We did order the non veg dinner for 2 and veg dishes as couple of my friends were vegetarians, but to my surprise none of their dishes could be termed good.
My recommendation: please avoid this place and save your taste buds a disappointment.

Love Indian food. Visiting from out of town and a friend brought me. Delicious buffet. Could have been a tad fresher but we came late so bad on us. Only reason I am downing it to a 3 is because the bathroom was in horrible condition. Makes me wonder about the kitchen and other areas you don’t see.

Good restaurant for Charleston. Service is good. Had a buffet. Value for money. Samosa could be better. Well visit again.

A mixed experience in every way. The food just lacked flavor overall. I could not discern those lovely hints of exotic spices that I love about saag or dum aloo. The temperature offered «mild, medium or hot» was kind of arbitrary. We chose medium and it was totally lacking any heat. There was a red chutney on the table that helped. The nan was ok but the poori was great. A rancid glass of wine was quickly replaced and the berry lassi was delicious.
Overall… Ok. I found the service this visit to be good. We had a lady who was very nice. I voided this place for 10 years because of a poor experience with the service.
Glad I gave it another try but I won’t go out of my way. There is a lot more flavor across the street.

Loved the buffet options here especially when you are limited in your knowledge of Indian food. My favorite today was the cabbage mixed curry. It was cooked and seasoned really well. So tasty with the Indian rice! I also enjoyed eating the Tandoori chicken and the chicken masala. Both were yummy! So looking forward to coming back here!

Let me preface by saying I’m a huge fan of good quality Indian food. I’ve spent almost a year in London which has the best Indian food in the world outside of India. I also understand there is a cultural disconnect which generally makes it difficult to get even adequate service at most Indian places. I take this into account and grade on a curve respectively.
Food: Nirlep had very good to great food. We ordered chicken korma, lamb rogan josh and saag paneer as entrees with sides of garlic naan and onion naan. The curries were great and the naans outstanding, especially the garlic, killer!
So why only 3 stars you ask? The portions were very very small, as small as you can get and still somewhat get away with it. When it comes to Indian food, I order a lot with an expectation of a good amount of leftovers. There’s nothing better than that reheated next day Indian food meal. It sucks when the little metal serving dishes come out and there is only a few pieces of protein.
Service: The service was pretty unimpressive, even at Indian standards. We had a little collection of beer bottles and empty glasses at the end of the table (from before we got our food) for collection. I asked the waiter to take them, they stayed the entire meal. The waiter was very gruff and not at all responsive.
Atmosphere: The restaurant is in an old pizza hut. They didn’t change it much outside of changing the lighting (which was great) adding the lunch buffet and they had two tvs on playing Indian music videos, which is also very common. I generally object to Tvs in a restaurant ding room, but I think the Indian videos are pretty cool, I kind of like a cultural influence outside of the food and workers to add an additional dimension to the experience.
Increase your portions and I’d give between 4 – 5 stars
Food– 5 stars
Service — 2 Stars
Atmosphere — 4 Stars
Value– 3 Stars

Lunch buffet has a good variety and usually at least two vegan/​vegetarian options. Consistently good food and reasonably priced for a buffet ($ 11 with tax). The sweet carrot dessert is good — try it!

Nirlep is not the prettiest Indian place in town. It’s also not the one with the best service. BUT, I will say that their food offers probably the best Indian flavors in town. They have more variety for their lunch buffet, but if you’re a stickler for garlic naan and gulab jamun, go to Taste of India instead, because Nirlep’s lunch naan doesn’t have garlic and they don’t have gulab jamun during lunch. Between the two, I would probably go back to Nirlep more than I would go to Taste of India. But service is better at Taste of India, so if bad service ruins your whole meal, don’t go to Nirlep. Hope that helps you decide where to go!

Every Indian place I have tried in Charleston was either super terrible or closed down within a few months. I am *so* happy to have found this place and know that it isn’t going anywhere. It keeps getting all the «best of» votes each year! It is in West Ashley, near my house, so that is a big plus.
We arrived around 1230/​1pm on a Saturday and there weren’t a lot of people there, maybe three or four. It quickly filled up moments after we arrived. They have a lunch buffet everyday starting at 1130. They don’t have many options on the buffet, but they have enough to make you happy. And totally worth the $ 10. We weren’t asked if we wanted anything other than water or if we wanted to see the full lunch menu– they assumed we wanted the buffet. (I would have liked to have seen the other menu to perhaps order an appetizer or special naan) The staff was friendly and there were a lot of them in the restaurant. Each person who checked on us, sat us, checked us out at the counter were all incredibly helpful and super nice. I take away the one star because of the lack of communication between the staff and customer; listed above regarding the menu/​drinks.
I will certainly go back. I’d like to try their dinner menu and order a ton of stuff that I saw on their menu online. I recommend this place to anyone in the mood for Indian. Top notch :)

The food is OK, not great. Portions seem to be heavy on sauce and light on meat. The service is indifferent. They seem to not really want to do more than the bare minimum for each table. This is based on three trips there over the last year or two.
I think it’s a decent buffet experience if you crave Indian, but if you want a sit down with service then try Taste of India instead. Missing the Bollywood Café!

This place continues to be in my top 10 for Charleston! If you like Indian food, then don’t miss it. It is owned by a local family and their cooking is off the hook. I’ve probably been there 50 times by now and I get so excited every time. If you are new to Indian cuisine or your exploring the idea, try their lunch buffet from 11 – 3. Great price and a way you can sample different items to find what you like. I’m not a vegetarian, but their vegetarian dishes are amazing!

Horrible service. Had to wait forever just for bread. Refused to refill our drinks. My aunt had to go get her own refills from the kitchen.
The food is excellent though if you’re willing to wait almost 2 hours to eat and endure horrible service.

Pretty good food, pleasant atmosphere. Neither I or my wife know Indian food very well – we’re much more familiar with Southeast Asian cuisine: Thai and Vietnamese. That said, we’ve stopped into Nirlep a number of times this summer and have had decent meals. Its been an experimental process – trying things we think we might like and then moving on to others if we don’t.
Not so crazy about the pakoras, the stuffed fritters. Not super-​fresh or particularly tasty. Love the garlic naan, the spinach paratha (however too little spinach), while the tandoori chicken is very good. Wife likes the veggie korma quite a bit. The shrimp korma had very few shrimp in it – maybe six smallish ones. Sauce was good though.
Atmosphere – this is a former pizza hut, but spacious and quiet (a rarity in Charleston). We have never seen it super busy. Quite a few Indian families patronize the place, and the other night there were probably 25 people there happily chowing down and quietly talking. They seem to have a very active take-​out business.
Service is usually fast, and while the owners/​hosts aren’t super-​friendly, they are cordial. A bit more formal than a typical American place. Which is just fine with us. We’re happy this place is here as an occasional break from the other stand out restaurants in W. Ashley: Glass Onion, Al Di La, and???

Hadn’t been to dinner in a while. Usually eat lunch buffet.
I forgot how intimate the lighting and setting was in the evening.
Got the sampler platter which everything on it was fried except for the tandoori chicken.
Got chicken vindaloo and chicken korma which somehow tastes so much better than the lunch buffet. Amazingly considering the lunch buffet is wonderful on its own.
You can’t go wrong with the bread basket.
Definitely need it to sop up the delicious flavors of the sauces.