The Hot Grill

ugh, I give stars for pleasantries - they were nice... I honestly did not like my sandwich. I got the grilled chicken the bun blah, lettuce, blah, chicken bland, ugh it was clean looking and they were nicr.

Very good. Big dining room. Owner was very friendly too.

Went there today to get the take out and when I go to a new halal place usually order three or four things off the menu to get the hang of the place. I ordered fried chicken sandwich, kabob wrap in paratha and spice burger. Fried chicken sandwich has the chicken tenders, not a big fan and it seems like they are not house made, they are using some vendor to get those. Kabob paratha roll, nice portion good taste and taste like heavy on salt, if owner reading this, please taste and i think less salt wouldn't hurt, more salt some times can make the food not eatable. Last thing was the spicy burger, it was nice but ordered medium temp and it was not medium. Overall seems like a nice place but they are new and hopefully it will get better as they get more and more reviews. I am not a yelper and this may be my first review but I usually write reviews on google. One other thing was hard to park there as they are in Downtown, i did not go on to the back side but there may be more parking and if there is owner should add that to the menu so that folks know where to park. I will definitely go back and try more stuff and see how they rank there, if that is good i may change it to 5 stars. Will let my other halal foodies know about this place and see what there thoughts are.

There were two things that bothered me during our visit here.
The first was that their bathroom, though it appeared clean enough, absolutely reeked. It had that super strong sharp and sour odor you typically find in park and beach restrooms and I did not appreciate that.
The other thing was that they did not open on time. For starters, the hours listed on their front door indicated that they would open at five. We walked up at five-fifteen and the door was locked. There were two guys at the counter doing what looked like prep work. They saw us out front and my friend gave a merry wave to tip them off, but they made no attempt to communicate back. I got on my phone and found that their hours were listed differently online and indicated that they would open at five-thirty. We waited. Five-thirty came and went and the guys continued to ignore us. At five-forty, a couple walked up, tried the door, found it locked, and proceeded to stand with us. At this point, one of the guys came over and just about threw his shoulder out against the door because he didn't realize it was locked. He opened it and apologized, saying he forgot to unlock it.
Fair enough for a one-time mistake, but bro... we've been standing out front on and off for forty minutes - how could you forget? Why would you think it was open?

Aside from those points, the visit was pretty smooth.
The restaurant was clean, overall - comfortable and warm.
The counter service was friendly.
The food was VERY good and all three of us were happy with our orders. I had the chicken wow wrap with fries. The fries had just the right amount of salt on them (which is to say, not much, but enough for flavour). I also tried a bite of beef off of a friend's plate. Both the chicken and the beef were really well-seasoned with just a bit of kick and a good moisture content.

They do serve most of their food in foil to-go containers, which is handy if you decide to take leftovers home, I suppose, but not the most aesthetically-pleasing or environmentally-friendly choice otherwise. It looked like my friends were eating microwave dinners. They also serve on plastic trays, which seems unnecessary. The chicken wrap came in a basket with butcher paper, but the wrap itself was also wrapped in tin foil.

Street parking only and parking is metered, but not great surprise there, given that it's in downtown San Jose.

This place is amazing! We were in town for a visit and came across them. The staff are friendly and the food is fantastic. Glad we had a chance to try out one of San Jose's hidden gems. Highly recommend