Zaika Indian Cuisine

Came here with a friend who was craving northern Indian food (she’d visited India years ago & missed specific dishes). The servers and owner were present and extremely friendly. The owner was very kind and held a conversation with my friend about her travels. The food was fresh and DELICIOUS, I especially loved the veggie samosas and chicken masala.

Really appreciated the vegan buffet. Would love to see vegan options that are *not* also gluten free and oil free though. The chana was good and I liked the rice cakes, but some of the dishes were lacking flavor, which shouldn't happen with Indian food :) but any vegan buffet will get my endoresment!

This place is excellent. The vegitarian and vegan menu is extensive and varried. The dishes were flavorful, well spiced, and the eggplant was particularly well roasted. The Indian food in Austin is generally disappointing so it was a present surprise to find this place. Looking forward to trying the buffet on the weekends.

The food is the most authentic I have found yet. I always order the tikka masala at Indian restaurants, but I decided to try something new here and I was not disappointed. I had the lamb rogan josh and tried a dosa. I loved almost all of it and the 2 sauces I didn't like that came with the dosa still tasted like they were very well made, it just wasn't a flavor I prefer. Mango chutney was great also. I had a great experience here.

When I walked in, I was disappointed they did not have the vegetarian buffet. The owner told me that he was planning on starting him back up next month, so I figured I'd just order off the menu a la carte and give them a fair shake. I like my Indian food very spicy but not hot, and the owner was happy to accommodate my request. I ordered the shrimp biryani, mostly because you don't usually see shrimp in biryani, and I love shrimp. The size of shrimp was more like the 10/12 (medium sized). They were quite a few shrimp in the dish. They were larger and more than I expected. I added a side order of saag paneer and some naan. The paneer was medium size bites, but there wasn't as many as I would have liked. Nevertheless, the food seem like it was freshly cooked and right out of the kitchen tailored to my request for extra spices. You can see in the pictures the amount of spices they used. These guys obviously did not go cheap on the spices. That's the number one thing I seek when eating Indian food. If I can see the spices, and I can taste them, and they leave that feeling in your mouth that you know you have eaten something wonderful, then it is a great meal. The price of the food may seem a little expensive for lunch, but it is absolutely worth every penny. The owner seems very willing to accommodate special requests. He said that when they start up the buffet again that we could request for more spice in some of the dishes and they would honor the request. I believe him! Overall great value and great flavor. I highly recommend this place.

I only went to the vegan / gluten free / oil free buffet, so I can't speak to the regular menu. I really enjoyed all of the vegan bread options, at the time they had samosas which were my favorite! I do wish they had regular drinks, rather than only water bottles. It's pretty rare to have an all vegan buffet, so I really enjoyed that aspect of not having to worry about what I could eat. It was quite a treat, and you wouldn't know based on the flavor that it was gluten-free and oil-free vegan!