During the epic night in Mumbai where a Mumbaikar took this Chennaivasi on a 6 hour food trip, a number of things stood out. One of them was the bun maska. Dipped lovingly in chai and bit with love and chai, this is one dish that makes you believe that you are the most hard working guy in the world and that the bun maska is your only respite.

So when bun maska was advertised, Chai Nasta became a must-visit place. So after a hardworking day three hardworking guys, for whom the world keeps wronging and bun maska was the only respite, landed there well into the evening. Yours truly was obviously one of them.

Well, it is a pure vegetarian restaurant, something I found out only when I landed there. Else there is a chance that we might have gone elsewhere. Anyway, now that we were there, the two others ordered elachi tea, chilly cheese toast and chilly paneer. I asked for the bun maska and the aloo tikki chat. Later on we added one paneer roll to our list.

This place is all about the bun maska. Yes, the chilly paneer was pretty good with chunks of paneer in a tangy gravy, the roll was blah, the aloo tikki was a nice as it should be, but only one thing stood out. The bun maska and the chai. OK, that was two things, yes. The first bun maska was plain and when we asked for a repeat order, we got the one with jam. Retrospectively, I would ditch the jam and go for the plain. A nice soft, sweet fruity bun, toasted (and tossed in oil or butter, I think), was this beautiful old time comfort food during the era when croissants were unheard of. In most of Chennai, it was always the marie biscuits that got dipped in tea, but there were places where bun was dipped in tea too. Mosques, potti kadais (street tea shops) and the likes. The elachi tea (cardamom tea) was pretty good and as sweet as the erstwhile teas when sugar wasn’t a world killer. Chai Nasta has recreated that in a slightly more modern tea kadai setting in a posh locality, right next to The Raintree hotel, St. Mary’s road, Alwarpet.

Our bill was Rs. 1000 for the three of us.

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So a post after one week and it is going to be vegetarian. Yes, I know. Sorry, but I have been meaning to write about it for quite sometime. I love good food, veg or not, but when it comes to chaats, there has been an evolution. During my teenage, I used to love pani puri and bhel puri and such foods, but slowly over the years, I have not been craving too much for them. Maybe because I personally feel that the quality of chaat has dropped drastically, however mistaken that view might be, because I still feel the old place at Fountain Plaza served great chaat. And chaat are definitely not great at fine dine places, may be you need that lack of hygiene for it to taste good? I don't know.

But when someone craves for chaat and you don't have a say, Kailash Prabat is probably the only place to land! And that is where we landed too!

Service was very very poor that day. I am starting off with the service because I had to ask for water for almost ten minutes and I asked for water after we placed order for the food, so it was not like we waited for water to be served before ordering. Finally, I got up and went to the biller and asked him for water and he looked amused. Amused. I had a good mind to leave the place, but another waiter came to me, apologised and said he will serve water. It took another few minutes, but the incident left a bad taste.

But the food arrived and so this 'water service' was soon forgotten. We asked for pani puri, channa samosa and pav bhaji.  The pani puri was quite nice, and since I am not a big fan of spicy food that leaves you sweating and panting, I sort of liked the food here. The pani puri was nice, crisp, good filling and good sweet and pani. The channa samosa was very nice too with a good dose of channa, a not very spicy samosa and a nice sauce on top. I still don't understand why they serve only two pav in the pav bhaji. Either they should be serving more pav or less bhaji, but no, they have to serve it disproportionately. Of course this is not limited to Kailash Prabat, it is a universal problem. Actually do any of you know a place which serves enough pav for the bhaji? It tasted quite good and we had to aske for 'extra pav'. It is so common that 'Extra Pav' is actually a menu item!

3.5/5. I don't know if the water issue was one off, but it did not go down well with me, but of course, I am not letting that affect my judgement of the food. The bill was about Rs. 500 for all three and the extra pav.

There are many in Chennai, but I was at the outlet on Harrington Road, above French Loaf.