Ambrosia India Bistro, Cannery Row - A brilliant restaurant for Delicious Indian Buffet with Indian style Tea around Magnificent Monterey & Scenic 17 Mile Drive in California

The first time I visited 17 Mile Drive in California, a good friend found this place for lunch when we were heading back to Monterey. After that, whenever I went to 17 Mile drive or Monterey, there were discussions about this place but I never got a chance to visit it again. I don't mind that because it makes more sense to try new places. Recently I realised that we never shared about this place and that's a little unfair :). So here we present one of the decent option for Indian food around Monterey and 17 Miles drive, along with details about what to expect in terms of variety, quality, taste and cost. 

Address of Ambrosia India Bistro is 565 Abrego St, Monterey, CA 93940-3229 and it opens at 11:30am till 2:30pm for lunch buffet. Dinner time is 5pm. 

Ambrosia India Bistro is at a peaceful place and away from craziness of Monterey's Fishermen's Warf. There are quite interesting eating places around Fishermen's warf as well but I doubt there is any Indian option. Having said that, if you wish to eat around Fishermen's warf there are some good places for sea food and the famous Chowder. As you walk around the Fishermen's warf, you would see lot of folks on the street offering you to try chowder and accordingly you can chose a place which suits your taste. Anyways we will talk about sea food and chowder of Fishermen's warf later :). 

Above is a photograph of street where Ambrosia India Bistro is located. I remember that we walked to this place after parking our car in nearby parking. It was a sunny day, so a perfect day to walk around Monterey. Without sun, the wind makes it very cold in this part of California. 

Most of the folks in our group were Indians and we liked the food there. Both in terms of variety in the buffet and the taste. Apart from buffet, you can order specific things you may want and variety is more in that case. We opted or buffet. Buffet had good variety for vegetarians as well as vegetarians. I loved Chicken, it's gravy and appropriate spices. It was almost perfect for me. Later I have recommended this places to other friends in California and some of the things they liked from Ambrosia India Bistro are - Chicken Tikka Masala, Garlic Naan, Mutton Rogan Josh and Aalo Gobhi. The place also has good collection of wines from California and Europe. 

At the end restaurant made brilliant India Masala team, which are show stopper for me. It's hard to find that kind of tea in California but you can try in some of the Indian or Pakistani restaurants. Even there you can't be sure if the tea would be made with the min process of boiling all ingredients in water and add milk to boil it again. Appropriate boiling of the tea brings a magic in taste and aroma. 

After our meal and tea, we sat there for some time & had great time. It was time to head back to San Jose but by taking few stops around the coast on our way. 

Since it was a buffet, we can't really comment a lot about service as we were supposed to pick stuff from buffet table. Staff certainly helped us on time with cutlery, drinks and other stuff we ordered separately.  

Overall Ambrosia India Bistro is a great place for Indian Food in Monterey. Try it out and share back about your experience.