Spice Waala

Very solid spot for when your cravings for a quick Indian meal hits. Their mango lassi and rotational soft serve are my personal favorites (love that they have yet to tell me their soft serve machine is broken unlike many places that offer it besides McDonald's). The reason why I can't give it a full 5 stars is due to the portion sizes - which are way too small. I am often left starving after a Kathi roll and almost always get the snack Chana chaat to make it a meal. Overall it's good for a quick tasty lunch if you're in a hurry but you should get more than a Kathi roll because unless you eat like a bird you will be left feeling very hungry.

This is a gem of an Indian snack place. I have been in Greater Seattle area for the last 2 years and this is the best in town. They don't have a wide spectrum of options and have narrowed down to a few items. The best part is whatever cuisine they decided to keep in menu they have absolutely mastery in that. The chicken Tikka roll had a smoky flavor - either they infused the smoke flavor or they are cooking it over charcoal - either way it's impressive. The mano swirl was tasty and dense - had really rich texture. The Aloo Tikki Chat was so well done - doesn't feel oily at all. In fact it was pretty light. I loved their Bhel poori too. Talking about ambience the place is rather small and I would suggest a to go. The service is good.

Ambience - Casual Fast Food Seating Service - We ordered 3 Chicken Tikka rolls (1 with egg). The service was very quick. We also got Masala Chai which came with 2 Parle G Biscuit (Nice Touch) Food - Chicken Tikka Roll. The roll was pretty dry and the roll didn't had any flavor. The egg roll was much better than without egg. It was pretty heavy though, but not tasty

EDITED TO ADD: I've only ever encountered passive aggressive comments from a business owner once before and it's not fun. Especially since these reviews are written based on MY personal experience. Good entrepreneurs take all customer reviews into consideration. The good, the bad, the in betweens, they're all experiences that customers had at your establishment. Instead of being defensive and trying to argue about what kind of experience the customer had, use these reviews to make the next experience even better. No human is perfect. No restaurant is perfect. There is ALWAYS room for improvement. I'm deducting a star on this review for bad sportsmanship. I don't appreciate someone telling me that my taste or experience is invalid.One word: overhyped.My brother highly recommended this spot during my last visit to Seattle so I decided I had to give it a try. Placed my order online hoping to have it conveniently ready to go by the time I arrived 15 minutes later. You know, how pick up orders usually work. Just so y'all know, it doesn't work like that here. After you've placed (and paid for) your order online you must still check in before they start making your order. So plan accordingly!Now, onto the food! I ordered two items to share with my brother since we had dinner in 2 hours and wanted to stay hungry for that! We tried a Chicken Tikka Roll and the Masala Aloo.Chicken Tikka Roll - This was waaaay smaller than I thought it would be. It's grilled spiced chicken wrapped in a thin roti with raw onions and green chutney. It was $7.50 for like a three bite wrap. It definitely could have used more flavor. Maybe even just some salt to enhance the existing flavors? It was just missing.. a lot for $7.50.Snack Masala Aloo - Fries coated heavily in their special spice blend. These fries were fried so long that most of them were translucent. It's weird though, some fries felt suuuper heavy while others were super light and crispy. They also weren't hot. Spice blend was just okay. Tasted like whatever they put on the chicken. Again, salt would definitely have helped here. Cool thing about these fries though, we couldn't finish because it started feeling super heavy after a few fries so left them out. 4 hours later my brother tried one and they were still crispy! (Remind anyone of that Super Size me documentary that went viral years ago?)The store itself is just a little takeout spot. A few tables scattered inside and like 2(?) tables outside. Open kitchen so you can see your order being made. Would I try this place again? Probably not. The price vs food quality was just not it for me. And having to wait 15 minutes to get my food after placing an online order to avoid having to wait 15 minutes is a bit silly. Wouldn't you agree?

We didn't take time to take pictures as we usually do, but the wraps we had were phenomenal. We tried the Lamb kabob and chicken tikka wraps with egg(per recommendation) the chicken was our favorite but both were packed with meat and flavor. We tried the cardamom pistachio soft serve after. So unique and delicious. Can't wait to try other items. Super friendly and fast service!

I've been here a few times and it's solid for the price. It's a small establishment with 4-5 tables. The service was quick, but while ordering we felt a little rushed. The sides are yummy with the rolls being good but not great (we had the paneer one and chicken tikka). We just realized they do an egg option on the roll, if it's anything like roll pod restaurant that would up this to a 5 for food.

Small and cozy place , kathi rolls were good and service was quick. They don't have much seating and seating are little uncomfortable so mainly I think it's meant for takeout instead of seating. Panner roll was fresh and panner was very soft but there was no way to ask them to add any spice or they didn't have that option , if they had some spice level that will be great . Aloo tikki chat was good and aloo tikki was cripsy.Fries is must try as they are coated with spices which make them special unlike a bland Mac Donald's fries.

Such delicious Indian street food! I've never had anything like it. A very cute little spot too.

Well. This is sad. And I know, perhaps most of you eating regularly here, won't appreciate this. I got to be honest about our experience at Spice Waala. If one has not experienced authentic sumptuous Indian food, that too street food, creations at Spice Waala may just be Perfect. We thought it would be wonderful to get some Indian street food on Ballard streets! Spice Waala surfaced as an obvious choice based on the engraved plaque outside the restaurant. We dined in at the Ballard restaurant. As a starter we ordered bhel puri and papdi chaat. Person at the cash register and serving the order was pleasant, courteous and prompt. All things one would expect. Food was prepared promptly. Interior is simple, tasteful and clean with lots of plants, cheerful colors and imagery of turbans. Nice job!Once we looked at and tasted both dishes, the reality sank in. Both dishes lacked essential flavors of the real Street food. BHEL puri was blend and lacked flavors and basic ingredients. Papadi chaat was not even close to the image we saw on the website, besides lacking chutneys, essential ingredients. Besides the bottom layer of large chopped potatoes was uncooked and not worth sinking teeth into. Both of us cook and really enjoy simple food with real authentic flavors from various cultures. This was simply not good. Nothing more to add except, we didn't order dinner after experiences with appetizers. A Sad encounter. I hope the food quality gets a bit more authentic and improves.

Got the Paneer Bhurji Kathi Roll and the Chana chaat. The kathi roll was pretty dry, and it being stuffed with ground paneer certainly did not help. It tasted equivalent to taking bites of roti and straight paneer. The lack of flavor made this dish hard to get down (definitely needed water), but for a Kathi roll, the abundant paneer made this entree quite filling. The Chana chaat, on the other hand, tasted really good. The beans were cooked well, and they were pretty generous with the cilantro chutney. The chutney was surprisingly authentic, and so it made this dish taste like ones you'd get at an Indian potluck. If you end up getting this combination of dishes, I'd recommend eating the chaat with the Kathi roll at the same time to get your flavor in. (The other chaats looked pretty good too).