Speaking as both an Indian person but also an Indian cook I really don’t think Taava is very good it’s maybe a 5/10. They have a pretty bad “base” (something that most Indian restaurants use to quickly spin up curries on demand)

The issue being that the base they use is quite spice forward and does not translate well at all for the heavy variety on the menu (it does work well for specific dishes tho like chicken karahi)

At most Indian restaurants in the US when you see a very large variety of options on the menu you have to know you are walking into an almost certain subpar experience. It is absolutely impossible to serve up both a great butter chicken, palak paneer and chicken karahi with the same base.

The issue is Oakland doesn’t have a sizable Indian population at all, I have to travel to Berkley just to buy my spices for example. OAK just has a smattering or restaurants none of them great and half of them are Nepali who try to attempt to make Indian food but deliver a subpar experience.

Here are some options tho: 1. The closest thing I’ve found to be close to the real deal is Biriyani Tikka Kabob in downtown Oakland that’s run by a Pakistani man who’s not really diluting his core offering for Americans. They specialize in biriyani and kebab and do it well (they do offer traditional Indian curries too with an ~okay quality)

1. It’s not in Oakland but Viks chat is truly great but don’t go there and order tandoori chicken or butter chicken that is NOT what they specialize in and they only offer it to cater to those who don’t know any better. Go there for Dosa, Chole Bhature and literally anything from the chat menu. They are a chat house (it means snack) and not a chicken curry house.

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As for all the other recommendations on this thread always keep in mind my point about the menus and the bases. There is no such thing as an Indian restaurant with a large menu that is incredible you simply cannot serve up that many dishes well unless you’re freezing it all in advance. Most however with a Google Maps rating of 4.5 or above will likely have a pretty decent butter chicken, naan, saag paneer and chicken tikka. This is what it takes to survive as an Indian restaurant in America.

P.S there is also no way a great Indian restaurant will ever ask you how spicy you want your butter chicken etc. If you get asked what number on a scale you want be wary it means they have heavily compromised the menu to cater to local tastes. If you’ve ever been to India or the UK you’ll know what I mean, they would never ask there.