Dil Khush

Healthy, Authentic, Tasty, Classic, Cozy/​Small, Family Owned… Highly recommended if you can get it with the tight hours.

I remember this place when it was a Jordanian resto. We saw Dil Khush a week prior and then when we made it back, we found out it was the last day she would be opening for lunch. Keeping the space for catering but no more lunch service. Had the keema plate with naan, and a seekh kabob. The kabob was good, the keema ok. My co-​worker had the channa masala which he thought was ok. THey’re not entirely organized here so the service was spotty but I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.

READ BEFORE YOU GO!
If you love Indian food, you’ve gotta know when you’re getting into before you head over to Dil Khush. It is not your typical Indian!
Dil Khush emphasizes health above all else. They follow Ayurvedic principals in preparing their food.
What this means is you can be sure the food is much healthier than your typical Indian restaurant, however the flavors and textures will be different. Because they don’t use oil, the curry can have a more watery consistency, but when I went it wasn’t short on flavor or spices.
Everything I had was good and I’ll definitely be back again.
As I get older, I care about my health and body a lot more than I did in my younger days. I love knowing I can go to a restaurant and not worry about what I order, because I know the owner is watching out for my health for me.
So, to clearly set expectations…
— Go expecting a different flavor and texture profile.
— Know that your health is covered because everything is prepared with health in mind.
— It’s a tiny place run by just one nice and kind woman. If there are a lot of people, it’ll be slow. If there’s not too many people, you’ll be well taken care of.
— If you want more restaurants around that care more about your health then their own wallets, support Dil Khush! We need more restaurants that use quality and healthy ingredients!

I just found out about this place even though it’s near where I live and work. I love hole in the wall, Mom-​and-​Pop restaurants and I was intrigued that they serve Ayurvedic food. I’ve never heard of anything like this being offered in a dining establishment!
I love Indian food but I can’t eat it very often because I usually feel terrible after eating it. It’s generally too rich, oil, creamy and spicy for me on a regular basis. The older I get, the more this has been affecting my weight and digestive health.
The reviews here have been mixed, and I was particularly concerned about the disorganization and uncleanliness reported by some Unilocalers. But I decided to brave it today and give it a try.
I was pleasantly surprised by the food and the experience. Granted, I came as close to Noon as I could to avoid the lunch rush and long waits that others have experienced. I was the only person there when I came in and the place looked clean, sunny and inviting. It was small but not as tiny as I seem to have gathered from some reviews.
The lady who greeted me was very nice and helped me with my order. Their menus (they have several to read on the walls and in flyers) were quite confusing. I ordered a vegetarian meal and it was reasonably priced. I got my food right away (well, I was the first one there but several people did come in after me).
I got the Saag Chana as my entrée. She told me that she didn’t have Dal (which usually comes with it) but she exchanged it for a veggie cutlet, which was delicious, and which I was going to try next time anyway. The Saag Chana was delicious. It was delicately spiced and it did not have dairy in it like Saag usually does. I’m allergic to dairy so the less of it I eat, the better off I am. The rice was light and fluffy, the salad and mint chutney was a perfect accompaniment, and the Naan (which was looked like it was whole wheat, which I prefer because it’s healthier) was thin and tasty.
The price for a meal is $ 6.50, which is very reasonable (rice plates are even cheaper), and I feel like the portion size was just right for me. Unlike at most other Indian restaurants where I usually have at least half left on my plate, and where I usually feel like I have a huge weight in my stomach afterwards.
I also felt like I was beaming with health after eating my vegetarian meal at Dil Khush. The flavors weren’t overwhelming (flavorful but not so spicy as to assault my senses and stomach) and my body could tell I was doing something good for it.
As for hair in their food that some people have noted (I was worried about this as several people mentioned this issue), I didn’t see any and I have eagle eyes when it comes to extraneous items in my food. So I hope this is a thing in the past and that their chefs are more careful about this now and going forward.
All in all, I’m already looking forward to going back to this place (and trying their Chaat options). It’s a little bit farther from work than most of my usual lunch places, but I think it is worth it. I talked to the lady at the counter afterwards and she said they will be open for dinner again sometime soon. So maybe I can bring my fiancé here in the future.
The place is a little bit hard to find (it’s at the end of an alley to the right of Key Market, but lots of free and available parking compared with downtown San Mateo) so I hope more people find this place so that it can continue serving this unique type of Indian food.

OK, so there are two kinds of Indian restaurants in the USA.
Inauthentic ones, that have modified the taste to suit the American palate is the first type. They need to make sure the butter chicken and chicken tikka masala are good and they are set. These places tend to be costly and the fare is bland, but hey if that is what customers want, that’s fine by me.
The second type is the authentic restaurant, where the taste is still similar to what you would get in restaurants in India. The food is usually more flavorful and spicy and you get more variety besides the popular ones.
Dil Khush is weird in that it falls into a third category: Authentic food, but here authenticity means «tastes like home cooked food». This kind of food will probably be least popular with Americans. The food is prepared without too much of spice or oil and the emphasis is more on digestive health.
For that, I have to applaud Dil Khush. I never felt like I was eating outside. It was Saturday night and we were only customers around. We ordered one each of the veggie meals and a pani puri. All the dishes were fresh and clearly healthy. But the taste in all these dishes didn’t particularly stand out. So, the missus and I finished our plate but the kids could only get half-​way through.
The folks are the place (husband and wife?) were very nice and hospitable. Maybe because we were the only folks around, they took great care of us. Seeing the kids struggling a bit, he voluntarily inquired if we would like some yogurt and even gave us extras at no charge. He closed the door when he saw one of my girls feeling cold. Very homey indeed.
I just wish the food was tastier. It it was, I would give this hidden place 5 stars.

This is a little restaurant, tucked almost behind a little strip mall off Norfolk St. If I did not see their «Indian Food» sign pointing back, I would have certainly walked towards the Golden Wok Café and missed this completely. I had their Chicken Wrap: a delicious monster wrap that was served with a side of cilantro yogurt dipping sauce. All served in a rather tiny restaurant by a friendly owner who is rightfully proud of her Ayurveda-​based food and her packaged spices, also sold here.
The wrap was so large, I could not finish it for lunch. It was a very good value and did not make me feel guilty about having it. It was pleasantly spicy and authentic tasting, without feeling heavy.
I will definitely return and even buy some of the Garam or Tikka Masala there.

I have grown to really love this little place, tucked around the corner behind «Tops.» It’s run by a sweet and gentle lady who cooks up some amazingly good Indian cuisine unlike any other you’ll find in town. Whereas a lot of local Indian fare is all cream and grease, Dil Khush serves up a healthier fare, but without compromising flavor.
Their latest menu addition deserves some praise of its own: the «burrito» wrap. Unlike a certain Indian food truck whose wraps go down a bit like a brick wrapped in depleted uranium, Dil Khush’s wrap is light and digestible; you won’t be feeling your lunch in the bottom of your stomach for the remainder of the day. It’s delicious too!
The service here is quick and friendly, the food is fresh, and they even have their own spice mixes that you can buy and take home to prepare your own Indian-​style meals. Unlike downtown, parking is easy with a large lot in front.
I really can’t say enough good things about this place. Do yourself a favor and give it a try!

I would advice folks to try other good indian restaurants as this joint is expensive for the service they offer. I coughed up 5 dollars for a chaat item that barely had the spices/​flavors coming out of it.

They have chaat now. It’s decent. Pani puri, Sev puri, Bhel puri and so on. $ 4 a dish. My gf especially liked the Bhel puri.

Okay, this is SO hard to do because I know the lady who runs the place, and she is just such a nice person. I used to buy her samosas at the Belmont Farmer’s Market, and they are delicious (as good as what you get back in India). But the restaurant just doesn’t cut it.
Other reviewers have noted the limited menu and simplicity of the food, but that isn’t the problem (I mean, the menu at In-​n-​Out is limited too, and no one complains about that, right?). The main meal itself was pretty good, cooked home-​style. But some of the food just seems to lack flavor. This was especially true with the chaat, which was made with the freshest ingredients, but didn’t have the right spices. The chai had the same problem. I mildly mentioned this problem to the owner while we were paying, and she said that if I’d told her while we were eating, and she would have tried to fix it. But I’ve cooked and eaten enough Indian food (and I’m from India) to know that the problem here wasn’t an easily fixable problem.
We were there during regular dining hours, but the service was chaotic. The lady appeared flustered, and our food arrived in a disorganized manner. As someone pointed out, some of the food seemed to be heated in a microwave, and in spite of that, our chai was lukewarm. To top it all off, everything is served in styrofoam and plastic, which REALLY bothered me.

I tried it out and I was impressed by the quality — I got around to talking to the owner for a bit and told her I’d probably be back with my mother who was going to be in town for a while. Sure enough when I was working, my mother found this place and also ended up having a chat with the owner. It’s nice but the hours were pretty erratic that I could rarely make it there and it lacked a bit of diversity in platters. There were like three main dishes which doesn’t give much choices. They don’t take credit cards, so be prepared for that. They do however sell some spices and usually when I went it was quiet and slow so striking up a conversation with the owner was natural. It’s not bad but definitely something I’d rather order and take home.
The chai was awesome though, I’ll give them that much.

The food is decent — definitely not as oily as typical Indian restaurants. That, of course, means it’s not as flavorful. You can’t have it both ways so don’t complain afterwards.
The owner is super nice, it’s her first restaurant and tries hard. But she’s penny-​wise and pound-​foolish. For example, it’s cash only; she doesn’t want pay the credit card fees. She could easily make up in volume what she loses in fees by accepting credit cards. It’s the kind of place I’d pick up for dinner, but not if I have to remember to bring cash every time. She also doesn’t have napkin dispensers. She brings out 1 napkin with the meal. Not a big deal but just annoying enough to take away from the experience.

Went here with a couple coworkers because we were craving Indian food.
I ordered the chicken tikka masala with roti and a side order of naan.
Tikka masala: Where was the chicken? There were only a couple pieces of chicken. Where was the flavor? There was little flavor.
Roti: It was microwaved.
Naan: It was microwaved.
Even with microwaving, all our food took a while to come out. Plus, one of us found hair in her food.
Nice owners, but I can’t recommend.

Deeply disappointed. A coworker convinced us to go here for lunch so we drove all the way down to San Mateo from SSF for what was supposed to be fresh, cheap, fast Indian food. We were first in line to order before the lunch crowd yet it took over an hour to get our food!!! The problem? The poor owner was completely overwhelmed. She wrote all the orders down on little Post-​It notes. Anyone who sat down was upset because the food took too long and orders were mixed up. A party that came after us and got their food first only to complain about it and have it remade again while the rest of the crowded shop sat in hunger.
So I’ve always loved a good hole in the wall. I’ll wait forever for the food but it better be damn good. I ordered the chicken tikki masala which looked EXACTLY like the butter chicken. A friend ordered the eggplant but got squash instead — we were too hungry at that point to complain. The naan was soggy and the tikki masala was runny. The claim was that it was the «healthy» version. That’s great to know but isn’t that why we like Indian food to begin with? The clarified butter? The thick sauces? Nothing beats good down home comfort food. If you take the goodness out, what do you have left?
The owner did apologize for the service and is working to correct the staffing issue so you know she cares. There is hope.

I first found out about Dil Khush restaurant back in August ’08. The food (chicken tikka masala) was fresh, flavorful, and inexpensive; I love that nothing was fried! Also, the owner was refreshingly pleasant. I’ve read here that the selection was limited, but I really didn’t notice as I had a hard enough time choosing what to try as it was :)
In fact, I loved the restaurant so much I bought an armload of the Dil Khush ready-​to-​cook spices to bring back to Sac. With literally NO previous experience cooking indian food, I was very impressed with how well my meals have turned out.
A++ all around. Cheers.

I love this little hole in the wall. Like the best traditions of holes in the wall, it has an obscure location, and the ambiance probably isn’t first date material, but the food is simply bliss (and at a reasonable price)!
The spices are very good here, well-​flavored without over powering the meat. They even sell their spices here — apparently they were doing good business selling spices at farmer’s markets even before they opened the restaurant. The meals provide a nice variety of flavors with sides I don’t normally order at Indian places.
It’s a small mom-​and-​pop place, and the owners are super-​friendly. If you like it more or less spicy you should just ask and they’ll make it the way you like it.

I give them an extra star for writing to me and inviting me back to fix the problem. While I may not take them up on their offer, I always appreciate an owner who wants to make things right. :-)

I have to say I was very disappointed in this place. I was hungry for Tabla… and at the last second my wife switched our dinner plans to Dil Khush. I am always down for trying a new place (even though my wife has had more misses then hits when it comes to new places as of late)
We had the Butter Chicken (I am white… what do you expect), the Curry Chicken, and the Beef Kabob. The Chicken dishes not only had no spice they had little flavor. My curry did have a little hair in it, but that did not help.
The kabob tasted like ground beef with nothing else mixed in. The biggest sin of all… they were out of Naan… no Naan… no way!
To round out the experience they place was extremely cold and the food took a very long time to come out. The owners seemed very friendly… but unfortunately that only goes so far.

Wonderful people, great service, great food.
The butter chicken was decadently rich.
om nom nom nom nom

I’m not thrilled by the limited menu but the staff was super nice which is totally rare in an Indian establishment. My fiancé and I got one veg and one meat meal. There was a hair in my curry and it wasn’t anything spectacular — but it was good. What I do like about this place is that the owner is a health fiend like myself and she doesn’t fry her food so I feel better eating it. The one thing however that I totally was disappointed by was that they don’t have naan on their menu — I *love* naan. Naan gives Indian food a permanent spot in my top 3 favorite cuisines. No naan = sad Kat.
I’ll go back one more time just to see how they’ve grown but I might do take out instead and buy some naan on the way home ;)