Situated right 5 minutes from Santa Monica Pier, tumbi is a very cool vibe. Ngl, it was more fancy that I excepted. We tried the bhelpuri, cheese dosa and channa batura. All of it tasted good. I’ll say it wasn’t extraordinary but definitely a good meal. The ambience in the restaurant was lovely and looked really clean and well lit. The waiter’s were attentive and helpful. Id consider coming back here for a quick bite. Recommend 8/10.TIL : tumbi is a Punjabi string instrument.
The smell of this restaurant when we kept walking past pulled us in, so in the last night we decided to go. Everything was excellent, food and service I must say until we got the bill. We ordered the bottomless mimosas...only for this not to be reflected on the bill (charged for individual ones) to be told when we questioned this that they no longer offered bottomless, so when we said why was it still on the menu and/or why we were not told at the time of ordering, we were told we didn't order bottomless, when we 100% did!! This really did put a dampener on our last night in Santa Monica and what was a great meal. Tip if you order the bottomless mimosa ask if they are still doing it and check your bill!
Hands-down the best Indian food in LA for me!Appetizers: Panipuris were crisp, fresh and the pani was just the right amount of tangy!The wada pav was soft, crunchy and the idle fries are a stroke of genius.The avocado bhelpuri are pretty dope! Never knew avocados would go that well with that spice palette.Main course:The butter chicken is so good and so rich! We ordered it twice!The laccha parattha and the garlic naan compliment the dishes really well!Dessert:Kulfi: they have malai, pistachio and mango flavors! So smooth, so rich and a good portion sizeThe deconstructed carrot halwa: probably haven’t had dessert that good in a while. They serve it with ice cream and granola which gels so well with the halwa!10/10- would come again ?
Good ambience and good presentation don’t make the food great! This isn’t the Indian food that we Indians love. What looked appealing was far from delicious. The portions are small with respect to the price charged. While we tried to enjoy however best one can, the staff pulled down the experience by a full star by starting to cleanup (sweeping the floors) and close down while we were in the restaurant at 9:16 pm in the hopes of closing sooner than the scheduled 10pm closure. What a downer! The management and the chefs need to really go back and re-learn the craft of Indian cooking and service.
I discovered this place in the Michelin guide and thought I would try this Indian that wasn’t run of the mill. Wow ! It’s been a couple years since my tastebuds exploded with so much joy for Indian food. Flavors are strong but are not overpowering, every dish could stand on its own and complemented each other. Even the dessert had that creative audacity that closed the diner on a high note…
Good food but bad service. Waited full 15/20 mins before someone took our order. Also, preference was given to a bigger group and other customers but not to us.
I am usually very generous with my appreciation. Here however, I encountered some very rude set of people. I could go into details but sufficient to say that it got extremely ugly. We requested to speak to the manager but they said they would not do it and were extremely loud at that as well. The food unfortunately wasn't good either. I'd say eat at your own risk and be ready to be treated like a low-life while you spend your hard earned money here. Extremely, extremely disappointing...
TERRIBLE SERVICE Do not go here! So unprofessional! I cannot believe how rude the manager and the staff were. Ive never encountered such unprofessionalism in my life especially for a ‘Michelin’ recommended place. For starters I’m 7 months pregnant and asked to be seated while we waiting for our friends son to arrive. They let us sit and we ordered our appetizers and drinks and then the ‘manager’ and most disrespectful other staff member came over and told us he was taking our other seat away because my friends 2 sons weren’t there yet when he was arriving in literally 5 mins. We had already ordered food and drinks… The manager proceeded to tell us he was losing money by my friends son not being there yet. He then raises his voice at our party and even went as far as telling our guest to ‘punch me bro’ like he was some hoodlum to our guest who is in his 50’s???? We were dumbfounded by that comment. Do not ever go here. Food is bland as well, pay attention to all the other bad reviews on here. Definitely not up to Michelin pars whatsoever!!
A must place to visit whenever we are in downtown Santa Monica. The cheese dosa was good, although my husband expected it to have paneer (as it said on the menu) but he still liked it. I love palak paneer and glad that there was a side dish of it. It tasted really good, fresh and not super creamy.
The food was great but the service was horrible and disrespectful. The manager was extremely rude and insulting. We were initially a group of 2, that expanded to a group of 5. The manager was derogatory and pointed of multiple times that we should order more food, even through we had ordered more than 8 dishes for the 5 of us. He was extremely unprofessional and unpleasant. He was staring at us the whole time we were eating and completely ruined our experience at the restaurant.I would not recommend this to anyone because of the sheer disregard and nastiness of the waiter.