International Halal

I really want to write a good review for these folks. They’re the very nice new Filipino owners of this place that used to be called Al Hamdani and that had half-​way decent Pakistani/​Indian food. They have great customer service, are polite, etc. But I just can’t write them a better review based on my experience, unfortunately.
We ordered food for a medium size pot luck dinner party of about 13 people, and told them we were going to be driving about an hour with the food. Well, when we got to the dinner party location in OC, we discover that their packing was SO bad that the grease of the curry had leaked out all over the trunk of my brand new car!!! Needless to say, everything in my trunk was covered in food grease. There was a thick layer of grease that rose above the curry itself inside the container and made it look oh so unappetizing. I guess they just don’t have experience with catering because they only put a single piece of aluminum foil on top of these massive aluminum trays of greasy curry. Before leaving with the food I even asked for extra paper towels and told them that we would be driving long distance with the food, so I asked them if the food was secure enough because I couldn’t tell what else they’d put on the trays under the tin foil. I’ve never had a food spill quite like what happened with these trays, so I figured they must know what they were doing. They seemed confident that it was all going to be okay. Big mistake trusting them on that! Turns out, the food packing wasn’t even secure enough for me to drive around the block a couple times with. SO, it ended up causing $ 100 of damage to my trunk. Yup, that’s how much I subsequently spent on getting my trunk washed, detailed and re-​detailed. And the smell is still there.
But it doesn’t end there. No, it doesn’t. When we told the owner that we had 13 people to feed, they told us we would need 10 orders of the chicken tikka masala and the chicken biryani that we wanted. It turned out to be an extreme over-​estimation. But they sure charged my uncle for that entire amount of food. We got to the pot luck dinner party. The host pulled out the two trays of chicken tikka masala and two trays of Biryani that could actually have fed 25 people (we really didn’t want that much excess food for a 13 person party but we ordered based on their suggestion). They gave us a full tray of yogurt to go with the Biryani, too. Turns out that the yogurt was old, bubbly and rancid, and the host had to throw it out. First embarrassment. The host of the dinner party then started suspiciously smelling the biryani and yelled out, «this biryani has gone bad, too!!!» My uncle, aunt and I turned beet red. We were SO embarrassed. The host kept calling other people to come and smell the chicken biryani to confirm that the food was indeed spoiled. Everyone that came to smell it said it smelled bad. It smelled like the biryani had been kept for several days. As I put my fork in, there was some viscous, sticky substance on the rice. The only time I’d seen anything like it is when, in college, I forgot to throw out some biryani rice that was 3 – 4 weeks old, so I’m guessing it was mold growing on it. The embarrassment was endless at the dinner party that night. When the host picked up the tray of chicken tikka masala to heat, the grease started leaking onto her pristine counter tops from a hole at the bottom of the tray. She yelled out, «they re-​used old trays!» As I mentioned before, there was still a layer of grease on top of the chicken tikka masala, in spite of so much of it already falling out. Definitely not what you want to see on food you plan on ingesting. Anyway, we requested the host to throw out these four heavy aluminum trays of food because I just couldn’t manage to have more grease fall in the trunk of my car.
My uncle called the owners the next day to complain about our experience and they apologized profusely and asked him not to give up on them. But all I can say is that the $ 100 (and counting) of damage to my car, and the embarrassment are something that cannot be retrieved with a few apologies. My uncle paid $ 212 for that order of food, and they did not even offer to refund a portion of it toward the damages to the car. I have never been responsible for such a bad food experience at a party. I really think these nice folks have not been in the business long enough to be running it. I really want to see them succeed at this, so my recommendation to them is that they focus on the grocery and small food items side of their business until they’ve learned enough about the catering business. There’s no way they can succeed with catering with larger orders until they figure out how to package the food properly and to make fresh food. They may need a new cook or something, but I’m sorry to say it’s just not working out under the current circumstances. I will not be returning until I get some indication that they’ve turned their business around.