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Raga
3533 Queen Mary Tel: 344-2217

Sun.-Fri.:11:30-15:00, 17:30-22:00. Sat.: 17:30-22:00. Licensed, major cards
We went to Raga Buffet, on Queen Mary near the corner of Côte-des-Neiges, on the advice of the Gazette's Ashok Chandwani's eating-out column, and I for one was sorely disappointed.

Chandwani touted it as the Next Great Buffet restaurant of Montreal, but I guess I just must be allergic to buffets, or something. The deal at this place is, you can walk in at lunch or dinner, get some containers, and stuff them with whatever you want—all the same price (about $6.95 for lunch, $8.95 for dinner, per container.) Sounded good to me. But I figured the best time to go was just as they opened for dinner—around 5:30 , because everything would be full and fresh—but my father wanted to go earlier, so we went just as they finished for lunch, around 2:15. I figured the end of lunch was not a good time to go, as they would be wanting the remaining lunch food to be consumed and would only reluctantly be refilling the trays—and that proved to be the case. Pretty much all the food was gone—not stocked up freshly, as Chandwani said. We pretty much scraped up the last of the leavings.

What we brought home—chicken curry, beef curry, rice etc. was to my taste so bland-ified as to be completely unpalatable. I secretly threw the whole mess out (minus the rice, which was excellent) the next day, as my parents seemed to love their meal. You can't beat the price—it was only $30 for four large take-out containers stuffed with whatever you want. This is enough to feed six hungry people. But I'd rather pay $20 more and have a waiter take my order and be able to specify "hot, hot, hot."

I guess next time I need Indian food, I'll either go to Star of India, or make it myself. Raga gets 3 out of ten. —
Reviewed by Nick Robinson



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