The Blue Taj -Charlotte, NC

The Blue Taj is an Indian restaurant located in the Ballantyne restaurant in South Charlotte. It is the sister restaurant to Copper, another Indian restaurant located on East Blvd near Uptown. The restaurant is located on the ground floor, near the stairs up to the movie theatre and is almost hidden away by its location. It has a small patio area and a large restaurant inside. There is a small bar with 3 stools and a small table area.

The décor of this restaurant is best described as bizarre. The small table area located at the bar is all white, almost like a children’s area with bubbles painted in different colors on the wall. A blue light shines down making everything a very clinical color and it is most unappealing. The rest of the restaurant is a similar décor style with what I am guessing is supposed to be modern fixtures and paint on the wall. It looked very odd to me, particularly for the theme of the restaurant and the harsh green lighting did no justice to the food.

As for the food, on the advice of the owner who came to see us, we ordered the mix vegetarian and the mixed meat platters. Each was quite small, we a only a taster of each. This would not have been so bad had they not served them on a huge plate which made them look even smaller. There was no introduction by the wait staff as to what each one was so we just had the guess. All were quite delicious though.

For our entrees, again at the advice of the owner, we each ordered a different entrée dish to share. As there were four of us, we had a chicken tikka, a seafood curry, a chicken jhalfrazie and a lamb saagwala. We got one portion of rice to share and mixture of naan bread. The entrees were not quite as large as we had hoped bearing in mind we have been advised to share, the naans were delicious but the rice was a little cool. Not many of the dishes, except the fish curry had my sauce and this was disappointing.

I would give this restaurant 3 stars out of 5. The food was just OK, and the service was terrible, no introduction of the food, dirty silverware and slow.