Chennai Foodie

Dine, Escape at Express Avenue

2012-02-13T12:20:00.001+05:30

Express avenue is a nice place to shop, but I find myself very disappointed with the food scene. Very often I am have to stand in multiple queues one for the not so smart card, and in different places and by the time we gather all our food, tiredness takes over the enjoyment of the meal. After dining once at Dine, the food court is now almost out of my radar.

From the classy ambiance to the friendly service, Dine, for me is a real restaurant, not withstanding the fact that it is inside a cinema. The last time we went, i got myself a chicken burger, while others got themselves a grilled fish in lemon butter sauce, a chettinad chicken gravy meal that is served with a choice of rice and mandarin chicken meal with noodles. I love the burger here, while it is not the best and it is not beef, it is a very good chicken burger and the fries that come with it are nice, not so oily and crisp. The chicken gravy meals are nice at at around Rs. 225, they are a bang for the buck in a nice setting. The grilled fish in lemon butter sauce was beautiful, nice fish, nicely cooked and served with herbed rice. We were late for our movie and skipped dessert, but the choices are not too much, like the blur cafe in Satyam where they have some great dessert.

Prices are nice, the burger is Rs. 130, the chicken meals are around Rs. 225 and the fish was similarly priced too. Service is quick and attentive too. I would rather go here or go to the barista on the ground floor rather than the food court, unless I really want something specific from there.

Food 8/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 8/10

Dine is inside Escape, Express Avenue.

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At.mosphere, Burj Khalifa, Dubai

2012-02-09T15:08:00.000+05:30

Being a foodie, I had to visit this restaurant when in Dubai. It is the world's highest restaurant in the worlds tallest building and all that hype surrounding it. After struggling to get through security because we did not have print out of our reservation, we finally got through to the Armani Hotel and my god, it was beautiful. Once inside you are treated like a king and the place does feel like a modern palace.

We were lead to the elevator that goes super fast from 1 to 123, with some ear popping and then you have to walk down one floor to the restaurant. After exchanging pleasantries, we are given a window seat and the view, needless to say, is yet to be matched anywhere else, and unless they build a taller tower with such a wonderful base and the city has other high rises, I am not sure there will ever be such a view from any restaurant.

We got ourselves a drink each, a vanilla iced tea and a raspberry mocktail, and a snack each, an atmosphere fried chicken and a portion of falafels. The vanilla iced tea knocked me, literally. It was a superb iced tea and I have not had this flavor anywhere so I thoroughly enjoyed it, while the raspberry stuff was decent. The atmosphere fried chicken was scrumptious, juicy, soft and fried to perfection, while the falafels were super tasty too. You can also go there for a afternoon tea package which will give you more food, but we wanted to just see the place and taste a few dishes.

Ambiance is superb, but the window seats can get a little hot during lunch hours, while the service is first class. Had a wonderful late afternoon snack and a wonderful day after that. Definitely a must visit for any foodie who wants to be a part of something as grandeous as this. Prices are on par with the Dubai oil rates, pun intended.

Food 9/10
Ambiance 9/10
Service 9/10
Price 8/10

You will find this, but try to get dropped off at the Burj VIP entry rather than going through the Dubai Mall and do have a print out of the reservation.

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Cafe Chokolade

2012-02-06T10:30:00.000+05:30

So, last tuesday, we skipped lunch, yeah bad habit, due to work and when we were starving by late evening, the two of us decided to try out this place after reading about it on Facebook. After struggling to park our cars, we finally got in and settled down to by well utilized and well done interiors. Nice and cosy place for some coffee. The tree that grows through the roof is a nice thing that makes you feel like you are sitting in a place that does something for the planet and all that stuff.

We ordered a chocolate cheese sandwich to share and an Oreo Chokolade for me, while the friend ordered a walnut shake for himself. The sandwich turned out to be nirvana, yeah, imagine chocolate oozing out of a sandwich that has cheese on top. The Oreo turned out to be super too, but the walnut shake tasted more like mint chocolate shake and was pretty ordinary.

Nothing much to talk about service, but I would have liked them to advice us on what they are good at, before we placed our order rather than after. Prices are very friendly and sure to please the college kids.

Food 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Service 8/10
Price 9/10

It's located next to Cake Walk, Egmore, on Montieth road.

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Omelette Shop, Egmore

2012-02-03T15:00:00.000+05:30

Almost everyone in Chennai knows this place and if not, everyone should. Where else will you get sandwiches for this price and this taste? Located right outside Alsa Mall, Egmore, this guy probably makes more money than the whole of Alsa mall put together.
Just wonderful bread omelettes, vegetable sandwiches and chicken sandwiches. All priced under Rs. 20 and he even has a menu. Everything can be customized as to how much chutney you want, how spicy you want it and how much you want it grilled. The cucumber 'time pass' till you get your sandwich is a really a time pass, but you get it only if you are in a car with a couple of people. My favorites are the chilly cheese toast and bread omelettes while the friend loves the simple veg sandwich, not grilled but with the soft bread, bliss. And you can have a full meal for under Rs. 50 a person with a small 7 up to wash it down.
So this weekend, try the roadside sandwich instead of the fancy restaurants if possible. And don't be surprised to find mercs and BMWs parking on the other side and the driver packing a few sandwiches, it's been happening for decades. Is it healthy and safe? Definitely better than vadas and bajjis fried in super reused oils.
Food 9/10
Price 9/10
Just outside Alsa mall. You can't miss it.
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Elementz, Bangalore

2012-01-30T16:10:00.004+05:30

So, work took me to Bangalore and needless to say I ate out at every opportunity. Though I hate to admit it, Bangalore has a lot more to offer foodies than Chennai and sigh...........

Anish took me to Elementz and was raving about it all the way from the train station to the restaurant and my expectation was hitting the roof. We parked the car on a small street opp Elementz and walked to a super rustic ambiance that was like Mocha, but with less, well, drug den effect. If it gets cold though, the inside seating would be a much better option. I got the menu and was shocked to see such a huge offering of steak, both vegetarian and otherwise. Being a steak lover, I got myself a cowboy steak for the first time outside of the US, while he got himself a shepherd's pie. We also got chicken croquets for starters which turned out to be crisp and tasty. The steak was super succulent and super tasty, just brilliant and is easily the best steak I have had in a very long time. The shepherds pie turned out equally good and was glad that it was served like the tradition, in a pot. It was well set unlike the runny one (and a bad one) you get at 10D. The cheese cake was a perfect finish to our dinner.

Service was decent and since we were sitting in an area close to the waiting tables, there was always someone near by. Like I mentioned, the ambiance was very nice and cosy and like the ambiance shows, the place serves seesha. Prices are on par with bangalore rates with steaks being priced at around Rs, 300-400. Apparently they have opened up a fine dining Indian restaurant which serves some great indian food in a continental style per plated fare and I am dying to get back to bangalore and try it.

Food 8.5/10
Service 7/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 8/10

Elementz is located on Nandidurg road, Jayamahal extension and I have no idea how to get there, maybe someone from bangalore can help.

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The Madras Kafe

2012-01-26T18:08:00.000+05:30

After reading about this place in CFG, the two of us went here to grab a quick bite before getting to the Anoushka Shankar concert. We noticed a lady at the counter helping with the service and some people there calling her 'aunty'. Looks like they visit here pretty often from the company that is located opp this coffee shop.

The menu is very interesting. Vadawich, parotizza and the likes are what greet you on the first page. Unfortunately, these are not new inventions, but just name gimmicks. We ordered a vadawich and chilly cheese sandwich. I was expecting the vadawich to be a vada sliced into two and filled with potato, but it was just a burger bun with a whole stuffed with potatoes. The stuffing tasted like the ones we make at home. I am guessing that the parotizza is pizza toppings on top a parotta, but I would like to try it the next time. If you remember the McDonald ad about their spicy chicken burger, they claim that it is ah ooh, ouch kind of hot. Well, McDonald should taste the chilly cheese sandwich here and find out what exactly is hot by Indian standards. Those of you native to above a hundred kilometers north of chennai, will enjoy this. It was super super hot and we were both huffing and puffing and overloading ourselves with water. The lime mint cooler was a soothing drink, while the ice tea was pretty average.

Prices are friendly. The above two dishes and the two drinks cost us Rs. 160. Service is friendly and the atmosphere is home like. While it is not the best coffee shop in town, if you are at Ishpahani, it is worth a visit.

Food 7/10
Service 7/10
Ambiance 6/10
Price 8/10

Madras Kafe is on the basement level at Ishpahani, Nungambakkam.

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Lunch at 10 D

2012-01-23T14:17:00.001+05:30

Easily the best Lunch combos in town, 10 D has a wonderful offering for both teeny boppers and the business guys equally. I am not sure of any other place in chennai, where you will find college kids and business executives in one confined area, almost everyday during lunch hours.

Priced at Rs. 200 for the non veg and Rs. 150 for the veg, and with a humongous menu to choose from, this place rocks even during lunch. And the food is good too. You get a soup or a soft drink or a glass of beer, a main course and an ice cream. Yesterday my colleague had a scheswan fried rice with chilly chicken for the main course, another friend had (despite me telling him not to), a lasagna and I had my favorite naan with chicken tikka.

The main courses usually have rice or noodles or naan or rotis with a choice of gravy, or if you go for the continentals stuff, a grilled fish or lasagna or something like that. The continental stuff here is just not upto the mark, except maybe the grilled chicken, but the Indian and Chinese are generally very nice.

Service is not great but passable and the ambiance is superb, so, yes, it is one of the best places for lunch in Chennai.

Food 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 9/10
Service 7/10

10 D is located on North Borg road, T.Nagar, just before the entrance to the Residency Towers.

Flame Grill

2012-01-19T23:52:00.001+05:30

This is one of the restaurant that came up during the sudden surge of Arabian and Mid Eastern cuisine and did quite well initially and then slowed down. Tis is also a very inconsistent restaurant, with some days being very nice and others being forgettable. But for a lunch when friends come over, this always was a nice place for us. Being close to work, a variety of grilled chicken and other non vegetarian on the menu (and half of which will not be available for lunch), we forgot about this place during the times of our friend's 'diet' days. With a month of vegetarianism for another friend, this completely slipped out of our minds.

Yesterday, we decided to go there when people came over to visit our new wellness center and boy, did we have a gala time. We started off with the main course and yes, the waiter stared at us for a few moments, but he realized that we have been there quite a few times. So we had their man chatti biriyani, which is our favorite there. It is a nice comfort biriyani stuffed inside a clay pot (they say it is cooked in it, but I have no idea if that is true). Certainly not the best biriyani in town, but for me, it can pass of as biriyani, compared to the various tomato rice versions available. We always get one grilled chicken to go with the order and this time it was the Moroccan grilled chicken. Ok, the real stuff is not like this, but, this chicken is tasty. The koboos served with it is usually pathetic, but at times, it is soft and nice. The boneless mutton grill was super yesterday. With a little bit of the masala still on the surface, it was yummy. And for dessert, we stick to our favorite, the Amazon forest, which is six scoops of ice cream which can (and usually must) be shared. The lamb leg priced at Rs. 900 is not the greatest dish, and if you have never tried it, it might be ok, but after the first time, you get the feeling that your money could get you better dishes in the same restaurant. Other dishes re reasonably priced and the grilled chickens are priced around Rs. 180 to 250.

Service is pretty ordinary and the ambiance joins the service. If you get there on their good days, it is pretty nice and for me, it is comfort eating out food, if there is a category like that.

Flame grill is located just off G N Chetty road, take the road next to murugan idly shop and take the first right, the restaurant is on your left.

Food 8/10
Ambiance 6/10
Service 7/10
Price 7/10

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Taj Clubhouse

2012-01-15T19:53:00.001+05:30

How often has a banquet food impressed you? At least for me, banquet is more of a get together, with very small emphasis on food, even in five star hotels. Banquets at birthday parties, medical conferences, get together etc, none of which have been worth writing about. But yesterday, the banquet at the Taj Clubhouse blew most of the guests. And then people realized that banquet food can and indeed should be good.

The chilly garlic grilled fish was awesome. It was a Chinese Mediterranean fusion I think, but cannot be sure. It was too good for any of us to wonder why it was good and how it was made. The biriyani was certainly not the best in the world, but it was better than most banquets. There was a paneer makha something was a superb vegetarian dish. The dhal makhani was super too. The chocolate mud pie on the picture was superb to finish off the night and just when we thought we had enough, there came a moong dhal halwa from heaven.

Like one person mentioned, it pays to have a different not the same north indian menu for a banquet. It's the first time I was inspired enough to write about a banquet and I hope I get more chances to keep writing about banquets. More food opportunities, the better.

Bread and puffz

2012-01-11T01:03:00.001+05:30

I am not sure about the spelling of this place, but when I read in Chennai food guide that this place serves some kaya, I had to visit it. If you are wondering what I am talking about, then, kaya is a jam, made of pandan leaves, egg, flour among other things and I love it. The first time I had this in Malaysia, I was hooked for life and anytime I hear of it being available here, I try and get my hands and mouth to it. So when we were driving down nungambakkam, I spotted it just opposite Sangeetha veg restaurant and after awkwardly parking my car, we got in to see what they offer.

It is a kaya lovers paradise. They have kaya Swiss roll, kaya puffs, kaya stuffed bun and other stuff like egg pie, muffins, chicken rolls. Apparently most of it was sold out and we picked up one each of every kaya stuff that was available. The kaya bun was super tasty and I simply loved it. The kaya puffs was equally good, while the egg pie was nothing but egg puffs, decent stuff. The kaya Swiss roll was a disappointment as it was dry and did not have enough kaya on it. The buns and rolls were all priced between Rs. 25 and Rs 40.

It's a Malaysian bakery which sells decent stuff and me being a kaya fan, I enjoyed the place. I will be going back whenever I feel like eating kaya. Also, if you don't Iike kaya the first time you eat it, please give it a second chance before giving up on it. Slurppp..........

Food 8/10

Price 9/10

Junsui Lounge, Burj al Arab, Dubai

2012-01-05T12:47:00.001+05:30

When I travel I try and do as much research as possible to find the best places to eat. So when some of my friends and readers were asking me to post those too in chennai foodie, I thought why not and so here were are beginning the year with my eat out at the iconic and the one and only Burj al Arab, Dubai. I am pretty sure everyone has heard about this self proclaimed seven star hotel, but one look inside and you start to wonder if seven stars were enough.Everyone talks about the high tea at here at the lobby restaurant calle Sahn Eddar, but a little bit of probing will tell you that the Junsui, an Asian restaurant is probably their best. The burj itself calls Junsui, its "best kept secret" and so I got myself a reservation here. Remember, you have to have a reservation to enter the property.

The best time to visit will be at around 5 pm. You will be able to we the beautiful palm islands from the 27 th floor of the hotel for which you have a free access, and the view from the Junsui lounge is pretty breathtaking. We got ourselves the lounge package which gives you two snacks and a drink each. The wife ordered a raspberry mocktail and I got myself a berry blast milkshake. We ordered a lamb grill, a beef and potato croquette, a tuna sushi and tempura fried prawns. Except the berry blast milkshake, everything else was brilliant. The prawns were tiger, super size, thinly coated with tempura and tasted perfect. The wife who does not eat prawns went gaga over it. Neither of us are sushi lovers, but we went with it on the recommendation of the waiter and it turned out to be just awesome. The sauces, the wasabi and the sushi together were a super combination. The best dishes were however the beef croquettes and the lamb. Both were brilliant, perfectly cooked and super tender meat. The raspberry mocktail was perfect to wash down the food, but the berry blast milkshake was more banana than any berry and was a let down.

Service was needless to say amazing. Extremely attentive and the slightest look up at someone and you were attended to. The ambiance was super classy, after all it was adorned with Swarovski crystals and apparently the restaurant alone costed them a million dollars, so........

Its the shopping festival now, so if you hit Dubai and you want to visit the Burj al Arab and do not want to spend 350 dirhams per person for the high tea, Junsui lounge is your best bet. As always in a seven star hotel, you are paying for not just the food. The above cost us 370 dirhams for both of us together.

Food 9/10
Service 9.5/10
Ambiance 9.5/10
Price 8/10-

Christmas Specials

2011-12-20T01:24:00.001+05:30

So what's happening in town for Christmas. I contacted my friends in the hotel industry and asked them to tell me if they something happening for Christmas and so here is an update.

My favorite fancy place to eat at is Marriott and they have a special Christmas brunch being a Sunday. The brunch is prices at about 1400 plus taxes and apparently Santa is paying a visit so it could be the place to take your kids as they have a lot of activity for children.

Residency Towers is also having some special works for the kids, can't vouch for it, but I know it is happening. Apparently the menu includes Cajun Grilled Chicken with Jalapenos & Cilantro, Seafood with Balsamic & Spinach, Broccoli with Almonds & Sour Cream, Grilled egg plant stacked with Tomato & Parmesean are some of the delights awaiting you this year. With an extensive Dessert Menu including Chef Special Chocolate Mud Cake, Yule Log, Caramelized Bana Flan, you are bound be asking for more. Also Kids get to meet Santa, get presents with a host of activities like Tattoos, Table Magicians, and Mehendi artists. Now that is quite something.

Donut house is adding a special range of Christmas flavors such as snow white, rum custard and Swiss raspberry and the likes. I love donut house and I hope their specials are as good as their regular flavors. Oreo is my favorite there, Christmas or not.

My all time favorite for Christmas is to hit Blue Diamond and eat there turkey roast. It has been a tradition, something that I love beyond words and everytime we friends go there, everyone loves the turkey roast. My friends will vouch for that and it has become a yearly affair for us. While at it, get the crab in shell, specifically ask for the 'shell' part as that is the one that is brilliant. We also eat their chicken cutlet, special parota and butter chicken and stuff our noses. Stay away from ordering Chinese, or sometimes even the biriyani is hit or miss, but turkey roast and the ones I have mentioned above, is just brilliant. In fact this year CHENNAI FOOD GUIDE is planning to hit the place on 30 th December to join me on my annual feast.

I am sure there is a lot more, I have gathered what I could from friends. The papers should give you more choice. Merry Christmas and see ya after a week

The Crown, Residency Towers

2011-12-16T16:37:00.001+05:30

When I first heard about the crown, some nine years back, my uncle took my family for a dinner. The setting was great, the outdoor deck was unbelievable, but the food was bad and we completely forgot about it. When we were invited by Residency towers to check out Crown, I only then remembered the restaurant and was curious to see what had changed.

So six of us from Chennai food guide landed there to see what was the fuss was all about and we learnt that they have two menus, one for those sitting "under the dome", which was the inside part of the restaurant, and one for those sitting on the deck, which is the rather beautiful area to be sitting in. The new under the dome menu is a fixed three course meal, unlimited portions and rather reasonably priced. As we were settling down, we could not help but notice the rather ordinary cutlery, especially for a place positioning it as a fine dining restaurant. I certainly expected better plates to match the rather pompous palace like setting. The chef joined us and gave us some insight into this new concept of unlimited food over three courses.

The first course came with chicken, galouti kebab and a fish. The minute the galouti kebab went into my mouth, it disappeared into no where. Suddenly the cutlery, the fact that we were sitting inside and not on the deck and just about everything disappeared from my head. It was NIRVANA. Finally I don't have to drive all the way to Great kebab factory to get galouti kebab. It came on top of an equally heavenly bread, I think it was a naan of some sort, but I was in no mood to find out the ingredients. The fish was rather nice and the chicken was pretty good too, but the galouti, OH MY GOD. Needless to say some of us had extra helpings and we could have cared less about the main course that was yet to come.

The Naans were brilliant. They were soft, slightly puffy and extremely tasty. The chicken gravy was very very nice and the mutton roganjosh which the chef apparently makes without tomatoes, was rather interesting. For me the best gravy was the Dhal Makhni, yes, I know it is a vegetarian dish and I am quite a big fan of well done dhal makhni and the chef said that it was cooked over slow heat for more than 24 hours and it showed. I didn't like paneer gravy, but normally you would be tasting only one gravy. The biriyani was quite ordinary and I wouldn't bother mentioning it.

I enjoyed the chocolate cake that was served. It was something between a cake and mousse and I really liked it, some of my friends did not. Priced at 789 for non veg of unlimited kebabs and Naans and gravy of choice, this is a killer. Of course this price is only for the under the dome area and if you are in the deck, it is priced more.

Food 8.5/10
Ambiance 6/10
Price 8/10

The crown is the roof top restaurant at the Residency Towers, T. Nagar.

Nala's Appakadai

2011-12-10T14:12:00.001+05:30

Easily the best appams in town, this joint is needless to say, my favorite too. Last Sunday, we completely pigged out at the Express Avenue mall outlet.

I love their cheese appam. Great fusion and if the chef is in good mood, it will be really cheesy and super tasty. Their egg appams are quite nice and their keema appams are just amazing. Their gravies can be quite inconsistent, but I normally stick to their chicken chettinad or south indian type gravy and usually leave satisfied and my cellphone camera cannot do justice to the photos of the appams. I don't think I will ever they their chilly chicken or other Chinese dishes, but if you have and it is good, I would like to hear.

The combos are quite pricy for the kind of food, but yeah, these days, everything is souped up in price. The combos with two appams and gravy are priced around Rs. 125, the cheese appam at Rs. 48 and the keema appam around Rs 90 ( I think)

Generally my safe bet when in a mall.

Food 9/10
Price 7/10
Ambiance depends on the mall or outlet
Service nothing much to rate as it is mostly self service

Street food walk, Mylapore

2011-12-06T10:39:00.001+05:30

Chennai food guide is organizing a street food walk this December and I was there on day two to sample the authentic tam bram cuisine at its best. Just off the Kapaleeshwar temple in Mylapore, the eateries astounded me.

First stop was at Mami mess, a mess started by a lady and the sons have now made it bigger, but the style and authenticity has not been compromised and neither have the prices gone up too much. We had their traditional Sundal and I loved it. Fellow foodie Raghu gave me his expertise and asked me to stuff the Sundal inside a dosa that we ordered and the combination needs to be patented. We had their kesari, the ghee roast, the vada and the bondas all being done just as it was decades back apparently. And live kitchen, Madras style.

The next stop was at Jannal Kadai, a small eatery operating out of a window, just next to the temple. His chilly kadalai chutney was outstanding. We had kal dosai there, but the bajji that we had was to up to the mark.

Then we went to the legendary Kalathi food stall on East mada road to taste the rose milk they have been serving for 85 years. This stall has been covered in the hindu which he proudly displays if you take a camera with you. The rose milk was brilliant and fellow foodies will agree that it is the best in Chennai. The other side of the stall serves chapati and parota and to me both were not to die for, but decent. But rose milk, I had two and some had three.

The foodies left and my foodie friend from bangalore took me to his favorite stall, a pakoda stall. Fresh pakoda was super tasty and we finished the pakodas that he lovingly bought for his dad.

It was an evening to remember. I am now awaiting the Parrys corner eat out round.

Paprika Brunch,Marriott

2011-12-02T11:37:00.001+05:30

I keep wondering why restaurants keep calling their Sunday lunches as "brunch". I guess it makes the whole thing sound cool. But in the race to get people's attention, almost every fancy place now has a Sunday brunch. While I have been to quite a few of them, for me, Paprika at The Marriott just stands out. And now Paprika has added a totally new dimension to their brunches- street foods. While most places stuff you with continental cuisines, Paprika has turned the focus back to the Indian street food.

While I have written about their Sunday brunch earlier and their astounding 11 live counters, the street food addition has just about added to their theory of constantly upgrading their menu. Courtesy my frequent visits, Chef Amit gave me a Chef Table and guided us through the street foods, which they have attempted to re create in a hygienic environment.

The kuzhi paniyaram with the chilly chutney was one of my favorites. It was nice, ghee filled tasty stuff. The dahi papdi chat was alright, the kancheepuram idly was a kicker. I have never had this idly before and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but the fried idly was super nice too. The idly with podi disappointed me and I told the chef that the podi should be served with ghee for those who prefer the traditional way and he seemed to accept it. The Bombay sandwich that came next was super for me. Again, I have never had it in Bombay to compare but it was nice. The pav bhaji and the vada pav were both just alright, the tangy street food taste was missing.

The rest of the buffet was just brilliant. Like I have mentioned before, their cheese selection is quite extensive and their cold cuts are among the best in Chennai. Get to their omelette counter and you re spoilt for choice. I asked the chef to get me an omelette with chicken and cheese and he loaded it with cheese and I felt guilty, but it tasted so good that the guilt melted away along withe the cheese. The pizza counter is nice and you can get your custom made pizza and I also enjoyed their keema dosa in yet another live counter.

The restaurant is happy to let you sit from 12 noon to 4 in the evening and that is exactly what I did. So yeah, four hours of eating,but hey this is the Sunday brunch and you are supposed to be discussing the entire week's eating out and plan for the next week if you like, so it is about just relaxing your Sunday off. Priced at 1250,it is not exactly cheap,but it certainly is the best Sunday brunch in Chennai city for me.

Food 9/10
Ambiance 9/10
Service 9/10
Ambiance 9/10

Azulia,GRT

2011-11-25T11:17:00.001+05:30

Chennai food guide has really come a long way. What started off in 2004 as an orkut community grew slowly and when i joined in 2006, we used to have meetings in small places which offered us discounts. Casa picola used to be a regular meeting place for the CFG meets. Today, the likes of Tuscana and now Azulia from GRT call us over to test their foods. CFG has also played a huge role in the growth of my blog to where it is today. When we met today at the invitation of Azulia, Ali, Nishant and myself, the only old members from the original community were reminding ourselves of our old days in cfg and how we now have so many new people on board writing reviews and promoting the food blogs.

Azulia is one of my favorite eat outs in chennai. They used to have a lebanese chef and now they have a Turkish chef and authenticity is not compromised on and the tweaks are very minimal. They are careful about the choice of ingredients and source them from abroad. Chef Aetham guided us to a choice of starters and we went through all of them with ease. I love the hummus here, it is just perfect and the pita bread they serve here is not artificially puffed, but more authentic. The cold starters were quite pleasing, while the hot ones were just as good. My favorite was the star shaped spinach stuffed stuff, the cigar rolled mutton stuff and the pita with hummus and hung curd. The pizza that was served was also pretty good.

Since we were about ten of us, we got to taste quite a few dishes for main course. I believe that the grilled prawns that I was served was the best of the lot, hands down. The potato based pasta that was served with it was quite ordinary, but the prawns per se were brilliant. The lamb chops was another good stuff where it was done right, at least the two pieces that came out right, while the fish was ok. I believe the vegetarians had a good time too with their stuff, but I was too busy eating meat to notice.

The Turkish baklava was very nice, it is more oily than its Lebanese counterpart, but was very nice. The cheesecake was ok, while the chocolate lava cake was too chocolaty for me. I would stick to the baklava for dessert here. The passion fruit gellato that was served between starters and main course is worth more than a mention too.

I would leave most of my order to the waiters here. They are well trained, have Good knowledge of the menu and you can always call the chef or the manager to help with your order, I have not mentioned the names of the dishes here because I am not sure I remember them and quite certain that you will not remember them when you decide to visit Azulia. Just call the guys, tell them your choice of meat and what kind of taste you like and they will whip up some super dishes. The chef will let you sample some of the mediterranean spices and you can get something with those spices if you like.

Azulia is fine dining (read expensive) place and you have to get there with an open mind. If you are looking for tandoori chicken and dosa and expect to find similar taste, you will be disappointed. It is an experience of getting to taste foods and favors from ten different mediterranean countries and a good one at that.

Food 8.5/10
Ambiance 9/10
Service 9/10
Price 8/10

Hard Rock Cafe, Bangalore

2011-11-21T15:37:00.001+05:30

This time when I went to bangalore, I prayed to god to not miss hard rock cafe. I have been wanting to eat here and the last few visits to bangalore did not give me a chance to do so. My prayers were answered when my bro in law decided to take me there for dinner.

I loved the ambiance straight away. There is a noisy part of the restaurant and a quieter part and both are full of flavor, superbly done. I was warned that the portions are huge here, typical of American sizes and so we went straight to the main course. We got ourselves one beef burger with caramelized onions and one jerk chicken steak. We chatted away with the the order of a berry mocktail, the name of which I forgot. The drink was super and the next few minutes were nirvana for me. Finally a super burger and unfortunately it was outside of chennai. It was huge, juicy, tasty and well done. The Jamaican jerk chicken steak was very nice but not something you have to travel to bangalore to get, but the burger certainly was.

"We are coming to Chennai in March" announced the waiter when he learnt I was from Chennai and that made my day.

Service was very friendly and quick. Prices are quite steep as the above three dishes cost us Rs. 1450

Food 9/10
Ambiance 9/10
Service 9/10
Price 7/10

Kumarakom

2011-11-17T23:25:00.001+05:30

Continuing on my Kerala food journey in thrissur and Cochin where I had to travel for work, the wife and me decided to test Mallu cuisine in Chennai. And what better way than to compare the two, when I just landed back home. So we headed to Kumarakom on Valluvar kottam high road and settled in pretty late.

The waiter came for our order and made it clear that kitchen was closing soon and we had to place order at this point for our whole meal including desserts. We obliged and ordered two plain appams, two egg appams and a gravy. "Saru, each person naalu appam kalichka koodum. Rendu seri illa" he said. So we increased the plain appams to six and ordered a puttu to go with it. "puttuku kadala curry best gom- bination" he declared and ordered it on our behalf. We just smiled to ourselves, got one karimeen polichadhu and waited for our order.

The meal was pleasant. The appams were perfect, the egg appams were very nice, the karimeen polichadhu with its banana lead wrapping and the gravies, chicken stew and kadala curry were all just complimentary to each other. Well, he exaggerated with the number of appams we could eat, but well, when the wife does not finish it, chennai foodie has to step into the glutton role and needless to say, filled the role to perfection. Ada payasam was the fitting dessert for the sumptuous meal.

People have said that Kumarakom has lost its charm, but I am dining here after a very long time and I enjoyed the meal. Service was pleasant, and the ambiance was ok. The whole meal cost us Rs. 576 which is a steal. The karimeen polichadhu was Rs. 200 so the basic stuff is very reasonably priced. Do stay away from fried rice and the likes, stick to their specialty and I believe you will be safe.

Food 8.5/10
Service 7/10
Ambiance 7/10
Price 9/10

I went to the outlet near the Spring hotel on Valluvar kottam high road, take the left soon after The Park hotel.

Corner House, Bangalore

2011-11-14T17:45:00.001+05:30

I have shuttling between Bangalore and Chennai a little too much for my liking. But on the upside, I had the chance to sample some great food at Bangalore. So while a bangalore foodie is way too far off for now, I guess if you are one of those traveling to Bangalore, Corner House is a must visit.

I am not sure about other stuff, but Death by Chocolate is something that you must try. It has some chocolate cake, some brownie, chocolate sauce, more chocolate sauce and I think it also has Willi Wonka chocolate factory inside it topped with generous amounts of nuts. It is one hell of a dessert and is aptly named. So if you step by in Bangalore.........

Not very clear about the anatomy of bangalore, but I had it twice, one on MG road and once at Marathali. I was told that they have quite a few branches in Bangalore

Jaawaid's Kebabs and Kurries

2011-11-07T16:55:00.000+05:30

We (two of us) were scouting around for a place to eat last Friday night and as we were driving down Wallace gardens, we spotted a place calling itself Jaawaids kebabs and kurries. We walked into an empty restaurant and were told that they had just opened up last week and they specialize in kebabs from north India, especially Kashmir. So we went in an made small talk with the promoters of the place and the chef and we were suggested a platter like thing called some wazi something, which apparently has kebabs, two curries, a starter and a dessert and is fit for four people. We were told that a half platter will be served for us.

We decided to try it out and a platter being a good way to try out a place's variety, we went with it. The starter that came out was exquisite. I think it had cheese on it, but the chef would not give away even a whiff of his recipe and for good reason, the kebab was super. Then we saw the platter and it was by no means for two people. When a couple of friends driving by called me to see if I could join for dinner, I called them over and so we were three, yes, you read right, one guy turned vegetarian that night. And we set out to eat the kebabs in the platter. The first one, a lamb chop was pathetic. It was flavorless and very poorly done, but I was informed that this was their hot selling item on the menu. Wonder what happened to my taste buds. The next set of three lamb kebabs were very average. We left over half the food on the platter, except for the chicken kebab which was very juicy. A humongous quantity of rice was served on the platter with two gravies, both of which were decent, but somehow so much of rice with gravy was not very enticing, I would have preferred indian breads.

The desserts were amazing. The phirni was very nice, the badam kheer was super and the Khubani meeta was equally nice. We were the only ones in the restaurant and the promoters were there, so I cannot comment on the service, ambiance was decent. I told them that the lambs ( which constituted more than half of the platter) was certainly not enjoyed by us. The bill shocked us even more. The platter was priced at Rs. 3000, so if you are offered something that is not on the menu, please ask for the price. I made the big mistake of not asking the price but to put things in perspective, I was given a platter of 20 kebabs at marriott, which was not on the menu and was charged Rs. 2499. The menu price of desserts were priced at rs. 110, the kebabs at around rs. 300, and curries at rs. 300, whichever way you add up, it will not reach 3 grand. So...even the wonderful dessert we had started to feel sour in the stomach and we went out not having enjoyed the meal and feeling ripped off especially after we left more than half of the food not because we could not finish it but because we did not like it. We went to subway and got ourselves a sub to fill it up the void that the evening created. The two friends said they were not planning to come back here.

The place has potential and let us hope we get good Kashmir cuisine sooner than later. In an area in Chennai where the likes of Tuscana have set shop and Tuscana will not charge you for a pizza if you do not like it and if you leave the pizza behind, Jaawaids has a long way to go in making sure that the customers come back. They probably need to learn to price things right when it is off the menu and learn to take feedback at their cost. I really think that the prices on the menu were alright, but off the menu, it was a rip off! Totally!

Food 5/10, 8/10 for the starter and desserts.
Ambiance 7/10
Price 5/10

Jaawaids kebabs and Kurries is opp the Subway, Nungambakkam.

Thalapakatti

2011-10-31T16:47:00.001+05:30

It's been a week since I updated the blog due to me not eating out as often due to various silly reasons. Thalapakatti has been around for quite sometime now and somehow I have never been there. Last Saturday, two of my friends had a strong urge to eat there and having never been there and a new place to write about was enough reason for me to join them.

So rather than ordering Chinese and complaining about it, we stuck to their specialities. For starters, we asked for a pepper chicken fry, a karandi omelette, kolu urundai and fried fish for starters. Tiny cannot define the quantity. My friend even joked that the length of the plate was only as long as his index finger and asked me to shoot a picture as proof too. But the food was decent I must say. The karandi omelette was tiny, but quite nice. The kolu urundai (i think it was kollu urundai or some urundai, but there was only one urundai on the menu) plate had only three pieces and was decent again, while the chicken fry was, yes, decent.the fish though was very good and one more was ordered.

For the main course, We had some appams with chicken gravy, a bannu parota and mutton biriyani. The bannu parota priced at Rs. 80 was great value for money. It was quite filling and tasty and was totally worth it. The biriyani was not how I like my biriyani, but it tasted good, just not biriyani enough for me. The appams were ok, not the perfect ones you get at Nallas.

Service was ok,the ambiance was ok and the overall the meal was nice. The bill for the above was around Rs. 1300 so it was not overtly expensive, but yeah, the portions are small.

We did not eat desserts, but went to Baskin Robbins to get them, but that is a different story.

Food 7/10
Ambiance 7/10
Service 7/10
Price 8/10

We went to the one opp The Park in Nungambakkam.

Burgundy

2011-10-24T06:58:00.001+05:30

The day finally arrived. I got a message from Ali, the ubiquitous chief of CFG, informing the invite from Vipin to check out Burgandy. With a few friends already having tried the place and giving me the feeling that I was missing something in life by not having been there yet, I was really looking forward to the lunch.

By the time I landed, everyone else was settled in with Vipin (for those who don't know what I am talking about, he is the owner of Burgandy and Tuscana and Kryptos and the Subways in Chennai), at the center and being his usual entertaining self. Looked like I was not the only one who was dying to get here.

The ambiance is beautiful to say the least, but I was dying to get to the food. Starters came and we had some great kebabs. The chicken kebab was juicy and tasty, the paneer was outstanding and the other starter for the day was also great. Starters are served on the table along with the pizzas, so you can warm up before walking to the buffet. Talking of pizzas, I love the ones at Tuscana and this group has really mastered the art of pizza making and burgundy is no different. After hearing and learning something from Vipin, we headed out to the buffet. The buffet here is unique in its layout, no staffing dishes, no cold food and waiting for hot ones to arrive. The layout is such that food is kept in small quantities and keeps arriving hot right from the counter behind, so if you want small changes, they are more than happy to make. Kudos to this.

For the first round, I had what looked like a Spanish omelette, a portion of stuffed chicken and a beef cutlet in red sauce. I gorged on the beef as it was super tasty, but after one bite, I could not take in the omelette anymore. Same story with the stuffed chicken. As much as I did not want to, I wasted my first plate entirely. Second round, I got myself some indian curries and dhal makhani and some nice naans were served on the table. This time was better than the first round, but not outstanding. Being still hungry, I got myself some cold dishes out of which the prawns were excellent, the cold sandwich was nice and the hummus and baba ganoush with the pita bread were decent stuff. I was washing down the food with an excellent mocktail, I cannot recall the name, but it was litchis with cranberry juice. There is a huge dessert spread and I tried a little bit of everything on the dessert and I thought that the mango soufflé was decent, but other wise they were a typical "we have it all dessert.

Obviously with Vipin around, there is no way to judge service, but this group sets very high standards for service. Vipin took us to the kitchen and I realized how he had the guts to take his customers there. Generally if you visit a restaurant kitchen, you might quit eating out all together, but this is one of the most hygienic and top end kitchens you might ever get to see.

The menu changes for every meal and being a huge buffet, you will certainly find a few dishes that you will really like. I enjoyed the starters and the pizzas and if you eat a pizza and a few starters, you have got your money's worth. A five star buffet being priced at Rs. 750 nett, is great value for money, especially if you start counting how many non veg is on the buffet, but though the food is good, for me the "wow" factor that get even today at Tuscana was missing. I am planning to get back and try a-la-carte.

Food 7/10
Ambiance 9/10
Price 8/10

Burgandy is the all day dining (almost), at Somerset greenways, at MRC nagar.

5 Senses

2011-10-17T16:38:00.001+05:30

People have been talking about five senses for a while now and I have been wanting to see what the big deal was. When I had to meet an old friend and a new one, we decided to check out five senses.

The ambiance is just brilliant. It reminded me of a hotel in Barcelona, except that resto was sea facing. The outdoor seating area was very eclectic and extremely well done. It also doubles up as their performance area at night I was told by the waiter. The menu is very interesting and it talks about traveling and has the dishes by the side. Generally well done with the interiors and gimmicks.

We ordered a cold mezze platter and a pizza for starters. The hummus was pretty nice, but certainly not the best in town. The baba ganoush was actually very nice and the hung curd made up the trio. However I loved their pita bread, really soft with the pocket and baked to perfection. The chicken pizza with paprika and feta was quite awesome, it looked like wood fire baked pizza but apparently it is not. It was quite close to the pizza at Tuscana and that is my favorite pizza joint.

I had a grilled prawn Mille something which was the best dish of the afternoon. It was an amazing dish served wit polenta and it was just finger licking good. The red paste on the prawn was heavenly and I would have preferred herbed rice as I don't like polenta, but it was quite a dish. My friend ordered a lamb pepperoni sandwich ( which is in a separate menu and served between 4 and 7 pm and we were there at 345) the sandwich was quite nice, served with baked potatoes and coleslaw. But I wonder how many will eat a sandwich for Rs. 300 between 4 and 7 pm?!?!? For dessert we shared a chai baked yogurt which was very different and I kind of liked it.

The food is pre plated, so if you try sharing, you will probably feel that the quantity is too little. This is a fine dining place and the main course, though looks small, will be just right for one person. Service is polite and attentive. Prices are quite high, with the main courses being priced around 500, but yeah this is fine dining and is expected. Let's hope they re able to maintain this quality though I am not too sure if the market for fine dining exists outside of star hotels in chennai. Apparently they have some live event going on every night.

Food 8/10
Service 9/10
Ambiance 9/10
Price 7/10

5 senses is on khader nawaz khan road, Nungambakkam.

Blitz Cafe

2011-10-14T16:49:00.001+05:30

We noticed a rather new place near Valluvar Kottam which had the three names and all names sounded like restaurants. We ventured inside and was told that one is a multicuisine restaurant, another is a coffee shop and the third yet to opened will be a barbecue joint.

We stepped into the coffee shop on the first floor called Blitz Cafe to some very funky interiors. Then my friend said that there are two other Blitz cafes and he heard that they were good. So we just decided to try the place.

We ordered just two from the menu, one honey mustn't grilled chicken sandwich and one Blitz chocolate dessert. The sandwich priced at Rs. 140 was small for its price, but very tasty. It was served with fries and a coleslaw and was a nice deal. The chocolate cake with ice cream was tasty, but nothing out standing.

The service was quick, but quality wise they are still finding their foot I suppose. The restaurant below seems to have been built for the hookah crowd, but after the ban, I wonder what they are going to do. The BBQ joint is yet to open. I would probably go back later and check out other stuff on the menu.

Food 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Service 7/10
Price 7/10

Blitz cafe is near Valluvar Kottam, when coming from Kodambakkam, take the left just before Valluvar Kottam and our will see it straight ahead.

Desserts at Hyatt Lobby

2011-10-10T04:00:00.000+05:30

So, the dessert pang hit us again at 1230 am and we decided to hit Hyatt this time and see how the coffee shop there is. Having not had lunch and dinner we were looking forward to our dessert. After not being impressed by the dessert spread in Spice at Rs. 750 per head, we headed to the lobby coffee shop and settled down to some superb seating.

I was startled to see "sacher torte" on the menu. I asked the waiter if this is the original sacher torte and he said it was. I told him that the sacher torte is a trademark used by the sacher hotel and the torte is quite something. He said the chef makes a great sacher torte and it could be better than the original. So I decided to have that, while the wife asked for a cheese cake with blueberry sauce. What was served to me was not sacher torte, period, maybe if it was not called the sacher torte, I might have liked it slightly more, but I was not in the mood for a hard cake and really wanted something soft and it was not what it is supposed to be. I am trying to look up if anyone can use the sacher torte name these days and the original sacher torte at Salszburg and Vienna is quite a wonderful cake while this one was a hard chocolate cake. The cheese cake was decent, a little too soggy for my liking, but was ok. Both were priced at Rs. 275 each and I was told that both were made fresh so it is priced five star and not more.

And then we ordered the best drink on earth. It was odorless tasteless and just brilliant. It is not without reason that it is called WATER. Just that the packaged water was priced at Rs.250. I know that water is expensive in fancy places, but the bill just shocked us. That too I was not even offered a choice of regular or mineral water. But anyway, the dessert evening was not really a great one. I was told that the buffet at Spice at 999 is really nice and I would like to check that out.

The ambiance here is quite something and service is nice and friendly, but the lobby is probably not where you should be getting some quick desserts.

Dessert 6/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 9/10
Price (excluding water) 8/10

Hyatt is on Mount road.

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Sparky's Friday Buffet

2011-10-06T16:42:00.001+05:30

Sparky's is among the few multi cuisine places in Chennai which does not serve north indian, south indian, Chinese and the likes, but serves multi cuisine from another part of the world. A place where every cuisine is Americanized. A place where some of my friends from abroad are at home eating Americanized pizzas and the likes. The friday night buffet here is quite something. There are soooooo many options and invariably five dishes are great and at Rs. 350, it is a steal

So last friday night, a cousin of mine who can out eat man vs food and put an elephant to shame and me decided to put out our burger fire which has been burning for a while now. We reserved a table as Friday can get super crowded with waiting times exceeding thirty minutes.

We started off with the burgers, you actually have to make your own burger here and I got a nice fresh bread, stuffed it with a nice beef patty, some coleslaw, a piece or two of lettuce and mayo inside the poor bun and the result is what you see in the picture. I got myself another bread, this time, the long one and stuffed it with sloppy joe, which I am a sucker for. The sloppy joe here is invariably good and one that I almost always get three helpings off. For his first round,he had hotdog, burger, burger and one more hotdog, yes, you read right, all that was first round for him. For my second round, I usually have the bourbon street sauce with the boiled chicken and pasta and this is the place where sparkys is inconsistent, but that night the sauce was great and I totally enjoyed it. The third round was another round of sloppy joe and a corn cob with chicken balls. I decided to skip the baked food that night as the sloppy joe was just too good.

There is so much food that you can mix and match your favorites and it is usually very difficult to taste all. I have no idea what all my cousin ate but we were both stuffed to the nose and skipped dessert.

Nothing much to talk of service in a buffet, but I love the fact that you can get bottomless tea or lemonade and actually refill with it with the other, no fuss made.

Food 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Service 8/10
Price 9/10

Sparkys is just ahead of the Egmore subway, opp Palimar.

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Coffee shop at GRT

2011-09-30T16:29:00.001+05:30

We were out late night and then realized that we had not had dinner and there was no dinner at home. Not too many options out of five star hotels at. 11 in the night, so we stepped into GRT's coffee shop to get a bite and what a bite it turned out to be.

We ordered just two dishes, a grilled fish and a open faced steak burger. The grilled fish was a perfectly marinated and it just melted in my mouth, while the burger, well, I asked for it open faced so it turned out to be a beef steak and it was super. The beef was exactly how I asked for which was medium done and the bread it was served with was just as awesome. The fish was priced at Rs. 500 and the steak at Rs. 300, it is not exactly cheap, but we are talking of a star hotel, so.....

Nothing special to talk about the ambiance or the service....

Food 9/10
Service 8/10
Price 8/10
Ambiance 8/10

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Moon rakers

2011-09-27T12:51:00.001+05:30

"I went to a place called Moon rakers in Mahabs on my way back from Pondy, the place and food was horrible". "Oh really? What did you order there?" "I ordered a pasta and one lasagna and my friend ordered a chicken fry and food was very average".

This was a conversation I had with my colleague and you can imagine who said what. I have no idea why moon rakers has those things on the menu, but if you do not know what to eat here, then you will be disappointed and you will be missing something in life. This is a place you ask for your seafood to be grilled with the house masala and served with either rice or parota. Your seafood of choice can be a lobster, a tiger or jumbo prawn, a full red snapper fish or a crab. If that variety is not enough, you may add a fried calamari to your order and maybe a chicken dish to add more variety, but if you try ordering Italian, then God save you. Fancy restaurants have the"catch of the day", but here it is "what all I caught today".

My wife and me were there a day before my colleague went there and we both were super satisfied. We got ourselves a small red snapper and one portion of two jumbo prawns grilled with the house masala and both were brilliant. This place is among the few places I enjoy eating fish and I wish it was closer home. The prawns were super sized and I enjoy the experience of eating jumbo prawn that is not shelved, so you have to break the shell and bring out every bit of meat. I am not a big fan of crab, but the crabs and lobster here can sometimes be equally good. The fried calamari (squids) are a general time pass if we are a group, but that day, we had just the two with a portion of fried rice and two parotas.

You can actually bargain on the catches of the day. The waiter will usually settle for 75% of the price he quotes initially, but if he says that he cannot give it you cheaper and walks away, then settle for that price, cos it is worth it. Some groups come in and choose the biggest fish he brings, but avoid that as the flavor will not seep in well enough and you will have some ungarnished fish to deal with, so go with the fish priced to a max of Rs. 400. Just ask for the house masala and wait for your seafood to arrive and then it is bliss. Same with the lobster, instead of picking the biggest lobster, ask for a lobster weighing between 500 and 900 grams, they are the tastiest. Service is shabby and "local", but there is no service tax, while the ambiance is non existent.

I keep going there quite often........

Food 9/10
Service 6/10
Ambiance 6/10
Price 8/10

Moon rakers is in Mahabs, when you go from Chennai, the first big left after you enter Mahabs called Otha Vada Street, is the one which has moon rakers and their parking space is diagonally opposite the restaurant.

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Fusion 9

2011-09-22T17:01:00.001+05:30

The Chennai Food Guide met up again and this time it was at Fusion 9 inside the Quality Inn premises. I really like this restaurant and I was glad the group met here as I could try more from the menu when the group is large. The starters super, the first one we had was some Iranian joojoobe kebab, I have no idea how it is spelt, and if it is really from Iran, but who cares? It was a simply superb kebab. I made sure I ordered a guloti kebab, which is my all time favorite and is best at the Great kebab factory, but here it is pretty decent, I just don't understand why it is not served in the traditional large roti but served in small cut parathas here. But it is very nice here and I could not care less and ordered some roti to roll it in. The sushi was very nice, but since I had some fantastic sushi at the Hilton the previous evening, I could not help but compare and Hilton was better.

For the main course, I got to taste their jumbo prawns, priced at Rs. 600, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The prawns were marinated well, were of decent size and the portion was large with some rice and gravy with it too. The Arabian platter is a monstrous dish, which has some lamb chops, chicken tikka and quite a lot more. Our version of Man vs food ordered a beef steak medium done and it was pretty decent. Another friend ordered a potato main course, the name of which I forgot and if I ever turn vegetarian, I would eat that everyday.

The desserts were a disappointment for most part. The caramel custard was ok, the tiramisu was pretty bad and the muffins were very ordinary. The only saviour was the age old brownie with ice cream which was actually very good.

Usually when we meet for a CFG event, the owner or a senior management person is with us and we learn something and they give us some insights, but no one was here, so it was a little different this time around. But on the whole, it was a nice lunch.

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Vasco's, Hilton

2011-09-19T12:19:00.001+05:30

After Marriott, this time it was Hilton which invited me to check out their restaurants, and incidentally, I had just written about my night at the Q Bar on the roof. Why would anyone decline an invite from Hilton to eat out, even if you have just been there, so I took the offer to test their 'journey' as they call it at their all day dining, Vasco's.

It is a nice and very well set up restaurant and a near perfect all day dining buffet as far as the set up goes. The executive sous chef, Neeraj, walked me around all their counters and I was impressed at the spread of the buffet at the look of it. They have a Madras table with loads of different Grandma time spices, where they show off the Indian spices to their western clients, kudos to that concept. We decided to skip the soup and went head on to the starters, and realized there were only two each of non veg and veg, but both, of them were outstanding- one was a superb grilled fish and the other a chicken kebab. Next we decided to check out their sushi, and I only eat ones made of salmon, so I got myself a salmon sushi and though veg sushi is a gimmick, I decided to eat one of that too. The sushi was brilliant, so as an extension, I had a smoked salmon sashimi too and enjoyed that. The wasabi (if you have no idea about what that small green stuff on your sushi plate is, then don't eat it) was perfect. It super duper pungent as it should be and in a couple of minutes after clearing out your sinus (and in larger quantity your brain too), it fades off as if nothing happened.

But the main course on that day was a disappointment. Apparently the main courses change everyday, so we were unlucky that night. Everything on the main course was so so and even the live pasta counter was made for the Italians. However you can ask your chef to whip up something for you at no extra cost (yes, even if you were not invited), and he gladly came up with a stif fry chicken with cashews and a Thai red curry that was straight from Thailand, it was just great. If you are around, ask for it and you will not be disappointed. The salad bar lets you play chef and you can make your own salads or ask for what you want and the chef will toss it up for you.

Desserts were just like it is in any such buffet, a huge spread of decent cakes and ice cream but with the addition of a live ice cream counter and a crepe counter. The chef whipped up a brilliant mix of ice creams and nuts for me which I totally enjoyed, but otherwise it was the usual fare for dessert.

The night reinforced my view of Hilton as a business class hotel, a place you head to when the occasion is more important than the food. At 1300 plus tax which will set you back by around 1.5k, it is a great place to take your business friends and impress them with the multiple live counters et all or throw a party.......I would probably not go here for a one off dinner as there are better places to spend 3k for a dinner night. If Hilton is your choice, then the coffee shop at the lobby level called Est, is where you will be glad to spend time over coffee and they have some nice omelets and sandwiches and the likes.

Food 8/10
Ambiance 9/10
Price 7/10

Hilton is near Kathipara junction.

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Q Bar, Hilton

2011-09-15T21:26:00.001+05:30

A special occasion arrived and the choice was Hilton, as we have never been there before and you expect to hit Hilton only on such occasions, so.... After getting there, we scouted around for the best place to eat and in an extremely wonderful gesture, the FB manager took us to all their restaurants, and we finally zeroed in on Q Bar, the roof top, pool side cabana restaurant. The ambiance is brilliant, with individual cabanas, the poolside and a resident DJ playing some nice music.

The menu is very limited, maybe a maximum of twenty dishes on it and most of them being grilled. We settled for a mocktail, a chicken schwarma and a grilled seer fish. The mocktail was decent, just the usual mix of blue curaco and a soft drink. The chicken schwarma was decent, but certainly not out of theworld, but quite filling. The price of Rs. 750 justifies the ambiance and the relatively big schwarma, but not the taste. The seer fish grill was good in parts and some portions tasted bad, but a majority tasted nice and was priced at Rs. 650. A very different parota was served with the fish and it tasted very nice. The hummus served with the schwarma and the chutney with the fish were passable.

Very few options for dessert, so we went down to the 24 hour coffee shop and had a super nice mango cake. Service was attentive but as you are in your own cabana getting their attention can be a little tricky. As the name suggests, It's a great place to have drink and some sides, but not as a complete dinner. You pay for the ambiance and the focus is on the drinks I guess, so it's great place to have a party or even a quite night with that someone special over wine, or take your business friends, where the focus is on the evening and not on the food.

Food 7/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 9.5/10
Price 8/10

Q bar is at the Hilton, Chennai on 100 feet road, near kathipara.

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Crimson Chakra

2011-09-12T14:11:00.001+05:30

Long before Chennai foodie kicked off, there was an active community on orkut called the Chennai food guide, which was a fiercely moderated community with a battalion of moderators (including yours truly), and was the base of my blog. Though we meet at launches, the group kind of melted away and with the brutal murder of Orkut, the old bunch was not actively a part of the facebook group. Last Monday was a kind of a revival with an official CFG meet although with a lot of new members and very few old ones at Crimson Chakra at the launch of their South Indian menu. And at the end of the meal, we only remembered the restaurant and not CFG.

We were introduced to at least ten different starters and I had mostly non veg (yeah right), and some of them were superbly done. The fish grill for example was a masterpiece and this is coming from a non fish lover. I am not sure if tandoori chicken is south Indian, but that night I could not have cared less. There was an Andhra chicken which was beautifully spiced. The others were all good, but the above three stuck in my head.

The appams with the mutton stew was a kicker in the main course, followed by the chicken gravy with the appams. I was not very impressed with their idiyappams that night, but there is something special called the smoked rice, which looks like a biriyani and if you expect to taste biriyani, then you will complain that the rice is well, smoked, but that is one unique dish and something I have not had here in a while and that night it was just great. Do not miss the iced tea here, it has cinnamon, apple, tea, lemon grass, (not sure if there is some chicken in it too) and is the best one in town, simply superb. I initially ordered the lemonade and it was too cinnamony for me and I would not bother ordering even water, now that I have tasted the tea.

The deserts here are from a different world, and the owner accepts that he never tried to create an authentic dish, but wanted a nice name and a great dessert, never mind if the name matches the dessert. One such dish is the mud pie, created by chef Anand of Cornucopia. I have not had the cornucopia menu here in a long time except the mud pie and I will report back once I try more, but for now let us talk about another wonderful dessert called the mango cheese cake. It's the next best cheese cake to the one I had the opportunity of gulping down at Black Forest Germany and easily the best in town. My friends were raving about the elaneer soufflé but it was good but not outstanding for me.

Service has always been good. You can have your table in the middle of the pool if it does not rain and that is a totally unique experience. For the hopelessly romantic souls, there is a private candle room and for 3999 per couple, you can have the room to yourself with a million candles and everything on the menu and a private waiter who will only come when you call him. If you are not with anyone romance able, then romance the mango cheese cake and the iced tea along with some appams.

Food 8.5/10
Iced tea and mango cheese cake 9.5/10
Ambiance 9/10
Service 8/10
Price 8/10

Crimson Chakra is in adyar, down the road from the Gandhi Nagar club

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Supper Club at Ashvita - Chapter 1

2011-09-05T17:17:00.001+05:30

I was excited to hear about a supper club in Chennai.....Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and other places worth their salt have one and Chennai did not have one thus far, so it was pretty exciting. It has been conceptualized well with a theme and a guest cook for the night and the food being very high quality and authentic as defined by the cook and not meant to please the crowd, so the invites are restricted to thirty every week. There is no fixed price as the theme and the ingredients will decide that but it will be priced upmarket usually in the four figure per person range.

So here we were, being invited for the first chapter of the supper club. The ambiance at the new Ashvita is very good, supper club night or not, so it's a great place to chill out and network as it is a very important part of the club. We had live music by two guitarists and they were not disco style, but sober to set the tone for the night.

We were first served blue cheese soup, which was slightly salty and the salt was not from the cheese, but I totally enjoyed it. The starters arrived and the first one, the cherry tomato was yum. There was a bacon version of which I did not eat, but it was reported to be yum too. The lamb balls were just as yum. The next set were not as impressive, like the shrimp on cucumber and others were quite average. The cheese cake was very different, not great, not bad, but very different so it was nice to taste a different version, it was too soft for me and I was wondering if it would melt before it went in. However the last one, the salmon, was very impressive and that concluded the starters. Portions are bite sized, but there is no limit to how many you can ask for.

The main course had multiple options, the eggplant bake, the sherry prawns, the pesto pasta, the grilled chicken and the pork chops. The pasta was so very bland and very dry that I could have sworn that we were in Italy. The egg plant was also not very impressive, the sherry pasta was alright and the chicken was not great. But those who had the pork chops could not stop raving about it,so that was the only bright spot on the main course. But the buns with herbed butter that were served with the main courses were probably made in heaven, they were soft, tasty, right amount of butter and just perfect.

The two desserts were outstanding, the first one which was a pecan bake and it just blew my mind, totally blew it. The banana dessert, the name of which I forgot was very good and was a good end to the meal.

Overall it is a great concept and if you want to be assured of a particular taste every time, then this is not the place for you. This is a place for foodies,who are willing to try out different stuff, you meet like minded people, you network and you sit back and enjoy some music and taste what the cook has in store for you knowing fully well that everything will be unique but not necessarily to your taste.

I am not going to rate the food or service as there is not much of a service and the food will be different every time, but for the experience I would give it 8/10 and I am glad we have a supper club in town and Chennai could do with a few more. I was told that the next chapter is vegetarian ...........

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Moti Mahal Deluxe

2011-09-02T10:28:00.001+05:30

A friend of mine suggested that we try out Moti Mahal and so we headed there on a Saturday night, only to be astounded by the quality of the crowd and the ambiance and the waiting time. We arrived the at 930 and were told that it would take them half hour to seat us, but luckily it was time to leave for most families and we were seated in 10 minutes. The cars outside were swanky and I spotted people getting into at least two Beemers and an Audi in that almost minuscule parking spot, and I spotted a black Jaguar there......

The problem was my expectation, I went in expecting a small nice eat out it but landed up going to an upmarket space with a very simple but elegant interior,and I was not even dressed for the place at least for that Saturday evening crowd. The menu arrived and the first starter was priced at Rs. 750, but we spotted half portions for most of the starters and they were priced at around 260 each. We settled for a chicken achari, a jeera pulao, a dhal makhani and a garlic naan. As the food arrived, the price just evaporated from our minds as the food was outstanding. The chicken achari was grilled to perfection and it remained juicy and it had seven pieces, so a half portion was just right for the two of us. The jeera pulao matched perfectly with the dhal makhani, and the garlic naan was just perfect. The quantity is impressive and was sufficient for the two of us. We asked for a kulfi to be shared and it was decent, not great.

Service was impressive. They had issues with us shooting pictures, but after I explained about chennai foodie, I was eventually allowed to shoot photos of their food. That was a surprise as I have never met that resistance anywhere thus far. Ambiance is classy and the pricing, though was higher than we expected before landing here, did not leave us sulking as the food was outstanding. A meal for two will cost you around Rs. 1300 for non veg.

Easily the best stand alone Indian restaurant in Chennai.

Food 9/10
Service 9/10
Ambiance 8.5/10
Price 8/10

Moti mahal is located on Jaganathan street, right next to Lister metropolis in Nungambakkam.

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La Shakahari

2011-08-30T10:19:00.001+05:30

I was asked to review la Shakahari quite some back, but I kept postponing it to accommodate my other invited reviews, some of which were time bound. Also, let's be honest, a pure veg eat restaurant was not on my priority list. When I finally landed there on a short notice with a fellow foodie,we were rather remorseful that we did not give the place the importance it deserves.

Very nicely done interior in an upmarket but quiet space just off Haddows road, the restaurant is quite inviting. The menu is round in shape and tries to portray a multiple cuisine picture. A third friend joined us and we got ourselves a kebab platter to have a taste of all kebabs. What came out was an excellent platter that was just right in every sense. The paneer tikka, the veg sheek, the stuffed potato and everything about the platter was good. We also had a very different soup called the coconut basil soup which was something like the cousin of Tom yum soup and I quite enjoyed it. For the main course, we ordered naan and paneer gravy from the Indian section, and a white sauce pasta and stuffed pasta from the Italian section. The general consensus is that the Indian food rocks here, just rocks and I did not miss meat at all. The Italian and the baked stuff were alright, but I totally missed meat,but I am guessing that the vegetarians will be quite happy with them.

We ordered three desserts, The gulab jamun being served with a basunthi like liquid and not the sugar syrup and I totally loved it, while the carrot halwa was quite good too. The phirni was alright and it had to get a little colder and harder to enjoy, but in general the food was far above my expectations. Service is quick and attentive,so no complaints on that front. Pricing is quite attractive with the main courses being priced around Rs. 175 each.

It's a great new addition to the pure vegetarian eating scene in Chennai and the Indian cuisine is definitely up there. Apparently they are setting up a non veg restaurant in the first floor and I hope I am invited to try that out as well.

Food 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Service 8/10
Price 9/10

La Shakahari is on pycrofts garden road off Haddows road in Nungambakkam.

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Kebab festival at the Marriott

2011-08-26T00:06:00.001+05:30

I am just getting home from a fantastic dinner at Marriott and fasting has never been this good. When I got a call from Marriott asking me to check out their new kebab festival, I was super kicked about it, as the last visit to Marriott was brilliant, the previous review I did of their dimsum festival was super fun and super food and Marriott is slowly becoming my favorite fancy hotel to dine at.

After checking out their menu, I was sad to se that my favorite guloti kebab was not on the menu. I asked for Chef Amit, the brains behind this festival and very honestly he admitted that he wanted to serve only what he was very proficient at. The menu does not have it, but take my advice and ask for a platter which they are very happy to serve, this way you get to taste one piece (or two if you only want a kebab dinner) of all 15 of their kebabs.

The non veg kebabs were the brilliant ones, the chicken supreme kebab being a great first kebab to have. As the chef explained, the kebab had a sprinkling of the spices on top of it, apart from the marination, so it was unique and full flavor. Next we dived into the brandy prawns which were just brilliant to me, mildly spiced unlike the chicken but equally tasty. We then moved to the fish kebab, and me not being a great fish fan, did not enjoy it as much, but the stuffed chicken kebab was another kicker. I have had stuffed chicken before,but have never heard of a stuffed chicken kebab and the cheese stuffing in an already flavorful kebab was mouth watering even after it reached the stomach. And then came the mother of all kebabs, the mutton kebab, it melted in the mouth like butter as it was that soft, that juicy and you wish it stayed longer in the mouth, but the lamb just disappeared, I would not be surprised if you did not believe it to be mutton. The chicken sheek was a little hard for my liking and I would not bother writing about it or ordering it.

Comparatively the veg kebabs were a little disappointing, but two of them stood out on par with the non veg kebabs, the Golconda kebab and the broccoli kebab. The Golconda was a green mix stuffed with cheese and pomegranate and fried with channa mix I was told and a fantastic kebab it was, while the broccoli kebab was a healthy kebab and both did not make me miss non veg. The kebabs are served with the usual mint chutney and another special chutney created by chef Amit, which is a hot and sweet chutney and goes well with most kebabs.

Being an all day dining, it was perfect for Iftar, but you could either order the kebabs as starters or have a full platter as a full meal like I did, in my opinion, they should have the platter option on the menu as people might not think of asking the chef for it and the non veg platter is just too good to miss. Service is great in Marriott like always and the ambiance is that of a coffee shop,so nothing much to talk about on that front. Prices are five star,each portion of kebab being priced at around Rs.450 for six pieces, but I would go with the platter.

Food 9/10
Ambiance 8/10
Service 8/10
Price 8/10

The kebab festival is on till the first week of September at Paprika, the all day dining at the Courtyard Marriott.

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Dindugal Venu

2011-08-23T12:49:00.001+05:30

I know this month is supposed to have Ramzan specials, but I visited this place quite some back and forgot to write about it. We had to have a quick lunch as we were scheduled to have a meeting post lunch, so we spotted Venu on the way and plunged inside.

The ambiance was neat and classy, especially for a stand alone south Indian restaurant. A chef is right there to make omelets, south indian style and the menu is pure south of south Indian. We opted for a biriyani meal, and ordered a veech parota, gravy and a karandi omelet. The meal priced at Rs. 179 was pretty huge. It had rice, parota, biriyani along with accompaniments and tastes very much like the road side in dindugal. Dont expect a muslim biriyani, this is the south indian version, I liked the taste, but I would not call it biriyani. The veech parota was super nice, but the gravy that came with it could have been better. The karandi omelet was nice, first time I am having it, so I can't compare it with dindugal standards, but to me it was nice.

Service was quick and the prices were decent. If I feel like eating some south Indian fare, I would head here.

Food 8/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 8/10

Venu is on nungambakkam high road, opp ishpahani center, behind barista.

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Amethyst

2011-08-19T06:30:00.000+05:30

So having run out of Iftar options, we headed to amethyst to break our fast after hearing that the food there is good. Amethyst has been among my favorite places to chill out and coffee and without doubt has the best ambiance for a cafe in Chennai.

We settled down and got ourselves a grilled fish and a fillet of beef burger. The fish arrived first and looked delicious, and was served with some super tasty beans and baby potatoes. The fish itself was bone dry.....to the extent of being inedible. We asked for some mayo to make it a little, well, juicy and ate it, but it was a well done as well flavored fish, but just too dry. The burger arrived open faced and I was a little shocked to see its size and a little disappointed to see that it was minced meat and not fillet, but the burger was........yep, bone dry too. The wedges served with the burger was super tasty, but I had to smother ketchup on the burger to eat it. Being disappointed with the food, we ordered a chocolate mousse and a caramel custard for dessert and both were outstanding. The mousse was just about perfect while the custard had a hint of cinnamon and tasted super.

Ambiance like I mentioned is out of the world, service was decent and price was upmarket, with the fish and burger each costing around Rs. 350 each and the desserts at Rs. 175 each.

I would stick to finger foods and desserts and coffee the next time I visit amethyst.

Food 5/10, 8/10 for dessert
Ambiance 9/10
Service 8/10
Price 7/10

Amethyst has moved to whites road, bang opp Satyam theatre complex entrance.

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Ramzan special -Jewel box at Blue Diamond

2011-08-12T16:07:00.001+05:30

Haleem is rather new to Chennai. Very few natives actually knew of Haleem about five years ago and for Iftar, it was always the kanji that was a staple for most of us. When I first ate Haleem about five years ago, I felt it was a thick kanji, just a very tasty thick kanji......so I wanted to eat out this time sans the Haleem, and found one more combo in town.

I was first served with a fruit bowl like most places and a pack of juice. I wish the juice was fresh instead of a tetra pack. The came the kanji that I have been eating and enjoying since childhood, full mutton flavor, perfect consistency and the works and I was glad I skipped Haleem. Then came their evergreen chicken cutlet, which is a personal favorite here, only this time it was smaller, but made up as they serve two pieces. Next the awesome Ceylon egg parota, man, it was juicy and super tasty. And then it was over.........no dessert.

Priced at Rs. 125, this combo is a steal. Served very quickly, this can be an ideal Iftar, as it is not a buffet, so, you will not be stuffing yourself, but just the right amount to fill you for Iftar and leave you space to have a nice light dinner. Service is quick and friendly, ambiance is exactly as it was a million years ago and the price was a kicker, so I would not mind coming her once or twice a week. If they serve a different main dish everyday, i would more often. But, I am going back here this evening.........

If Haleem is not your thing, then, this is the best place to head to.

Food 9/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 7/10
Price 9.5/10

Blue Diamond is on poonamalee high road pop old Dasaprakash.

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Ramzan Special - Sea Shells

2011-08-09T17:11:00.001+05:30

So, once again I was out for Iftar and saw an ad for a special Iftar kit at seashells and I called them to confirm the same. I was told that the offer is available only at T.nagar and Anna nagar, so I landed at the pondy baazar branch just in time for Iftar. We were then told that the offer is only available between 4:30 and 6:30, which left me stumped. I explained to the waiter that we break fast only at half past six so why will they have a Iftar kit available only till 6? He said they were sold out and that we had to place an order before coming. I asked for a schwarma and was disappointed when he came back and said that they have two cancellations and I could have one.

I was served with some nice fresh watermelon juice and a plate of fresh fruits. The Haleem came in next and it was decent, not great. It better than Triana, but not as good as fishermans fare, so that kind of sums it up. I was then served some kind of a sweet dish which was pathetic and I left it alone after one bite. Next came a piece of BBQ chicken with hummus and it was super juicy and super tasty especially with the hummus. Then came the chicken schwarma, which was pathetic, which was very disappointing, as sea shells usually serves some great schwarma. Finally some mutton biriyani which I left after one spoonful, but my friend said it was alright, but you know my standards for biriyani are quite high, but even otherwise this one was cold and very average.

The ambiance is decent with a small outdoor seating area, and service was quick. The iftar kit is priced at Rs, 250, which is not bad, and would have been great if the schwarma was good, but, oh well.......

Food 7/10
Price 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Service 8/10

Sea shells pondy bazar is located next to the old Nagesh theater, on a small lane.

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Ramzan Special- Triana

2011-08-07T16:09:00.001+05:30

I was getting late at work and did not have time to get back home for Iftar and then I saw my friend's post on Facebook about a special Ramzan buffet at Triana. I asked a couple of friends to join me and off we went to get a taste of their Haleem with big hopes, large spaced tummies and needlessless to say, some hunger as well.

We settled ourselves in a corner table and the ambiance struck me as neat and spacious. A waiter with a smile greeted us and confirmed if we were there to break fast and promptly brought us a bowl of fruits and some lime juice and said that the 'kanji' was on it's way. We broke fast and had the cold kanji and I have no idea why it was cold. They have arranged a place on the first floor for prayers, which is a good thing.

We then went on to the buffet and started off with the shorba, which I really liked. The next stop was Haleem, which I could not help but comparing it with fishermans fare, which I know is not fair, but yeah, the Haleem was decent, but not upto the mark. The mughalai parota was pretty average, while the mughalai rice and mutton gravy were pretty alright, not great. The dessert, the Khubani ka meetha, was served with ice cream which I think is a bad idea as it should be served with cream and the ice cream was overwhelming, but if you managed to taste the meetha, it was actually good.

The buffet was priced at rs. 290 nett. Service was decent and i had no complaints. I wish the food was a little hot as most of them seem to be getting cold very quickly, as quick as taking it out and putting it on the plate. All in all,it was alright for me,but not good enough to go back within one month.

Food 7/10
Price 7/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 8/10

Triana is located in Gopalpuram.

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Ramadhan special- Fisherman fare

2011-08-04T15:33:00.001+05:30

It's that tine of the year again......"Eat and drink till the white thread of daylight is distinguishable from the darkness" says the Quran. While for most Muslims, breaking fast at home is a tradition and the house wives dish out their Ramzan specialties which leave others wondering why they don't get such wonderful food throughout the year, restaurants have now cashed in and have their own Ramzan foods. This year, I am trying to sample some places to eat out during Ramzan and have a taste of some brilliant dishes.

Every year, I try Haleem at different places in Chennai and finally come back to one place regularly, and that is Fisherman's fare. And yesterday the Haleem was brilliant and left me wanting for more. I got myself just the specialties - the Haleem and Khubani ka meetha. The Haleem was mouthwateringly good, just perfect. Haleem like biriyani is quite difficult to maintain consistency, but these people get it right more often than not. Till last year, their Khubani ka meeta was soaked in jaggery, but this year, I really liked it.It is a very different tasting sweet and something that sonly available here during Ramzan.

The atmosphere outside is like a food street in Hyderabad or Lahore, but obviously much much smaller. Get yourself some Haleem this year from them and you can thank me later. 300 ml costs Rs. 100, 500 costs Rs. 170, and the meeta is similarly priced.

Haleem 9/10
Price 8/10

Fisherman's fare is on Casa major road, near Don Bosco school,

Watch this space for more Ramzan specialties.

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Midnight Dessert at 601

2011-08-02T11:01:00.003+05:30

There are times you have a very sweet tooth, the times your tooth hurts if you don't get out and get something really nice to munch on and your dentist hopes you brush your teeth before bed kind of times. And when that time is around midnight and all shops are shut, except the ones in star hotels and if that sweet tooth time is for your better half, then your options are pretty limited.

On one such night, we left home at midnight and arrived at The Park, and apparently many "better halves" were having a sweet tooth as 601, was packed. We ordered a chocolate filled cake and an apple crumble both of which were served with ice cream. And both tasted great. The chocolate cake was oozing with chocolate (duh), and went well with the vanilla ice cream, while the apple crumble was a kicker for me, just perfectly done.

At 1 am, I was not paying too much attention to service, but it was pleasant and there was always a smile. These two dishes set us back by Rs 500, but felt worth it as it is something we don't do very often, but yes, I wish there were more options for midnight cravings than five star hotels.

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Chennai Foodie around the world

2011-08-01T16:56:00.000+05:30

My take on eat outs around the world

Coming soon..........

Cream and fudge

2011-07-28T23:23:00.002+05:30

I saw an ad in the newspaper about the new ice cream outlet in town and was pretty excited especially when I was told that it was some kind of an international chain. So that night a few of us went to KNK road only to find that everyone had seen the ad and the place was nothing short of a stampede. After placing orders for the ice creams and being told that they have run out of cones and that we had to adjust with cups, we ran to a table that just got free and waited.....and waited.....and waited, and when we were beginning to worry if they ran out of ice creams, our order was called out.

After tasting the first two, I was taken aback, for the name could not be more apt, everything there was just cream and fudge and nothing more. We ordered five different ice creams/sundaes and all of them tasted the same, a vanilla base with added flavor. The chocolate fudge was pretty good, while the apple crumble was decent, but everything else tasted the same to me and beyond the first few bites, I had to force myself to eat. All five of us tried to eat amd finish each other's dish with little success.

We went back a week later to see if the previous experience was due to the large crowd. We had the apple crumble and a few sundaes, and the results were the same. So, if you like the vanilla based icecream such as milky way and creamy inn types, you will have a ball of a time here. If you wish your ice cream had original flavor, then stay away.

And till today I don't know what that cold stone does to the ice-cream, so I would be glad to have an insight.

Food 7/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 8/10
Service 7/10

Cream and fudge is on khader nawaz khan road, opp barista and next to cafe day lounge.

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Parfait 3

2011-07-21T23:34:00.000+05:30

As I was driving via a small road in Kilpauk, I noticed a board that read 'All day continental breakfast' and needless to say, being a sucker for continental breakfast, I stopped by to have a look at the place and realized that it was Parfait 3, a joint I had spotted in Velachery, but did not have a chance to visit. So when Sunday arrived, I dragged the wife along for breakfast (and let's not discuss what time we had our breakfast) here.

The ambiance is chilled out with a few tables on the outside and a few inside ( I did not like the interiors, it was a turn off), but the outside is very nice and has games that you can take and play, we settled with Chinese Checkers! Just two dishes were really breakfast, a banana pancake and french toast. The banana pancake was the closest I have had next to IHOP, in USA - that is the best compliment I can give a pancake, and it was priced at Rs 85 for two very nice sized pancakes, with a generous dose of (and feel free to ask for more) maple syrup. The french toast was decent, but that is because that's the way the dish is made! We also had a croissant, a cinnamon roll and shared a crumb fried chicken, the cinnamon roll was very good, the crumb fried chicken was decent, and the croissant was not fresh, so it was not good! We were given a complimentary mango cake, which we came home to eat and it was a super soft, juicy and tasty cake! I just simply loved the place for most of the dishes and the ones that were not great, were forgivable as the others more than made up for it!

Service is amazing to say the least. Its a small place but the waiters were very nice and friendly and knew the menu very well and were able to guide us in our choice of food. The above meal cost us Rs 505 and we were kind of stuffed, so it is good value for money. I was told that they also have an outlet in Anna Nagar, and I am not sure if the other outlets have the same kind of service, but the Kilpauk one certainly was amazing.

We went back on Wednesday night for the pancake, so...................

Food 9/10
Service 9/10
Ambiance 7/10
Price 9/10

Parfait 3 is located on Manikeswari Road in Kilpauk, and it also has branches in Velachery (100 feet road) and Anna Nagar.

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2011-07-20T16:43:00.000+05:30

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Zaica

2011-07-15T15:01:00.002+05:30

On a busy Thursday afternoon a foodie friend of mine and me headed out to Zaica, a Mughal restaurant as I had given my word to test it out for them. I was dead hungry and was really looking forward to some good food and my fellow foodie was already there and when I landed there,we dived straight into the buffet.

Though the place looks tiny from the outside, I was surprised at the amount of space that was inside. The ambiance is quite good and the tables are well spread out with some tables being tucked away in singles, so you get a lot of privacy. Well done on that front.

Starters are served on the table as is now the fashion ever since BBQ nation made it a rage. We had the chicken kebab, the sheek and a fish tikka for starters and were generally quite happy with the quality. The chicken was nice and tender and tasty, the fish was very well done and tasted equally great, and the sheek kebab was quite good too. After a couple of rounds of starters, we headed for the buffet, which turned out to be average. The two non veg gravys were pretty average, but the naan and dhal served on the table were deadly, just brilliant. The biriyani was typical of a hotel biriyani and had rosewater and no chum in it, though, I normally don't expect dhum, but being a Mughal restaurant, I had high hopes and was disappointed. The other main courses were also ordinary.

For desserts, we had the kheer which was tasty and the jamun which was decent. For the price at Rs. 350, the buffet was sufficiently decent spread, the next time I go here, I would gorge on the starters and have the naan and dhal and finish off with dessert, which were all very good and go easy on the main course.

Food 8/10
Ambiance 9/10
Price 8/10

Zaica is on RK Salai right next to Zara's.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Dimsum festival at Marriott

2011-07-06T14:43:00.004+05:30

This time around, I got a facebook message from Marriott asking me to check out their dim sum festival and needless to say, I was more than excited. My history with Marriott started off pretty badly and stayed bad,before my previous visit to their Sunday brunch which I really enjoyed and wrote about.

Chef Prathiba welcomed us and we were given an introduction to the world of dimsums. The restaurant was full to the brim and we could see dimsums being served all around us and this got the two of us really excited. She suggested that we go for the platter that will give us a glimpse of all the dimsums on the menu (they have 7) and we took the offer.

So the platter arrived in typical bamboo cooking units with full steam inside. We were tempted to dive in right away without even taking pictures, but resisted the temptation. With the photo session over, we dove into what turned out to be utterly mouthwatering dishes. My favorite was the lamb dimsum which was unique to me as it was inside a bowl which was placed inside the bamboo cooker. The dimsum was soaked in a chili soy sauce and was just too good. The prawn came next in my favorite list followed by the veg dimsum. The chicken dimsum was alright and was nothing special. Among the fried stuff, we had potato dumplings which were unique,while the chicken mutton mixed wanton was brilliant with it's sweet sauce and sheer quantity of meat in the tiny dimsum. To finish off we had the mango pudding with ice cream which as you can see from the picture, looked and tasted delicious and also a fried custard wanton which I thought was pretty good too.

A portion of dimsum is priced at Rs. 275 and the desserts are similarly priced. Service cannot be judged in an invited review, but in my previous experiences, service has always been good here. The ambiance is chic and takes the definition of lobby cafe way too far as this place occupies the whole lobby, with almost no place for the hotel guests to sit around.

Food 9/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 8/10

Paprika is the lobby cafe at Courtyard Marriott and the dimsum festival is on till the 15th of July.

The Kitchen - Rain Tree Anna Salai

2011-07-06T13:34:00.000+05:30

To celebrate a special occasion, four of us headed to the Rain Tree on Anna Salai to check out this hotel. Its been around for a while and we thought it would be a good time to check it out! The guy (?manager?) just as you enter the hotel is a disaster! I asked him for dining options and he suggested that we try out 'Chinese Coffee Shop' which serves good Chinese food he said! Curious to see what a Chinese Coffee Shop is like, we entered the restaurant named 'The Kitchen' only to realize that this was a regular 24 hour coffee shop with a buffet and absolutely no Chinese in it. We decided to try the buffet nevertheless and allowed ourselves to be seated by the pleasant waiters!

The buffet spread is not exactly huge by any stretch of imagination. You have a choice of two soups like most places and the soups were pretty average. The starter section was actually impressive - they have small portions of multiple starters in small glasses or tiny plates so you can try out various dishes without wasting them. The prawn cocktail was very good, the chicken salami and other cold cuts were quite tasty. The main course section was average as far as the selection goes, but a few dishes were quite outstanding. The cottage cheese gravy was one that stood out, while in the non veg section, the crab gravy, the mutton gravy and the chicken gravy were all edible! You get quite some choice with the breads and they were pretty good too. Biriyani was there and was better than the ones in most buffets, but well............my standards for biriyani are extremely high, so.......

We also ordered a couple of dishes a-la-carte, an outstanding malabar fish gravy which was the best dish of the day. There is a pizza counter and you can choose between the non veg pizza of the day or it veg counterpart. The pizza is thin crust and was actually excellent, much better than I expected it to be and it had quite some meat in it. They have a small but nice selection of cheese and the chef actually got me some blue cheese which is is not part of the buffet (Unless you know what blue cheese is, DO NOT). The dessert selection was probably the best of the lot. Quite a few desserts were excellent, the chocolate mousse being the best of the lot.

Service was outstanding. Waiters were very attentive and always smiling and made the experience pleasant. Priced at Rs 1085 per head, but yeah there are better buffets in the city for this price, but I would like to go back and check out their a-la-carte menu!

Food 7/10
Ambiance 7/10
Servcie 9/10
Price 7/10

Rain tree is located on Anna Salai!

Haji Ali

2011-06-29T11:08:00.001+05:30

Suddenly felt like having some ice cream and dessert on a boring Thursday afternoon and we were having a couple of friends joining us, so the two of us took our car and drove towards Egmore from T Nagar. Just as we were crossing a signal on GN Chetty Road, we spotted Haji Ali and decided to try them out. Our friends joined us there and we settled ourselves into this nice eclectic place, small but very elegant.

We ordered a some Lychee with Ice cream, Mango with cream (not ice cream), a chocolate falooda and a Special Falooda. The lychee was superb - and lots of it with a super nice dose of ice cream, my mango cream was beautiful, tasty and I guess healthy too! The two faloodas were pretty decent in taste and quite filling!

Service was quick, the interiors were chic and the prices were hovering around the Rs 100 mark. Apparently they also serve up quick eats like pizza and sandwich and they also have wifi! So its a place you can spend some time at. Would love to go back and try more stuff here!

Haji Ali is on G N Chetty Road, right next to the Habibulla Road signal (Opp Maverick Gym).

Food 8/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 8/10

Chin Chin

2011-06-23T00:02:00.001+05:30

On a nice Monday morning, as I checked mail, I was rather surprised to find one from a manager at THE RESIDENCY, inviting me to check out their Chinese Restaurant. Being the first time that I was invited by a hotel (most invites come from stand alone restaurant owners), I was naturally excited, and soon learnt that the article in the Times of India about the blog initiated this invite! The last time I went there was in Nov 2009 and at that time the meal was actually enjoyable - as I noted in my blog entry then!

So when I went for lunch with a friend, I found nothing new as far as the interiors were concerned. Everything remained the same. The chef greeted us and started talking (rather pompously) about his exploits in Hong Kong and the likes and when I asked him to suggest something from the menu he gave me the same answer that restaurants that do not have anything special gives you - "Everything is special in our menu". So we settled with our usual Indo Chinese favorites - I took the Lunch Combo which gives you a soup, a starter, a main course and a dessert, while my friend chose a chicken dim sum and a unique noodle called Yue Mein Noodles and Crispy corn. The choice within the lunch combo is awesome - I chose the Chicken Manchow soup, Phuket Fish as my starter, Crispy Noodles and Shredded Lamb in hot garlic sauce for the main course. The soup was pretty average and too watery to be a Manchow soup! The chicken dimsum was too dry for my liking and can be avoided.

And the average food ended there! The rest were rather super. The phuket fish was very very good and was sized for the combo! Excellent flavor and extremely well done. My crispy noodles were above average and the shredded lamb was another excellent dish. The crispy corn was brilliant and I actually enjoyed a veg dish in the company of so much of meat. My friend's Yue Mein noodles was rather different, he did not enjoy it as much, but I certainly did. I am not able to describe the dish, it was very different, a kind of noodles cooked in soy sauce and then dried and then somehow made a little wet - this is the best description I can come up with. And then came the kicker of a dish - The chef complained about how people order the same dish over and over again and that they don't try new dishes at all and how he has some fantastic dishes! I smiled to myself and asked him why he did not even suggest those dishes and stuck to a pompous "Everything is tasty in my restaurant" answer. He then brought out one of his specialty - a lotus stem cooked in some familiar fashion -and I would give up eating meat for the rest of my life if I can have that lotus stem cooked the way it was - UNBELIEVABLE!!!!! The manager who invited me - she seemed to have enjoyed the dish and said that it was the first time she was having lotus stem!

I did the usual date pancake for dessert and it was great - I learnt that they do not fry but bake the pancake, so it had almost no oil, while my friend had another new dish called Coconut Tossa - a wonton like dish stuffed with coconut - it was pretty dry, but tasted good. The combo is priced at Rs 450 and other dishes from Rs 150 onwards. A decent meal for two should cost you around Rs 750! Can't judge the service in such a setting, so no comments on that front.

Don't miss the lotus stem and do let us all know if it was great because we were invited or if you really liked it! The chef mentioned another specialty - some brinjal dish, wish they tell us these things when we ask them for it!

Food 8/10
Price 8/10
Ambiance 7/10

Chin Chin is the Chinese restaurant at THE RESIDENCY on G N Chetty Road, T. Nagar.

Cooking - Kitchen Escapades!!!!

2011-06-14T22:09:00.003+05:30

Coming soon............

Ashvita Bistro

2011-06-04T10:37:00.003+05:30

The old Ashvita Cafe attached to its art gallery, is a place I have spent quite sometime with the guitar and a bunch of friends, and we even had a couple of Food Guide meetings there with the owner Ashwin joining us and talking to us about art and how the cafe came to be. I have not seen him since, but when I saw a newspaper ad that there was a new Ashvita in town, I was rather surprised to see that they are serious about the food business and not just art.

It took some time to find the place, but at first glance, it is not surprising that it comes from an art background. The exterior and interior were exquisite to say the least. The outdoor seating area was nice and elegant, while the interiors were chic and modern. I loved the feel of the place and wished we had such places for the same guitar with friends, a good five years back. We were only two of us that day, so we settled for a drink, a sandwich and pasta. The oreo shake was kickass - end of story. The chicken sandwich was pretty average, though the french fries that came with it were super nice. The pasta was also just about decent, it was served with some bread. The prices were pretty steep -the above cost us Rs 560, so it is an upmarket guitar space! So if we had this place five years back, I could not have afforded it, so glad it just came up! Service was alright, we were the only ones there, so can't judge it really.

Food 7/10
Ambiance 9/10
Service 7/10
Price 6/10

Ashvita is on Bawa Road, Alwarpet. Get to CP Ramaswamy road and take the road opp Citibank, and then take the right. Its just down the road.

Bangalore Foodie

2011-06-01T18:41:00.000+05:30

Coming soon.........

Tuscana - Chamier's Road

2011-05-27T16:06:00.001+05:30

Undoubtedly my favorite Italian outlet in town, Tuscana has opened its newest at Chamiers Road, opp The Park Sheraton. So when Vipin, the owner, called me to take a look at it and sample some their food, I jumped at the chance. I am pretty regular to Tuscana at Wallace Garden and when he said that this setting was different, I was really curious. In complete contrast to its outlet in Wallace Garden, with its informal setting (and rather tables too close for comfort), which the owner calls a Pizzeria, its Chamiers road outlet is entirely a restaurant. With outstanding exterior, chic interior, with quite a few private dining rooms ranging from two seater to ten seater, the place is outstanding.

The food is the same. Same outstanding quality, same quantity, but 13% higher in price. I have always felt that when you walk into an outlet of your favorite place, you should expect everything to be the same, but let's see how Tuscana fares with its brand with completely different setting and prices, albeit great food.

We started off with American pizza and Chicken Focaccia for starters - yes, in Italy, pizza and pasta are really starters, and that's how we were served here! I have always loved their pizza and today was no different, but I somehow prefer their garlic bread to the focaccia. Their garlic bread is OUTSTANDING - period. The vegetarians had a broccoli pizza which was pretty decent. We had some minestrone soup which was alright. For the main course, since we were quite a group, we got to taste quite a few dishes - Lamb shanks, char grilled sword fish, grilled chicken breast, veal scaloppine and cream cheese pie and baked polenta for the vegetarians. The veal (baby cow) was superb in flavor and superbly done. Very few places cook beef to perfection and today was one example. The chicken breast was alright, the lamb shanks were brilliant, I did not eat the sword fish while the vegetarian dishes were pretty decent (the vegetarians loved it, so .....). After quite some amount of food, we ended it with Tiramisu (easily the best tiramisu in town, maybe next only to Mikeal Besse of Ecstasy) and a blueberry pannacotta - another favorite of mine.

All in all a great meal, and the best part of having a heavy lunch in Tuscana is that you can get back to work without feeling bloated or sleepy - that to me is a sign of good quality food! Vipin was with us, so I cannot comment on the service, price like I mentioned is about 13% higher and the ambiance is excellent! I will continue to eat at the Wallace garden outlet as it is closer to me, but for those who think driving to Nungambakkam from Adyar or that part of town is more difficult than opening a restaurant, you now have a Tuscana near you! I was told that this place will have two pages of the menu from Kryptos, I hope they choose the right stuff from the Kryptos menu. Kryptos is a place where you will have to order right to enjoy the food or you might never go back!!!!

Disclosure: I was invited by the owner to see the place. I am also very regular to Tuscana at Wallace Garden as I love the food there.

Dewberry's

2011-05-22T22:42:00.000+05:30

Tucked away in a quiet street off RK Salai, Dewberry's is a nicely set up niche place belonging to a new breed of home owner turning their houses to restaurants! My first visit here, about six months back was very mixed as far as the food was concerned, but when a nice lunch combo was advertised, I took the opportunity when I had to meet a friend for lunch.

The deal is simple - a drink, starter, main course and dessert for Rs 225 (Rs 200 for veg) and you have about four options to choose from for each of the above, so it really gives you options if you are a group of four as you can all have different foods to taste. I opted for the lime mint cooler, a rather funnily named starter, a chicken pasta and a pancake for dessert. My friend did not want a full meal and so he just got himself a bbq chicken burger. The drink was a kicker - a very well made lime mint cooler. The starter was very different to say the least, I cannot dismiss it as bad, as it was very different. It had a tinge of banana flavor, inside some flour thingy that seemed to be fried and with something like tomato soup poured all over it. I could not stop eating it and ended up eating all the four pieces (while my friend was still coming - Indian Stretchable time)! He arrived when the main course arrived and felt like eating pasta, so I took the burger, which was not bad, but yeah, I am still searching for a great burger in Chennai - any suggestions anybody? The chicken pasta was very good, and had a very decent portion, not some stingy little plate as part of a combo, but an almost full portion of pasta. The chocolate pancake with ice cream was again pretty good, with the pancake being well done.

Service was good, but we were the only people there, so it cannot be judged, the price is exclusive of tax, so add about 10% to the Rs 225. The ambiance is very classy and very well done, and they have (no surprise there) a fashion outlet inside. Yes, I would not mind going back here and the lunch combo is certainly well worth the price. In fact, you can order one combo and one main course and you might be done.

Food 7/10
Ambiance 8/10
Service 8/10
Price 8/10

Dewberry's is located off RK Salai, when going to Citi Center from Gemini Flyover, take the left just before HDFC bank. You will see their board on the main road!

Copper Chimney

2011-05-12T00:07:00.000+05:30

An old favorite for a few of us, I don't know why we have not thought of going here for such a long time - 5 years long! Last Saturday, when we got done with a meeting (yeah, some poor souls work Saturdays too), we headed here for lunch after one suggested that we MUST go to Copper Chimney, and that is how the rendezvous happened!

We settled down and started off with a Chicken Kebab and a Paneer Tikka Kebab, the Chicken Kebab being a little too bland for me, I had to smear it with the mint chutney to get some flavor, while the paneer kebab was just right! We then ordered some Butter Naan, Butter Chicken Masala and Fish Creamy Masala for the main course. Each of them were distinct from the other in flavor and the naans were just brilliant. The Butter Chicken Masala here is (actually was and became is) a personal favorite, they have the right flavor without over doing any of them. I am not a big fan of fish, but this creamy gravy was quite good and there was no fish smell in the gravy - that's the way I like it!!!!!

We finished off with some gulab jamun, kesar kulfi and a big smile on our faces!!!! The jamun was super soft and super tasty, while the kulfi was alright, and the smile was broad!!!! Nice and chic interiors and the pretty quick service helped matters after a long and tiring meeting and I wish we were eating here more often. All of the above cost us Rs 1450, so that was about 350 per head, which is good for a place of this quality.

Food 8/10
Service 8/10
Price 8/10
Ambiance 8/10

Copper Chimney is located on Cathederal Road, opp Chola Sheraton Hotel in the same complex that hosts Zaras.

Donut House

2011-05-05T13:32:00.000+05:30

After Atomic Donuts, a little kiosk in City Center, Chennai can now boast of its own donut center in the name of Donut House! Being invited for its opening, (as per Indian Stretchable Time), I was rather excited to sample some of their stuff and I was surprised to see a 'Live Kitchen' for a donut stall - impressive.

After the formalities and ribbon cutting, we actually got to taste a few of their donuts and the first impression was good. Between the two of us, we had about five donuts, the first of which still lingers in my mouth - The Oreo Donut, a superb mix. The strawberry donut was tasty, but apart from being pink, it had nothing else to do with strawberry, it tasted of white chocolate. But the strawberry excess, which had stuffing inside the donut was super and was really a strawberry donut! The rainbow was a nice white chocolate donut, while the chocolate donut was well.........chocolate donut!

The donuts themselves were nice for the most part. Four of them were well made and were of the perfect consistency, while one was a little doughy, but otherwise the donuts were nice n soft. If they can maintain the standards, they should probably do well. Ambiance was very very nice and obviously I cannot comment on the service. They also have coffee and tea to complete an evening out, so ........

Let's see how the donut market responds!!!!

Donut House is located in Wellington Plaza, right opposite Ethiraj College, next to Raja Muthiah Hall.

Ecstacy, Mickael Besse

2011-05-02T13:21:00.001+05:30

Certainly the best dessert spot in town and it has been that way for quite some time now. I don't see any signs of decline, in fact they are reinventing everyday and the quality and taste has been outstanding. On a day when BLUR was stuffed to the maximum, my friend and I took the dessert route for solace and got ourselves a black forest sandwich and a hazelnut mousse. Brilliant would be an understatement and I have no words to describe them. The black forest sandwich was superb, with the right moisture, right blend and right everything. I love hazelnut, and to have a full mousse with hazelnut in all its glory was bliss! Both were served with a scoop of a superb ice cream. The best in town comes at a price, but a price that will be well worth it. Both were priced at about Rs 95 each. The ambiance and service are top class and with B&O music system inside, it is, well.........go find out!

Food 9/10
Service 9/10
Ambiance 9/10
Price 9/10

Ecstacy is located on the ground floor at Satyam Cinemas, while you get some of the desserts at Escape, EA mall.

Fusion 9

2011-04-27T10:01:00.001+05:30

The first time I went to Fusion 9, I really liked it! Most others in my group did not think it was great! When the restaurant contacted us for a review, I wanted to see what blinded me the first time and I came back with more questions than answers! Of the four, two of them were making their first visit to F9 and so the combination for a review was ideal!

The first set of iced tea was super! Perfectly brewed with the right mix of lemon, sweet and tea. It was so good that we asked for another but I think the chief of the bar left for the day or something else went totally wrong! What else can explain the same drink being so horrible? We returned it and asked for lemonade and it was worse!!!!! They need to find a second in hand for the drinks!

But the food was brilliant to say the least. We started off with a Mezze Platter and for all practical purposes, the main ingredient is the Falafel, but my friend could not but help say that it was a high class masala vada. There is some truth to it, but hey, its called a Falafel is some parts of the world. It was served with some well made hummus and pita bread which was baked to perfection for me! For the main course, we had one Thai Red Curry, which is served with white rice, a BBQ chicken Pizza, a Basa Fish Steak and Pasta. The chef got most of them right, with some brilliant flavors for the Red Curry, a fantastic Pizza - thin crust, made perfectly with the right amount of stuff on top and a super Basa Fish, probably the best dish of the day! The pasta was a big let down, it was overcooked and pretty bad, especially in comparison to the other dishes. The mezze platter was priced around Rs 475, the pizza was priced similarly, the Fish steak was Rs 300 or so, so you get an idea of the prices! I think the restaurant must be praised for being able to get the right flavors in different cuisines - in my experience Multi Cuisine or World Cuisine means every cuisine is average, but here the Thai flavors were distinct from the Italian and Arabian!

If we thought the main course was great, the desserts here shocked us even more. The German Chocolate cake that we had was stunning! The tiramisu was very nice and was on par with some good Tiramisu around the world, if not the best, and the other cake we had (I forgot the name) served with Ice cream was super, though (as I realized later) it has alcohol in it, so if you are wary of alcohol you should know this before hand. Being a resto bar with drinks, I guess they presume that you need not be warned about alcohol, but I still think that they should.

Service was pathetic that day, though it was much better on my first visit. The ambiance is very very nice, with a great combination of soft comfy sofas and chairs and ideal space between tables, so you don't have to hear a stranger's problems with her husband!

I would love to go back! And all four of us thought that F9 was good, so..........

Food 8/10
Service 5/10
Price 7/10
Ambiance 8/10

F9 is located in Quality Inn Aruna, below Mainland China on Sterling Road

Note: This was an invited review!

Noodle King

2011-04-23T12:43:00.000+05:30

A spot we used to visit often during our 'non earning days', Noodle King has been around for quite sometime and last Saturday we had a rendezvous with our old spot. The place has not changed much, it still has only two tables and about eight chairs, but the prices have gone up substantially!

To beging with, we had chicken balls, a nice deep fried stuff with the right flavors and can also be an accompaniment for the main course. We helped ourselves to Shangai Rice, which is a mix of fried rice and noodles, as we could not decide on one and one Veg Manchurian gravy ( I was told recently that Manchurian is NOT a Chinese dish, but an Indian innovation, go figure that out)! All of the dishes were typical comfort Indo Chinese, but that's exactly what we were looking for. The Manchurian was not all that great and I would certainly not recommend it as it had an overdose of soy sauce, but the other two were nice. We helped ourselves to some nice finger chips at Hot Chips, which were SUPERB!

Prices are about Rs 100 a dish, so it is not exactly a cheap eat out spot anymore, but hey, fuel prices have gone up too! Nothing much to talk of service, here neither is there any ambiance to speak of!

Noodle king is located next to Hot Chips on Valluvar Kottam High Road, just a couple of buildings before the Pizza Hut building in Nungambakkam..

Burgerman and Petawrap - same day same time!

2011-04-21T16:51:00.000+05:30

One hungry evening, my friend Kums and me were getting back after some work and we were debating between a burger and a wrap (you guessed who wanted the burger)! With both Burgerman and Petawrap being located outside the Pantaloons on Nelson Manikam Road , which we spotted, our debate was ended prematurely!

So I ordered a chicken burger, while he helped himself to a kebab wrap! I don't know if Burgerman has improved on a routine basis or if that day was great, but I must say that the burger was awesome! The bread to be exact, was brilliant, fresh and tasted great with the patty which was to my liking! But Kums was glued onto his wrap, though he agreed that the bread was fresh (and in his opinion, better than the breaking buns and McD), he enjoyed his wrap more and he went ahead and got himself a vada pav wrap.

For me though, the burger won hands down! Reason - the patty had flavor, where as in the wraps, the kebab and the vada were not as flavorful, the flavor came from the sauces!!!! But both are very nice places to grab a quick bite.

Burgerman and Petawrap are located all over Chennai, we happened to visit the stall on Nelsom Manicam Road.

Cha Bar

2011-04-16T11:29:00.001+05:30

Of all the places to spend time, either with people or alone, Cha Bar takes the cake and the baker's wife!!!!! I simply love this place, its ambiance, its service and its everything! If Cha Bar was a person, I will fall in love all over again!

Located inside the Oxford Book Store on Haddows Road, Cha Bar is literally a lounge. Surrounded by books, all of which (except magazines) are available for you to read while you sip your chai or eat some of their super sandwiches. There was an occasion when the guy, opened a sealed book for me and said, "Please read it sir, no problem at all" and I was hooked for life!

The chicken and mayo sandwich here, can give any full service restaurant a run for its money and reputation. When I have to meet people, I choose this place and invariably everyone goes 'Man, this is good stuff' after one bite of the sandwich. The chicken fingers is another good dish, the assorted fries used to be super great, but is now only great, yeah, its still great! I am not a big for of their veg dishes here, but my veggie friends love it, so I will stop there! The salads here are super for the diet conscious and you can add and subtract any sauce you want! The chocolate cake here is THE BEST of its kind in Chennai, it is sourced from THE PARK, if it helps matters and is priced at only Rs 50! Of the drinks, they surprise me everytime. Their fruit melange is the best among their hot teas, while the green tea margarita is my favorite among the iced teas and the green apple drink is a close second!

I am here almost once a week! Service is super and polite!

Food 9/10
Price 9/10
Ambiance 9/10
Service 9/10

Cha Bar is located inside The Oxford Bookstore, on Haddows Road, Nungambakkam

Good Morning Cafe

2011-04-11T12:07:00.000+05:30

Yet another cafe on KNK road and I am not going to banter about the other places here, it looked interesting and with a nice name, it was enough to lure us in on a lazy evening when the wife and me were just looking to have a quick bite! Its a tiny place on the base floor, but had tiny set of stairs leading to the first level which is slightly bigger (because there is no food counter there). There was only one guy manning the cafe and he was quite polite and welcoming.

We saw the menu and were quite disappointed that the sandwiches and pasta were not yet available, the guy said that they have been open for "ONLY THREE WEEKS"!!!!! We ordered a chicken burger (yeah, what else) in my quest for a good burger in Chennai, and the wife ordered potato smilies! The burger was pretty useless - there was just loads of mayo and an average patty inside, with not a single slice of tomato or lettuce or anything else! The potato smilies were nice. We ordered a couple of drinks - a strawberry slush and a raspberry slush, both of which were decent - the strawberry slush was Hershey's syrup poured onto ice and crushed, so nothing special! All the above cost us Rs 390, which is ok!

Interiors were bright red and nice and I cannot judge the service with only one guy for the whole place and with only two tables with people. Though we did not have a chance to try sandwiches, going by what we ate, this will probably be another ordinary 'Me too' kind of cafe. Maybe a place to get a quick bite when in a hurry or after your work out at O2 health studio, but as of now does not look like a place to spend time in and I will be happy to be wrong on this!!!!!

Food 5/10
Service - Not judged
Ambiance 7/10
Price 7/10

Good Morning Cafe is on KNK road, on the same building that hosts O2 health studio - Shyam Gardens!

Casa Picola

2011-04-05T17:21:00.003+05:30

Casa used to be my favorite restaurant in Chennai, a place that I used to frequent so often, that the chef and the then manager were good buddies and I used to get a few freebies!!! That manager left and noticeably the quality dwindled, my favorite foods were no more on the menu, the rooftop became a hookah spot for teeny hoppers and I stopped going there! Last weekend, our group had an itch for Casa, if not for anything, just to see how it is, since it has been ages since we visited them and we have some very fond memories!!! And we came back with some too........

I was late to join the group and by the time I was there, we had the Fish n Chips, the Chilly Beef and another steak on the table! The fish n chips was nice and super made, the chilly beef was what it used to be, but the steak was just decent. The portions at Casa are good and with the prices remaining at around Rs 250 for a steak dish, they are well worth the money. The specialty dishes have disappeared from the menu, but I feel that they have retained their best dishes and stopped the ones that probably brought the bad name, so maybe it is good! The desserts were super super! The chocolate marble cake that is served with ice cream was super, while the profiterole, a French dessert was again what it used to be.

Slowly, Casa seems to reviving its taste and though the place is very popular among the teens and the hookah crowd, I think they have done enough work on the kitchen to woo back the old crowd. One thing that has certainly dwindled and not come back is their service - used to be kick ass and brilliant, but is now slow, non attentive and kind of pathetic. One friend did not like the place at all, but the remaining seven of us did!

I would not mind going there again now and testing the rest of the dishes to see if they have that old charm and who knows, I might be regular there again!?!

Food 7/10
Service 5/10
Ambiance 7/10
Price 8/10

Casa Picola is on KNK road, next to the Esprit building!

Domino's

2011-04-02T09:51:00.002+05:30

Last Sunday, we were feeling pretty lazy but wanted to eat out, so we decided to get pizza home delivered. Domino's at home is a pretty common thing for me and I have always felt that the pizza is decent as I always go for the BBQ Chicken n Cheese pizza. But this week was different!!!

The wife said "Please ask them not to make the pasta dry. Last time it was too dry" and I promptly instructed the guy on the phone that we want the pasta to be a little saucy. I don't know how, but the food that landed home was stunning!!!! The pasta was saucy and super tasty and the pizza tasted extra nice today.....so nice that I had to take my camera and get some pictures and post it on my blog.........though I have been eating this for quite sometime, I never thought of posting it, but today was special!

The choco lava cake that we usually order was not special, but it is usually tasty. I only wish it was served with some fresh cream to soften out the extra sweetness of the chocolate inside, but no one to convey this message to!!! The pizza (regular) was priced at Rs 135, the pasta at Rs 89 and the chocolava cake at Rs 45.
I usually order garlic bread too with the cheese dip which together is about Rs 70 and tastes great, but this Sunday, we ditched it!

Food 8/10
Service - 30 mins, quick and polite
Price - 8/10

Dominos is found all over the place!

ITALIA - The Park Pod

2011-03-26T12:19:00.001+05:30

The Park Pod - a boutique hotel on KNK Road is a place that you go to celebrate special occasions - or at least that is how it was a couple of years back with a meal for two (without alcohol) easily crossing 3 grand or so. When a friend said that the prices have dropped and that they have good pizza for the price of one similar to Pizza Hut, I was naturally intrigued and to prove his point he took me there when he had a reason to celebrate and I was shocked to see that he was indeed right! But I had to leave early that night and so when the wife and me had a special occasion we went here for a dinner rendezvous!

The exteriors are exquisite and when to climb the stairs to the restaurant, you can see oommphh all around. It was a Monday night and there was only one other couple and so the we almost had the place to ourselves. The ambiance is amazing with one side of the restaurant having a full view of the pool (not a swimming pool though)! Nice classy place this is.

The wife ordered a mock-tail - Love potion to be exact while I settled for hot chocolate. The main menu prices are no way cheap, but the pizza menu is too good to be true. A large average tasting pizza at Pizza Hut would easily cost five hundred plus, so at Rs 425, our 11 inch pizza was a steal. The waiter then suggested that we do not order more as their pizzas are quite filling for two people. With the wife having a small appetite and me not in full form, we decided to take his advice.

The hot chocolate was brilliant - a perfect mix! The mock-tail was superbly done and the wife loved it. As soon as your place your order, you are given complementary starters which has some Italian breads and sides and we ate them too - the garlic butter and the roasted garlic being superb in combination with the breads. The pizza then made its grand entry and it was YUM to start with. The wife only had two slices as it filled her, and I think it was the cheese, but after three slices, I was beginning to get full and had to stuff the fourth slice inside - somehow the pizza cheese was too filling and maybe pizza here should be ordered for a larger group as part of the dish and not as the main course!!!!! But dessert was on still and we ordered a hazelnut cheese cake which was SUPER PERFECT. A small morsel for Rs 195, but its taste was worth its price and since we were stuffed, we were not complaining. The mock-tail was Rs 300 and the hot chocolate was Rs 110, so the total bill was around Rs 1100, which is not bad for the wonderful meal to celebrate a special occasion.

Service was spot on, with water being refilled every time it was below half glass and waiter was knowledgeable with the menu, which helped. Ambiance is brilliant and can compete to be one of the best ambiances in Chennai. I only wish they used a different cheese on the pizza!

Food 9/10
Service 9/10
Ambiance 9/10
Price 7/10

ITALIA is the restaurant at THE PARK POD hotel on KNK Road, Nungambakkam.

Texas Fiesta

2011-03-22T13:23:00.003+05:30

Well made Mexican dish is a delight to any palate, the key being 'Well made'. The Texas version of Mexican popularly called the Tex Mex is pretty good too and its sad that in Chennai, there are not too many places offering good Mexican food! Texas Fiesta joined the small group attempting to serve Mexican and my first few visits there left me thinking 'Good food, but is this Tex Mex/Mexican?' So when I was invited to review the place and meet its owners last week, I jumped at the offer!

The owner has spent a few years in the US and has a passion for food - so much passion that he actually went through training in Mexican cuisine! His knowledge of the Mexcian food is amazing and I was glad I went as I learnt a lot about Mexican cuisine. In my previous visits to Texas Fiesta, there were a few glaring mistakes on Mexican food, such as chopped onions being served as Salsa and curd being served as Sour cream and fajitas served without tortilla. All of those have been corrected, but is it now an outstanding place to eat? Well.........

While we waited for the owner to come, we helped ourselves to some starters and had Fiery Chicken wings and fried cheese balls. The wings were FIERY alright with a super dose of chilly - I am not a fan of the wings or the FIRE, but I could manage this dish, while the cheese balls were decent stuff. When the owner landed there, we all went with his suggestions for the main course and so our table had a chicken fajitas, a burrito with mushroom sauce, a beef steak and a chicken quesadilla. I will start with the best dish which was the beef steak - super well done with great flavor! The others were all decent, with the burrito and fajitas being served with Mexican rice and some sides, and the quesadilla being served on its own. The main courses all tasted good, but certainly missed the classic Mexican flavor that you should have when you eat TexMex or Mexican - completely missing except for maybe the Mexican rice. The owner agreed that some of the dishes were kind of fusions - for example, the mushroom sauce does not really exist in the Mexican cuisine!

The dessert that we had, CHURROS, also called the Spanish donut was SUPER!!!! Fried to perfection, served with a super sauce and tasted unbelievable!!!! The margaritas (non alcoholic that is) that they serve here are superb, my favorite being the Kiwi, while the lime and strawberry are not far behind.

Food here is good, but is certainly not Mexican or TexMex enough for me. I think there are enough Mexican and TexMex dishes that our population will enjoy without diluting it with fusion and my quest for decent Mexican in Chennai continues!!! But the Churros and the Margaritas here have no competition as yet!!! The margaritas are priced around Rs 75, the main courses between Rs 200 and Rs 325, and the desserts around Rs 100.

Mr Prem, the owner acknowledges that his aim was not to serve Mexican, but to be the best Tex Mex in town. In that sense, I think he will be getting there soon if he continues to make sure that his expertise in this cuisine is translated every time the chef cooks the meal!!!!

Food 7/10

Ambiance 7/10

Service 7/10

Price 7/10

Texas Fiesta is located on Shafee Mohammed Road, the road bang opposite Fruit Shop on Greme's Road, Egmore.

Mash Grill

2011-03-18T11:10:00.002+05:30

When a friend of mine from the Chennai Food Guide called me for first taste review of this upcoming restaurant, I casually asked him if the restaurant was in the Wallace Garden vicinity and 'Yes' came the answer!The hub around KNK Road in Nungambakkam can stake claim to be the Food Capital of Chennai!! What else can explain restaurants queuing up to set shop in this place (with reports that space owners don't want a rent but a share in revenue!!!)?

So I parked my car on the road and walked up to the restaurant and was taken aback by the look - Great first impression for a restaurant that is not yet open! The exteriors were nice and chic and screams 'expensive'. The owner took us around the place, and I could not help but notice that the interiors were not as good as the exterior, but were decent and upmarket. Being a house that is being turned around into a food joint, you have a lot of small pockets of space and not one big chunk. The ground floor had about three such rooms if I am right each with about four tables or so. The first floor was similar, but it also had one conference room type of space which will soon be available for house parties that can host up to 20 people. You have more people on your facebook friends list? 'No problem' says Sunil, one of the partners, 'We have the terrace and also the outdoor seating that you can book for your party' he says! Impressive, but I do not know if the concept will catch on, lets wait for the market to answer that!

Now to the food - we were served Lemon Prawns Grill for starters and it was easily the best dish of the night! Succulent, well marinated prawns that were oozing with flavor and I must have had at least 8 of them! It was followed by small portions of their best dishes, the first being a cat fish steak. I am not a big fan of fish, but my friend suggested that I try and I was glad that I tried as it was superb. The next dish served was a beef steak, which to me was not great. The beef was not the best cut in town and the flavor did not seep in, so marination was a problem. The same problem was with the next dish too, the lamb kebab and both these need some mentoring!!!

Ambiance is very nice, prices are yet to be up and the service can be judged only when its open to the public. If they tweak the beef and mutton, Mash Grill can be up on the already crowded food space in this area!! Waiting eagerly for their opening - atleast for the prawn and cat fish steaks! Slurp!

Blur Cafe

2011-03-14T16:49:00.000+05:30

I love burgers - a fact that I am not ashamed to flout - and a proper one at that, not a burger with a piece of chicken inside it, but one with the perfect patty. Last week, I had an urge for a good burger and I could not find one around T. Nagar (where I work), so my friend and I decided to see what Chicking had to offer as it was the closest to us and it has been almost four years since I went there, so.......well, I did not even write about it and I realized that I should have not gone there in the first place - bad bread, bad everything.......Back to the point, the burger craze was getting worse after a bad burger!

I pulled another friend of mine and dragged him to join me for a burger at the Blur Cafe, Satyam Complex - he decided to have a hot dog instead, while I ordered their beef burger and slurp, slurp, slurp, I loved it! The hot dog was pretty nice, but yes, there was something other than the burger that took the cake (and the baker's wife along with it) - the chocolate crumble! Whoa, it was simply superb - with rice chocolate mousse (I think) with lots of crumble on top and perfect to be shared! In fact, I forgot to mention the starter - a bruschetta, the Italian garlic bread served with goodies on top of it, equally stunning as the burger!

While the food was getting ready, the friend wanted to play a game of bowling and I obliged, its been a while since I played bowling and I scored 146 - I don't think he wants me to mention what he scored!!!

So, by the end of the day I got my burger and a bonus with the dessert, and a game of bowling!

We have spoken at length about their service and ambiance, so lets give that a miss! The burger was priced at Rs 130, which was fine for its size, taste and quality!

Food 9/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 8/10

10D's lunch!

2011-03-10T10:03:00.002+05:30

I've heard about the lunch combo at 10D for quite sometime, so yesterday four of us (one person who came only to watch as he had his lunch already) landed there to get a taste of what was cooking! The ambiance was great as is usual to 10D and we settled on comfortable sofas well inside the restobar!

I was aware of the price before we went here, Rs 150 for veg and Rs 200 for non veg - which includes a soup/beer/soft drink, a main course and dessert of the day, but I was not aware of the humongous choice on offer! I cannot even list the number of choices for the main course, with a choice of Indian, Chinese and Continental and each of them having at least ten or twelve choices within them. Soup of the day also had choices between cream of tomato and cream of mushroom and both were decent! The friend ordered a Chinese fried rice combo, which itself had rice and gravy to it, his wife ordered a spicy Indian veg rice combo which also had rice and gravy to it, while yours truly, settled for a portion of Shepherd's pie which was served with a toast!

Both the rice combos were brilliant to say the least! The gravy that comes with the combo have a decent portion of chicken in it and not a 'nam ke vas' stuff! The shepherd's pie was well........a very bad variant of the pie, but I guess it is my fault to order that here - should have stuck to the more 'traditional' stuff. Dessert was a choice of ice cream and nothing much to talk about. If you stay off the exotic stuff, the lunch combo is deal and value for money!

Service is quick and attentive and we had no complaints! Ambiance is chic!

I will certainly go back here when I have company and don't want to burn a hole in the pocket!

Food 8/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 9/10

10D is located on North Boag road, well before the entry to Residency Towers!

Aroma

2011-03-08T16:13:00.003+05:30

Ok, on a cash crunchy day, when two ATMs refused to spit out money for some strange reason we landed ourselves at this dingy outlet, a couple of hundred meters from the Kodambakkam bridge and decided to see what the aroma was at this place.

We sat on the dingy bench and saw the 'menu' and ordered ourselves 1 plate of parathas, two romali rotis, a fried rice, a portion of paneer butter masala and a portion of dhal fry masala. Well, the two gravys were priced at Rs 20 each (yes, you read right) and the breads Rs 10 per plate and guess what, I don't know if it was price that made us feel that way, but the food was very very decent. Certainly better in a lot of ways compared to 50 bucks, a proper budget restaurant on RK salai. The food is prepared right in front of your eyes and so there is no problem with it being fresh! The portions are decent, made for one person, so you will be fine with one rice and one gravy dish!!

Obviously you do not expect any service here, so I am not going to talk about it! We also had two lime sodas each and so the 'meal for two' was Rs 100 flat!

Food 7/10

Ambiance 3/10

Service - NA

Price 10/10

Aroma is a tiny eat out located about 200 m before the Kodambakkam bridge (diag opp to Sekar Emporium)

Atomic Donuts

2011-02-28T16:30:00.004+05:30

As we were walking at the lobby of Chennai Citi Center (yeah, I go there even after the EA onslaught), the wife pointed out to a quirky little machine which was spitting out mini donuts, looked like a vada machine which was put to an innovative use.

We walked close to the stall and he did the ultimate marketing trick - gave us a free sample and what I ate blew my mind - maybe it was super fresh and straight out of the oven, but the donut was tiny but yyyyyuuuummmmyyy. You get to choose from regular which is priced at Rs 50 for 4, premium which is Rs 30 per piece and Rs 100 for five. Certainly expensive when you can get a good chocolate donut ( a big one that too) for about Rs 20 at French Loaf, but the premium flavors here were too good with rich chocolate, one with white chocolate, one studded with nuts, one with crunchy chocolate and the likes.

I thoroughly enjoyed the donuts and yeah, I am heading there right now to get a couple of them! Hope they maintain the quality and also bring down the price slightly - but yeah, it is positioned as a premium donut! Oh well..........

Atomic donuts is on the ground floor lobby of the CCC.

F9

2011-02-17T10:52:00.001+05:30

F9, a resto bar at Quality Inn Aruna opened its doors to the Chennai crowd after (apparently) wowing its clients in Hyderabad. I have been wanting to try this place as the concept looked interesting with their ads showing a world map on the table with diners all around and the place screams 'Global Cuisine'

4 of us gathered here on a Sat evening with two more joining us for dessert and we settled in to a nice place close to the open kitchen. The ambiance is nice and elegant and the open kitchen certainly adds to the decor, which seemed simple but well done. We started off with Goluti Kebab, which had about 8 succulent kebabs, done to perfection but served with 4 tiny pieces of paratha, hardly enough for 2 pieces of the kebab. Goluti tastes best with the roti, but they seem to think otherwise - but the kebab itself was brilliant and made up for the lack of roti and since there were eight pieces, we din't ask for roti!

For the main course, the waiter suggested an Arab Meat Platter, priced at about Rs 600 and said that it was good for two and so we went with that, a BBQ Chicken thin crust pizza and a Chicken Pasta. The Platter was superb, with two pieces each of fish tikka, chicken tikka, lamb chops, sheek kebab and one more chicken dish which I don't know the name, served with one large romali roti, french fries and chutney. I thoroughly enjoyed the dishes as it had variety and taste to it. The Chicken pizza was pretty impressive too and tasted great, while the pasta was not bad. As an after thought, we ordered a Thai Chicken curry for a friend who joined us late and the dish took 45 minutes to come and was average. They apologized for the delay and no offence was taken, but that is quite sometime to serve the dish, considering the others came quite quickly

Two friends joined us for dessert and so we ordered a huge walnut cake sundae, a cheese cake and a German chocolate cake and then ordered one more of the walnut fudge sundae, somehow the second one was quite average, but the first one was brilliant. It is a tall glass stuffed with walnut fudge, chocolate sauce, macroons and ice cream and is quite a dish. The cheese was awesome, but the German Chocolate cake was average.

The total bill for the above was Rs 3092. Service was reasonable. None of us had alcohol that night, but the 'drinkers' in the group suggested that alcohol was priced lower than they expected. Service was quite attentive, except for the one delayed dish. Food is on the expensive side, and while I am not convinced about this 'Global Cuisine', food is certainly very good here and I would love to go back!

Food 9/10
Service 7/10
Price 7/10
Ambiance 8/10

F9 is located on Sterling Road in the Quality Inn Aruna Premesis.

Update: A friend went here yesterday and complained that the fish he ordered was pathetic and not fresh at all.

Zaras Tapas Bar

2011-02-09T14:28:00.001+05:30

Zaras is one pub/restobar that can compete with any full service restaurant for quality, quantity and taste of food and win hands down. Its been a while since I have had food here and last Sunday a couple of friends decided to meet here for a nice Sunday night dinner with drinks for the 'Drinkers' (pun intended)

The waiters here laugh to themselves when they see a 'teetotaler' among a group of 'men' and this particular guy who waited on us made it very dramatic, but I guess that is part of the fun and as long as no one is hurt, I guess that fine too! The 'men' ordered their round of drinks (for the heck of it - all of us were here for the food) and let me not elaborate on the 'bandha' factor!

We ordered half a dozen starters - the best among them being the honey garlic prawns and the grilled chicken pinchos - out standing stuff. Almost everything here is good, but the pinchos were excellent today. The spanish omelette was another star among the starters ,while the fish fingers were pretty decent. After a large round of starters, we placed order for five main courses - I ordered the king prawns in tomato sauce, the wife ordered the Sea Bass fish fillet, the friend ordered a grilled chicken breast while his wife ordered some pasta while the other friend ordered the grilled lamb! The sea bass fish was outstanding and was the best order of the day - the fish was super soft and cooked to perfection, followed by the lamb which was another dish done to perfection. My prawns were pretty decent, the pasta and the chicken breast were pretty good. None of them were bad or average - all of them above average, good or excellent!

We were pretty stuffed but decided to go ahead with two desserts - A chocolate mousse and the other a walnut fudge with ice cream! Both the desserts were outstanding and a fitting finish to a brilliant meal!

Service is excellent and attentive and the ambiance is pretty outstanding, if only the music was a little less loud, you would not have to yell to be heard! Prices are good and the whole meal cost us around Rs 3500, which is around Rs 650 per head that included two 'small' alcohol, about 6 starters, 5 main courses and 2 desserts which is pretty decent!!!

Food 9.5/10
Price 8/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 8/10

Zara's is located on RK Salai bang opp the Chola Sheraton Hotel.

Mainland China

2011-02-06T11:53:00.001+05:30

Its been a while since I visited this place and for a small get together of about 8 people, the friend decided to meet here (at the Alwarpet branch) and that's how I discovered that MC has not been able to keep up the standard!

I was late by about forty five minutes and by this time the gang had polished off a few starters, so we ordered starters again and I tasted the corn fry in basket, the chicken dimsum and some chilly chicken - the basket in which the corn was served was very tasty and the corn itself was not bad, the chicken dimsum was very ordinary and the chilly chicken was average at best! We then had some chicken fried rice and a beef gravy which was again pretty average.

We ordered a sizzling brownie as it is a tried and tested dish, a darsan with ice cream and a portion of fried ice cream. The brownie was very average and certainly not fresh, the darsan was actually very tasty with the ice cream and is definitely recommended, while the fried ice cream had 3 pieces and was too big to fit into your mouth and so you had to try to cut it which spills out the ice cream and the whole experience is gone - as supposed to the ones you get in Noodle house and Cascade where in they are bite sized and six pieces!

Service was infact very good and pretty attentive and the ambiance was decent! Don't know if it was a bad day, but I am not motivated to going back there until someone else tells me that it has improved!

Food 5/10
Service 7/10
Price 6/10
Ambiance 7/10

Mainland China is located behind the Lanson Toyota Showroom on Cenetoph Road!

Buharis

2011-01-27T12:19:00.004+05:30

Ah, its been almost 10 years since I ate at a Buhari's, so when we had the chance for a quite Sunday night dinner, off we went to the outlet opp the Central Railway Station for some Biriyani and some rendezvous for the mother - who just could not stop keep recalling all the times she ate there and the wife countering it with how her mom has always had food there! God knows, but maybe the two have eaten there a few decades back not knowing that their offspring will one day be man and wife!

Anyway, we chose to eat in the A/C section, which had a little more sanity to it and once settled down, had a look at the menu. I have no idea why people order fried rice and noodles at Buhari - does not make sense to me, but I saw a few of those being served. We just stuck to what is expected to be good - Chicken Biriyani, Chicken 65, Gobi 65 (wife loves Gobi), Butter Chicken and Naan! The chicken Biriyani was outstanding - I thoroughly enjoyed it - something that happens very rarely for me with Biriyani. The chicken 65 was equally outstanding - Legend goes that this was the 65th item on the Buhari's menu and hence the name - I have no way of confirming or rejecting that hypothesis, but it was great! Always mention Chicken 65 boneless, because its bone counterpart is certainly not good!!! The gobi was alright, the naan was nice and the butter chicken was neat! We finished with Falooda which was pretty ordinary, there was Semia inside instead of the original falooda. Mom had to get herself half a kg of Buharis Muscat - a halwa that is a specialty here and it was superb!

Prices are higher if you sit in the A/C, the chicken biriyani was Rs 130, the Chicken 65 Rs 90, the naan Rs 20 and the Butter Chicken Rs 90! Service is average, but nothing to complain about! Nothing much to speak about as far as ambiance goes!

Yes, I will go back here for some biriyani next time I feel like it!

Food 9/10
Price 7/10
Service 6/10
Ambiance 6/10

There are a number of outlets, but I went to the one opp Central Station!

Dine - Escape

2011-01-13T15:46:00.001+05:30

The new chic Escape by Satyam has a nice eat out on the lines of Blur Cafe, but with nicer interiors. So when the family was out at Express and had no mood for self service at the Food Court, we decided to dine at DINE and the whole experience was pretty nice!

We did not order starters - just plunged into one main course each. The wife had Lasagna, I had Chicken burger, sisters had one Mandarin Chicken and one Pasta a la Greek and the mom had chiken tikka! The lasagna was pretty decent, with a good serving of sauce on top and well baked. The chicken burger was ok, nothing special, the chicken ala Greek was awesome. Though small, the taste of these two small chicken breast pieces served on a small bed of pasta and fine vegetables was exquisite. The two gravy dishes that we ordered - the Mandarin and the Chicken tikka were served with rice - the Mandarin with egg fried rice and the Tikka with herbed rice and both were simply superb!!!!

For dessert we had two portions of Hazelnut mousse served on a ginger short bread and it was by Mikeal Besse - so, yeah it was out of the world too!!!!! Service was quick and attentive and the place is small so there is no problem with catching anybody's attention. The main courses were priced at Rs 175 odd, the burger at Rs 130 and the lasagna at Rs 235

DINE turns out to be a good 'non food court' option to eat out when you are shopping away to glory at Express Avenue!

Food 8/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 8/10

50 bucks

2011-01-12T10:37:00.001+05:30

I was pretty harsh on my first review of 50 bucks and I was not very happy when my friend insisted that I eat there, but I went along anyway to see if anything had improved! I must say that things have improved by leaps and bounds. The full menu is now available and the food is certainly worth what you pay for in that atmosphere!

We had three dishes - an omelette with fried rice from the Chinese part of the menu, which was quite filling and the rice tasted decent and the whole combo was Rs 50, a risotto from the Italian part of the menu which was again not the perfect risotto, but a pretty decent one for 50 bucks and Chimichanga from the Mexican part of the menu, which was pretty bad! The final bill was Rs 150 flat - no hidden charges or taxes and the meal was pretty filling for two people - infact the next time I will stick to ordering just two items from the menu for two people and will probably have a drink.

Service was pretty quick and polite and the waiter knew the dishes well. So, yeah, I will probably go back here a few times to try the other dishes on the menu, esp when the pocket is on the empty side!

Food 7/10
Price 9.5/10
Ambiance 6/10
Service 7/10

50 bucks is located above Dominos on RK Salai!

Dynasty

2011-01-05T13:15:00.001+05:30

The last time (before this visit) to Dynasty was in 2002 in the Old Harrison's hotel, and was not really impressed! But mom wanted to have Chinese and so we decided to try out Dynasty at Harrison's and so off we went for a Sunday dinner!! I called in and made reservations and was promptly seated when we walked in!

The interiors were decent and chic and the menu, pretty extensive. We asked our usual fare in any Indo Chinese resto - Chilly Beef, Phuket Fish and this time we added 'Dynasty special Prawns' along with our Wanton soup and fried rice with noodles!

The food was good, pleasant, comfort Indo Chinese. The prawns that we had were very well made and tasted great, the chilly beef was not bad, but not great either, but the Phuket fish was made to perfection. The soups were typical Indo chinese and very predictable and therefore nice with no surprizes! We ordered their date pancake with ice creams and the pancakes were also cooked to perfection.

The service was alright, but the boy who served water was probably new and was shivering and spilling water all over, for most other part, the service was attentive and acceptable. The above cost us about Rs 1450, which was about 400 per head for decent quantity and quality of food!

I would certainly not mind going back for some comfort Indo Chinese food!!!

Food 7/10

Service 7/10

Ambiance 8/10

Price 7/10

Dynasty is housed at Harrisons Hotel in Nungambakkam. Another branch is on GN Chetty road, just before you get onto the Anna Flyover, on your right (when you take the flyover)

Kryptos by Willi

2010-12-24T11:29:00.001+05:30

After its grand opening, which I thoroughly enjoyed, my second visit to Kryptos was a rather forgetful one, and so I did not even bother writing about it! I had made my thought clear to the manager and he was more than happy to listen to complaints without ever once being defensive - so Kudos to their managerial and service team .So when friends suggested that we meet there again for a community lunch on a fine Saturday afternoon, I had no qualms and went ahead and found change in almost every aspect!

The previous time I went, the starters had too much puff pastry and too little meat and when its priced at about Rs 500, you feel let down. So when this time, the Arnipitakia - puff pastry with stuffed lamb was brought, I was skeptical, but what a change - you could just not complain. The lamb inside was perfectly cooked and the puff pastry was just right! Kotopoulopitakia-Stuffed chicken and phyllo pastry rolls with apricot and feta cheese was equally brilliant. The cold mezze platter was not up to the mark, though a couple of them were decent, but the two starters more than made up for it!

Since we were about eight of us, I got to try various dishes for the main course and some of them were quite outstanding - the Kotopittai which is diced chicken wrapped in béchamel and baked in layered phyllo pastry served with salad and baked potato - simply superb. The chicken souvlaki is their trademark dish, I guess and it was pretty decent, while the Lahano Dolmathes which is Tenderloin filled braised cabbage leaves in lemon and butter egg sauce with bean Casserole was quite brilliant.

However, the Gyros were still not upto the mark and in my opinion I feel that though this team has a history of brilliant bread making, they have just not mastered the art of the Pita bread - they are just not able to do justice to the Pita bread, so the gyros and the falafels fall out in taste as they are not packaged right! So I would stay out of these, though these are pretty Greeky!

The desserts here are brilliant - just brililant! They have the best Baklava in town and nothing is more Greek than Baklava, so........ Their mango cheese cake was again awesome, just perfect!

Service is outstanding, attentive and if you make suggestions, they are even willing to borrow a couple of ears and listen to you if they must! And if your suggestions make sense, believe me, you will see a change quite soon as I saw, so full marks for their service. The one drawback to me here was the price of starters- Rs 500 is very high for a few starters by any stretch of imagination so while the prices are high for main course and can be justified, the price of some starters are quite high!

I know now precisely what to order here and so I am sure I will enjoy my meal everytime! Their baked dishes are very good, but I hope the gyros, the pita bread and hummus gets fixed, because I know for a fact that if this gets fixed, this will just juice you up everytime! And do not miss the desserts!

Food 7/10
Service 9.5/10
Ambiance 9/10
Price 6/10

Kryptos by Willi is located on KNK road, opp the old Mocha building, in the basement of the building that hosts Sports Locker

Baan Thai

2010-12-20T10:31:00.001+05:30

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, the two of us (the wife, after a bit of shopping) felt like some Thai! With Benjarong being a bit far off, we decided to try Baan Thai, a pretty new kid on the Thai block! We parked our cars and walked into a pretty impressively set interiors, but almost empty restaurant! And when that happens on a Sunday afternoon, you tend to get a little worried!

We settled in and the wife ordered her favorite soup - the Tom Yam and I asked for the Chicken wrapped in Pandora leaves! To be honest, both tasted good! The chicken was very succulent, juicy and well made, while the soup was very much Tom Yam. For the main course, we had Thai fried rice and a Chicken Potato gravy, the name of which I cannot recall, but I can tell you that both were good too! Being only the two of us, we were pretty stuffed with this, but still decided to order the water chestnut dessert, one of my personal favorites in the Thai dessert circle! The water chestnuts served with ice cream was pretty impressive too and was probably the best of the whole meal!

After not hearing too many good reviews and finding the place empty on a Sunday afternoon, the food tasted pretty good. I don't know if our expectations were low or if the food was indeed good, but the above cost us Rs 1240! Now on that front, I would rather have the Thai at one of the better restaurants, but I presume the price is for the location - Wallace gardens!

Service was quick and very attentive and the waiter was able to guide us on our order and even suggested what curry goes with what gravy, so I would rate the service high, but like I said, there were only two customers, so.......

Food 8/10
Service 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 7/10

Baan Thai is located behind Apollo Hospitals, above the KOBE Sizzlers outlet!

Aroma

2010-12-17T11:50:00.001+05:30

On a busy long queue day at Subway, my friend and I decided to hop to Aroma, bang opp Subway Nungambakkam and see what they offered! As soon as we entered, we were told that their Continental Chef was away and only Indian and Chinese were available - not a great welcome!

But we decided to have something quickly and leave and so we settled down to a corner of a nice and elegant interior setting and saw the menu - the menu was not ready and so we had to read it off printed A4 sheet. The owner was around and suggested that we try 'a unique chicken' with a fancy name that I cannot recall, so we went with that and ordered two kothu parathas with it! Oh man, it was mind blowing! The chicken that they served us was awesome, super soft and very very tasty and the kothu parathas for Rs 50 was a deal both in quality, quantity and taste! We were not in the mood for desserts, but I plan to go back here to try some more stuff!

Apparently there is a coffee shop Chew n Brew that is set to open on the open space of this restaurant, so lets see how they queue up to Chennai eating scene!

Food 8/10 (only tried two dishes)

Ambiance 8/10

Service 7/10

Price 7/10

Aroma is located opp Subway Nungambakkam on the same ground that hosted Cedars for sometime (and a long list of other restaurant, which failed to take off)

Amma Chettinad

2010-12-10T15:14:00.002+05:30

Wanting to have a quick lunch, four of us took our car and noticed this Amma Chettinad board a short distance from work and decided to try it out! The place is absolutely no frills, but plays ONLY MGR songs! Nothing much as far as interiors go and we settled ourselves into a corner table for four and asked for what was available, hoping to get some kothu parota!

'Only meals and biriyani anna' is the reply we got! 'I can get you some pepper chicken, but thats all' said the waiter! So we ordered just one biriyani and one pepper chicken and thought we will taste it before we order more, but what we ate blew our minds. Immediately an order for a couple more pepper chickens and biriyani were placed and what was intended to be a quick short lunch, had us stuffed to our throats!!! The waiter then said that they have 'Mutton chukka' and without a blink, we ordered that as well! The chukka was certainly no match for the pepper chicken, but was pretty good, thought its quantity was tiny! The biriyani was the chettinad biriyani, not the Muslim one, and was pretty good with a nice large chunk of chicken inside!

Service is nothing great, the usual low end service and prices were great, the whole meal cost us around Rs 500! I would love to go back and try out their other chettinad stuff, but those things are only available after 730 PM, but I presume they will be great too!!!

Food 8/10
Service 6/10
Ambiance 6/10
Price 8/10

Amma Chettinad, is located in a street off GN Chetty Road (take the left next to Barathiraja Hospital, you can see the board at the start of the road)

Gatsby Village - Baker's Street

2010-12-07T11:53:00.003+05:30

After seeing a number of paper ads, on a lazy sunday morning, we headed out to Gatsby Village for some baked breakfast options! We were surprised to see only one table in the center, lots of expensive stuff to buy and a small table with food at the corner. The smell was heavenly, but our idea of having a nice breakfast was sloshed! Apparently the table we saw was for sale and that the food here is 'take away' only!

Not wanting to be disappointed, we ordered ourselves a croissant, a chocolate twister and a quiche. The food (may be it was a fresh batch since we were there in the morning), was awesome! The chocolate croissant was crisp on the outside and soft inside and with the right amount of butter - fantasitc. The chocolate twister had generous amounts of chocolate and the puff pastry was baked perfectly and was mouth watering, while the quiche was just ok!

Sad that you cannot eat inside, but the way the food is stored, I presume that only the mornings will have you happy, it might get stale as the day passes. It is advertised as a eat out, so maybe the ads are misleading or I misunderstood the ads! I would love to try out other things here as I know Baker's Street is pretty reputed in Pondy, but I am not sure if the outlets have a place to sit in and eat! But hey, the croissant was just awesome!
Prices are on the higher side for the cakes, but not bad for the croissants!

Food 7/10
Service NA
Ambiance NA
Price 7/10

We went to the one on RK Salai, where Barista used to be hosted, but I believe there are a few more outlets in Chennai!

Soup n Salad Cafe

2010-12-04T09:13:00.001+05:30

While spending a night at a friend's, we decided to have a pretty late night snack and landed here at about 1050 PM, but the staff were accommodating enough to let us in, even though they close at 11!!!! The interiors were nice and elegant, and the display has some mouth watering (atleast by sight) dishes!

We settled down and ordered ourselves a cream of bell pepper soup, a salad called 'Famous Haiti' or something like that, a chaat and a croquette zondich. Oh my God, the last time I enjoyed veg food so much was quite a few years back at Eden! The croquette zondich (I think I got the spelling right), was croquettes stuffed in pita bread and loaded with stuffings and cheese and tasted simply superb!!! That 'famous' salad was again, just out of the world, it was a salad with beans and the likes, with broken potato chips and a good amount of dressing! The chaat was just alright, nothing special and the soup was pretty decent, I have never had 'cream of bell pepper, and I love bell pepper, so I really enjoyed it though!!!!

If the soup and salads were super, the desserts were unbelievable! We had a blue berry cheese cake, which to me was of an outstanding standard, and the mud pie - Oh!!!!!!! It was powdered cookie base with three scoops of ice cream and of such good quality that for a minute I did think I was abroad - rarely in small cafes here, do you get such quality!!!!!! All this cost us Rs 617, so yeah, prices are great too!

I am definitely going back here to try other stuff, and I am told that their breads which are on display for sale are pretty good too, so I have lots more to try out here!

Food 9/10
Ambiance 8/10
Service 8/10
Price 9/10

The one I visited is in Adyar, but there is one in Alwarpet, just before Kabul and a new one in Anna Nagar, I am told. The ones in Alwarpet and Anna Nagar also serve non veg, so yeah, I am heading to one of them to get a taste of their non veg!!!!

Baskin Robbins

2010-11-27T18:45:00.001+05:30

Baskin Robbins was the first 'premium' ice cream I have ever had in my life, about 15 years or so back! It was so nice that every other ice cream tasted yuck and then suddenly BR started dwindling in quality and quantity and number of stores and everything and soon it faded off my mind! BR is back (or has been back for quite sometime now) and how!

Among them, the stand out for me has to be the Bavarian Chocolate - Imagine chocolate ice cream, with nuts, some liquid chocolate inside and some extra nice chocolate and multiply this whole thing by itself - yes, thats how I felt when I deviated from my usual favorite - the Fig n Honey! The fig is just awesome and the flavor rich! My friend tried the bubble gum flavor and it brought back the whole bubble gum that you can swallow feeling! Their mango is very nice too and they all taste even better when had in their chocolate dipped waffle cone!!!! Slurp!!

Ok, enough, go n get your share now!!!

Food 10/10
Price 10/10
Service NA
Ambiance - varies with each store!

I know its there in Express Avenue, near the food court, on RK Salai near Stella, on OMR and on Kilpauk down the road from Fruit Shop, but there is a whole lot more!

Cream Center

2010-11-27T17:44:00.000+05:30

Having occupied the physical space of Mumbai based restaurant which was a total failure, Cream Center on College road had a few good reviews initially, but being a pure veg restaurant, it did not particularly catch my attention! But I had a chance to go there last week as part of a large group and finally got a first hand sight (and taste) of the food there!

8 of us landed here on a Saturday afternoon and barged the waiters with orders. American corn balls, falafels, Big Nachos, onion rings and another round of the above. The corn balls were filled with cream cheese and corn and were pretty good, while the falafels were very very nice - served perfectly inside a pita bread pocket and was a mini meal by itself! The onion rings were very average, but the big nachos was nice - huge nachos served on a bed of sauce with all the things that normally go into nachos ,just that that the sauce base was not great!

For main course, we had veg biriyani (yeah, bad idea), enchiladas, penne with baby potatoes, grill paneer, paneer on tawa and thali! The biriyani tasted like tomato rice with flavor and nothing more, the enchiladas were pathetic - with a very very dilute sauce and melted cheese and was pretty bad, but the paneer steak dishes were not bad, they were very edible. The penne was pretty decent and was probably the only sauce that was close to being what it is supposed to be!

For desserts, we had crispy belgian waffle served with ice cream, shahi thukda sizzler, brownie with icecream and fruit salad. I am sure a Belgian will hang himself if you called that Belgian Waffle, but it was present well and the ice cream and fruits on top were pretty good, the waffle itself was certainly not Belgian and not crisp either (both of which should ideally be removed from the name and simply called Waffle with ice cream). The shahi thukda was alright and the brownie was not fresh!

Since we had a plethora of dishes, courtesy the large group, there were a few hits and misses, more misses than hits, but on the whole I enjoyed their starters, the paneer steak dishes and the penne, but others were decent, but certainly not justified by their names or the pictures on the menu!

But being fair to them, this is a pure veg place and some of the vegetarians actually enjoyed the food, so I think this is at best a good vegetarian attempt at Continental food which is very non vegie!

Service was quick and prompt, the ambiance was pretty good and the whole thing cost us Rs 4400, about Rs 600 per head, but if you go as two, you will end up paying more per head I think!

Food 6/10
Service 7/10
Ambiance 7/10
Price 6/10

Creme Center is located on College road, just down Alliance Francais!

la Boulangerie

2010-11-23T23:08:00.003+05:30

la Boulangerie, touted to be the best 'French' bakery in town had a wonderful ambiance at their first outlet in Anna Nagar! Now, I have no clue as to what happened to that one, but though no other outlet has that wonderful ambiance, food is pretty good!

We went back to the outlet inside the Harrison's hotel lobby for a rendezvous of our dating days! The setting is pretty cute, though small and very elegant. We asked for a butter almond croissant, a cheese quiche, a white forest cake and chocolate mousse! The croissant is certainly not the best in the world, its not crisp on the outside and soft inside, but its not bad either. The quiche was pretty good and well baked, while the cake and the mousse were decent. We did not try out their garlic bread this time, it used to be brilliant earlier. The above cost us Rs 240, so most dishes are priced around Rs 50! LB is certainly not what it used to be sometime back, but its still decent for occasional indulgences!

LB has a dessert buffet on weekends, priced at Rs 200 plus taxes ( I think) which I would like to try sometime soon. Nothing to speak of service in a bakery and the ambiance is neat!

Food 7/10
Service 7/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 7/10

la Boulangerie is located at multiple places in Chennai, the one is Harrison's hotel is the closest for me. You can visit their site for more locations. http://www.laboulangerie.in/

Cafe Pascucci, Express Avenue

2010-11-18T14:45:00.000+05:30

Cafe Pascucci is the latest Italian fare to enter Chennai and have opened their floors at the Express Avenue Mall! The place is very inviting, with a large seating area with comfortable chairs and a few with sofas and in general looks very elegant.

The menu is pretty limited as far as the food is concerned, but as we found out later, pretty good. We ordered a Italian combo priced at Rs 189, for Chicken Bruschetta, a chicken pasta and fruit salad with ice cream. The portions were stunning, with two large garlic breads (the bruschetta), with loads of chicken, a full sized pasta and pretty decent sized Fruit salad. We also had chicken ham pizza, lasagna and italian sandwich. The Italian sandwich was brilliant, with good amount of smoked chicken, the pizza was very tasty but had scanty quantities of the chicken ham, while the lasagna, though tasted good, was not baked fully! We only later found out that there was a pizza combo too, with garlic bread, pizza and rum n raisin roll for Rs 150 onwards. Killer Prices for combos!

Overall, the place is great with good ambiance, prompt service and decent prices! The combo prices are killer and make it a great option!

Food 8/10
Ambiance 8/10
Service 7/10
Price 8/10

Cafe Pascucci is located at the ground floor, just off the lobby from the main entrance of the Express Avenue Mall.

Flame Grill (Mouthful)

2010-11-18T14:34:00.000+05:30

Its been quite a while since we visited Mouthful so on Saturday late evening, we headed there for some exotic stuff. We were just the two of us and decided to stick to just some specialties! For a Saturday evening, the place was pretty deserted and we were wondering if the place has lost its sheen.

So, we ordered half Lebanon Grill Chicken, a Chicken Schwarma and one Raan (the lamb leg) cooked Moroccan style. The Lebanon grill chicken is served with kuboos, some hummus and veges, while the lamb was served with the same and the schwarma with just some veges. The Lebanon grill chicken was amazing, with the perfect flavor, but the kuboos and the hummus were pretty bad. The Lamb leg was not as tender as it used to be sometime back at Mouthful (or when it was Mouthful, its Flame Grill now)! The schwarma was pretty ordinary too!

Service was ok, and the ambiance is pretty ordinary. The place has definitely lost its sheen over time, and though some dishes here are still excellent, I have a feeling that the overall quality has dropped. The group has started two new restaurants on RK Salai, called Wild Amazon and Al Arab, so maybe they are focusing their energy there! But the lebanon grill chicken was just awesome! Half chicken was priced at Rs 180, the schwarma at Rs 70 and the Raan at Rs 950.

Food 6/10
Service 7/10
Ambiance 5/10
Price 7/10

Flame Grill is located next to Green Trends on Ragaviah Road (Parallel to GN Chetty road, take a right at the Rohini Hotel Junction when coming from TP Road)

Rendezvous

2010-11-15T19:20:00.002+05:30

Ok, while this is not exactly Chennai food guide, but, Rendezvous is about 150 km drive from Chennai to Pondy! Since this place has a client list that drives down for dinner, I though I must have this place on my blog too! And I am eating here after almost five years, but the quality of the food has stayed the same!!!

Menu tries to accommodate everything and portrays a Multi Cuisine scenario, and that is where it gets all the bad reviews from! If you are looking for Chicken Tikka tasting food, then, they will serve you some Chicken tikka tasting food and will well NOT be worth your money or time! But move beyond that and have their house specialties, and you will be taken by surprise! Even lasagnas and steaks are not great here, just their house specialties, namely the ones written on a black board!

I think Pondy is the only place in South India, where you get the Sea Bass fish in local restaurants! Everywhere else it is an exclusive dish only available at five star! And Rendezvous cooks the Bass to perfection. Our Sea Bass cooked with cheese sauce was a brilliant dish - the fish was soft and was almost melting in the mouth! It is served with macroni, a veg salad and some sauces and is a must try here! Their house prawn are super yum! The price was Rs 500, and that had a super large fillet of fish (the picture only shows one quarter of the fish). The tiger prawns priced at Rs 400 for five large tiger prawns is a steal - they are cooked with the shell to perfection - you get to choose between cheese sauces, golden fry and shack style, and since the sea bass was being cooked in cheese sauce and shack style is also my favorite, I chose the shack style and it came out brilliant! The prawns are served with the same condiments as the fish! They also have a whole cooked red snapper and various other fish types, lobsters, crabs, oysters and the likes! The chicken breast steak cooked with the Worcestershire sauce was just ok, and the lasagna was pathetic. But like I said, Rendezvous is not the place for these, but I must add that their French Fries were amazing!!!!
For dessert, we had 'Death by Chocolate' - a chocolate sponge cake oozing with chocolate, and unlike the one served in Dominoes, this one has the right flavor of chocolate and therefore does not hit you! And for the first time outside of Austria, am I seeing a chocolate cake being served with cream - to me, this is the best way to eat a rich chocolate cake!

I have spoken about the service and their attitude, but I have not had a problem so far! Service is otherwise quick and attentive!They have a number of private dining rooms catering to families and large parties and a first floor seating that caters to most of us! The waiters here are known to have an attitude, especially towards Indians, maybe they are trying to be a little French, but like I mentioned before, service is quick and attentive, though you have to go there a second time to actually be smiled at!

Food 8//10
Service 6/10
Ambiance 7/10
Price 7/10

Rendezvous is located on a quite street on the French Quarter of Pondy, near Bussy Street, bang opp the Citibank ATM at Pondy!

Kleo

2010-11-01T16:05:00.000+05:30

6 of us decided to have some short eats on a lazy Sunday evening and one of them suggested Kleo! After struggling to get a place to park, we settled comfortably in a nice corner and started looking at the display for an idea for our orders. The settings are comforting, seating is well laid out with comfortable chairs, large windows for a look at the beautiful Chennai traffic and the likes!

The first round had orders of one coleslaw sandwich, a chicken tikka sub, veg burger, a butter croissant, cinnamon chocolate drink and iced tea. The coleslaw sandwich was amazing - it was two layered sandwich with lots of slaw and topped with, I think, cheese and the final product was brilliant. The iced tea, did not taste like tea to me, but however it was a BRILLIANT drink!! It was sweet, actually it did have a small hint of tea, frothy and whatever it was, it was just great! The veg burger, the tikka sandwich and the croissant were all just average, the croissant was definitely not worth it (I hear that their chocolate croissants are not dry though). The second round has orders of sandwich all of which were not bad, but not great either!

Service was good, but a lot of items on the menu are not available on a Sunday evening, you only get whatever is displayed on the counter! Prices are all very reasonable for a coffee shop and the bill of 6 people with each having a sandwich, drink and half a cake was about Rs 750! I would love to go back here and try their cakes!

Food 7/10

Ambiance 8/10

Service 7/10

Price 8/10

Kleo is on the G N Chetty road junction below the bridge, near Vani Mahal

Wild Amazon

2010-10-25T18:32:00.001+05:30

The new theme restaurant by the Mouthful Group is open to public! The setting of the restaurant is simply superb, with an elegant waiting area in the ground floor and some superb interiors to mimic the rain forest setting (reminds you of the Rain Forest restaurant in Adyar, very similar settings). There are speakers all over which keep throwing out sounds through your meal which is more of a distraction than being an attraction. There are sounds of elephants and a waiter walks around in a tiger costume and I am not too sure if both the elephant and the tiger are found in the Amazon Forest, I thought it was more of an Anaconda place!!!

We ordered one Raan (whole Lamb Leg) cooked in Moroccan style, one Afghani chicken, one baby corn fry, one crispy corn and some desserts! The Afghani chicken was probably the best dish of the lot, it was soft, well marinated and well cooked with some superb flavor! The Raan was not as good as the one in Flame Grill (by the same group), this one, though flavored well, was very dry for our liking, and being priced at Rs 1100, you do not want such dishes to go wrong. The crispy corn was a new dish and I thought it was great too, the baby corn fry was the usual fry. The death by chocolate was a brilliant dessert, while the sizzling brownie was the same old brownie!

I would love to go back here for the ambiance, the food being well priced and tasty and the service was excellent. The raan might have gone wrong that day and I would not mind trying it out again before deeming the raan here as less edible than their other outlet!

Food 7/10
Service 7/10
Ambiance 8/10
Price 7/10

Wild Amazon is located just beyond Citi Center, towards the beach!