Sometimes what they don’t serve in a restaurant is as important as what they do serve in it. Is the chef showcasing his or her skills? Or are they bending to every whim of the customer who is supposed to be the king?

I’ve been meaning to visit the Chef’s Table for a while now. It has a lot of mixed reviews and more I read the bad reviews, the more I liked it. It was everything I wanted in a chef’s table. I was wondering if this chef simply named it the ‘Chef’s Table’ or if he lived up to it. The reviews had a lot of answers. Small menu. Check. Small portions. Check. A lot of ‘I don’t understand……’. Check. Now I had to visit this. Taking kids to a chef’s table is generally a bad idea, but that Sunday afternoon, we just walked in. No reservation, just walked in.

The menu was indeed small. The waitstaff were trained well about the dishes. They warned us about small portions. When I asked if they could make French fries for the kids, they politely said they were unable to serve anything outside of the menu. Not with a snotty face, but very politely suggested a dish that the kids could share. Then I knew that this chef was serious about the Table.

We shared a soup, got two small plates, one large plate and one dessert for the two of us and one large plate for the kids. Let’s just say that I was glad about no french fries. The non spicy, but flavourful herbed rice with baked vegetables dish was loved by the toddlers and they finished their plate. With ease. No fuss.

The soup was a coconut based soup with oil drop. We simply stared at each other as we slowly finished the soup. Looking inside and hoping some more comes from the empty bowl. Like a sort of a magic well. We contemplated getting another portion. Silently. The waiter came over and announced that our small plates were ready. A grilled watermelon with balsamic reduction and feta. A dish so simple, yet so flavourful. For the price we paid for the dish, I believe they used imported feta. It certainly didn’t feel like some kodai cheese version of feta. The beetroot ravioli was our next small plate. A fabulous creation, with the perfect balance of everything, these were beautifully crafted.

Our large plate was the dish of the day. A beautifully cooked (braised?) beef served with some mashed potatoes on a bed of white rice. I don’t remember eating a dish like this with rice and we loved every morsel of it. A well done beef that wasn’t like chewing leather, on the other hand it was simply peeling off. A plastic spoon could have torn through the meat. The rich gravy, in its perfect quantity didn’t smother the meat and was just enough to wet the rice. A nice nutty ice cream with a chocolate lava kind of cake completed our meal.

At Rs. 3450, this is not cheap, but is probably Chennai’s first real chef’s table. The quality of ingredients was palpable and the chef’s conviction with the menu, keeping it small to be able to do full justice to it and sticking to not serving anything outside of it was commendable in a nice way. Normally a place like this will have menu changes very often, at least seasonally and I hope to find out when that happens. In the same note, I also hope that the owner is able to keep this going till a market builds for stand-alone chef’s table kind of restaurants in Chennai. It would be a shame if they shut shop due to a lack of market. Yet. 

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Sometimes what they don’t serve in a restaurant is as important as what they do serve in it. Is the chef showcasing his or her skills? Or are they bending to every whim of the customer who is supposed to be the king?

I’ve been meaning to visit the Chef’s Table for a while now. It has a lot of mixed reviews and more I read the bad reviews, the more I liked it. It was everything I wanted in a chef’s table. I was wondering if this chef simply named it the ‘Chef’s Table’ or if he lived up to it. The reviews had a lot of answers. Small menu. Check. Small portions. Check. A lot of ‘I don’t understand……’. Check. Now I had to visit this. Taking kids to a chef’s table is generally a bad idea, but that Sunday afternoon, we just walked in. No reservation, just walked in.

The menu was indeed small. The waitstaff were trained well about the dishes. They warned us about small portions. When I asked if they could make French fries for the kids, they politely said they were unable to serve anything outside of the menu. Not with a snotty face, but very politely suggested a dish that the kids could share. Then I knew that this chef was serious about the Table.

We shared a soup, got two small plates, one large plate and one dessert for the two of us and one large plate for the kids. Let’s just say that I was glad about no french fries. The non spicy, but flavourful herbed rice with baked vegetables dish was loved by the toddlers and they finished their plate. With ease. No fuss.

The soup was a coconut based soup with oil drop. We simply stared at each other as we slowly finished the soup. Looking inside and hoping some more comes from the empty bowl. Like a sort of a magic well. We contemplated getting another portion. Silently. The waiter came over and announced that our small plates were ready. A grilled watermelon with balsamic reduction and feta. A dish so simple, yet so flavourful. For the price we paid for the dish, I believe they used imported feta. It certainly didn’t feel like some kodai cheese version of feta. The beetroot ravioli was our next small plate. A fabulous creation, with the perfect balance of everything, these were beautifully crafted.

Our large plate was the dish of the day. A beautifully cooked (braised?) beef served with some mashed potatoes on a bed of white rice. I don’t remember eating a dish like this with rice and we loved every morsel of it. A well done beef that wasn’t like chewing leather, on the other hand it was simply peeling off. A plastic spoon could have torn through the meat. The rich gravy, in its perfect quantity didn’t smother the meat and was just enough to wet the rice. A nice nutty ice cream with a chocolate lava kind of cake completed our meal.

At Rs. 3450, this is not cheap, but is probably Chennai’s first real chef’s table. The quality of ingredients was palpable and the chef’s conviction with the menu, keeping it small to be able to do full justice to it and sticking to not serving anything outside of it was commendable in a nice way. Normally a place like this will have menu changes very often, at least seasonally and I hope to find out when that happens. In the same note, I also hope that the owner is able to keep this going till a market builds for stand-alone chef’s table kind of restaurants in Chennai. It would be a shame if they shut shop due to a lack of market. Yet. 

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Food brings about many debates! Authentic or tweaked to the market? Fusion or Classic? Modern or Classic? Original recipe or Modern Twist? Classic or Contemporary. These debates rage on forever and like most debates, there is never a winner! Canon or Nikon? Nope, no clear winner!

Then one smart alec chef decides to put on the plate! BOTH! I mean, no this or that. This AND that! Every single dish on the (festival) menu has two versions of dish on one plate! While I've been seeing a lot of interesting food promos at The Park recently, today I've been kicking myself for not attending those! Clearly, their Chef Saravanan has few tricks up his sleeve. He is already a mini celebrity with a TV show for himself on Sun TV, and gladly, I got a chance to meet him. It was the first day of the festival and the orders were delayed because they had an overwhelming response!

Obviously! If you are giving two dishes on every plate, this is something indeed! We started off with the simplest of simple salad! The Caesar! The original was simply the original. Some lettuce strewn and some dressing tossed with loads of parmesan cheese! It was classic, but the modern take was fabulous. A poached egg with a parmesan dressing on lettuce and I don't have a picture of that! Crap! Classic 0, Contemporary 1.

Next up was the soup! A lobster bisque! Classic was classic! Fantastic Lobster Bisque with a nice smoky flavour, but the modern take was brilliant too! Served with a little biscotti with meat and foam on top, you tend to think if this is a clever way to take a dig at the purists! Simply present them with the outdated form of food and a modern take right next to each other and with a IN-YOUR-FACE presentation, they are bound to take a view! Draw here. Classic 1, Contemporary 2

Three main courses (two of us and we shared each dish). Salmon was the only one that didn't vary too much between classic and contemporary. I guess you can't do much to a piece of fish flown in from Europe! So no points for either. Classic 1, Contemporary 2.

I definitely wanted to try the Shepherd's pie. Whoa! Classic was classic. Beautiful tenderloin topped with mashed potatoes!Yum till we had the contemporary version! Meat rolled inside thin potatoes! Whoa. It wasn't a deconstructed dish, it was a completely new dish altogether but retaining not just the essence, but the entire flavour of the original. Classic was good, but contemporary was brilliant. Classic 1, Contemporary 3.

Prawn Gravy. Mini dosa with a brilliant prawn gravy was the classic version which was yum as all of the classics were! The modern was a beautiful take. A rice pasta with the prawn gravy on top. Beautiful idea and a great way to bring a South Indian take to a modern presentation with the rice pasta, but the classic was classic! Modern simply did not kick classic's @ss here! Classic 2, Contemporary 3.

Dessert was a beautiful Lemon Merengue Pie! The classic was yum, the contemporary was yum and the flavours were all the same! So draw! Classic 3, Contemporary 4. A few more dishes on the menu and only then we will know which is the clear winner, but the winner is the concept!

Pricing is very nice. The starters were priced at Rs. 275 and the main courses between 425 and 575 and considering you get two dishes (smaller version) in each dish, a nice meal for two will cost under Rs. 2500 for a three course meal. The festival is on till the 26th, but I am more interested in what this chef is going to bring out next! Wouldn't mind going back for another cup of the Lobster bisque! 

"Wel gome to Vella Maaya," she said with the classic Kerala accent. The guy smiled with a 'first time?' coming right out of him. My eyes were all inside. The courtyard was magical. A place like this could be magical at night, but in broad daylight? It was magical then too. I was walked straight into the lobby space with two nice large sofas and loungers on either side of the entry. The wooden staircase that leads to somewhere equally magical, I suppose, was a treat for the eyes.

The property was still sinking into me. The beautiful lawn. The orchids on the wall of the lawn. The pencil art on the wall on either side of the large door. Everything was magical. The toilets....oh man. The toilets were so inviting, that if you decide to stay and sleep there, you would be forgiven.

The wooden stairs that I thought was leading to some magical place actually led to the master bedroom. It had two large beds. And equipment placed in a way that you can have a full meal on the bed. The table was built onto the bed and it just rolls over to you. After the little tour of the place, we came back to our table. Order was already placed and since it takes a while to paint the food, the tour happens.

Yes, I was talking about a restaurant. What did you think?

Welcome to Villa Maya. Its a villa and maya indeed! Food wasn't restricted by cuisine, but by passion to integrate ancient and modern. This can only be called the Villa Maya cuisine.

 

The dry beef with coconut and mango. Now, both were dry. The beef was dry and the mango and coconut were dry, but when you put them together in your mouth, juices just flow from nowhere. The fact that the waiters explain every dish before they arrive/as they arrive gives you an idea of what to expect and what to do to get the best. You had to eat the beef and the mango coconut together to experience this. Every dish that followed had some tradition to it. The beef was served in jackfruit leaves, which were used as spoons during ancient times. Nice touch.

This was followed by the Spice Box. Derived from spice box, this was a melange of kebabs with just a teeny-weeny hint of different spices in each of the kebabs. From the saunf laced chicken to the saffron laced fish to the mirchi kissed prawns to the cinnamon licked galouti kebabs, this was a spice journey without the spice overpowering the originality of the dish. The slightly dry galouti kebab was the only flaw in the entire meal.

Then came the painter's platter - a platter of paneer done three ways. With chutneys served in little paint bottles, this had the pineapple and mint chutneys (that were also there in the Spice box), but an excellent new chutney, the beetroot chutney. For a non-fan of paneer like me, I could eat that all my life. Soft and succulent, this was by far one of the best paneer I've had in my life.

Then the Puttu with prawns and coconut. Brilliant. The last part of the cooking is done on your table with the sawdust oven and the chef then pushes out the puttu onto your plate. While I was full, I could notice that the puttu was going in without my approval. Flavours were just right and the fish gravy served along with it was a stunner.

Wahtalappam, a Sri Lankan specialty for dessert was a fabulous way to finish the meal. While it was as good as the ones I've had in Sri Lanka, there was a twist here, the cinnamon cream. I thought the dish was a little sweet until I was told to eat it with the cream. Magically, it was balanced.

A lot of places claim that their food is an experience and I've written about some of those places, but not until today have I really experienced the real meaning of the food experience. All 5 senses were involved, there was no cuisine to limit the creativity and there was a touch of elegance, ancient-ness (if that is even a word), modernity and flavour in the perfect balance.

Reservations are recommended during weekends and during lunch and dinner times and they are open 11 am to 11 pm, so early dinner or lunch might be the best way if you don't have a reservation.

The master bedroom I was talking about? That is also a table that is apparently sold out very often. If you're lucky you can experience that sitting on the bed with your legs folded and the table coming to you after you have settled down, but I think I would still prefer the courtyard.

A meal for two costs about Rs. 2500 and for me, it was one of the best meal experiences thus far and it came from Trivandrum!

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I wasn't too excited about mBessy. 'What is new about another resto-bar in a small hotel?,' I thought. Its the fashion these days! Tie up with a hotel that has the required 21 rooms and start off a watering hole! Hmm! Friends insisted on going when they launched and me, though dead tired that day, tagged along! The entry was typical. And the familiarity ended there!

This was a real fine dine setting hiding behind that typical-bar-door. We were whisked away to the first floor though and apparently that's where the action is. The setting is beautiful and eclectic. Completely different from the classy looking ground floor, this was a beautiful resto-bar! While I was still recovering from the beautiful setting that I least expected, we were seated in a nice eight seater with a low table. We can go down for the main courses after we are done with drinks and starters, said Mugesh, their manager. I have known him from his days at Casa Picola and he was as surprised to see me there as I was to see him there! 

Starters and drinks were excellent. I can keep going on and on about the starters as they were simply excellent. The crumb fried prawns, a bunch of nice big prawns, dipped in a flavourful crumbs and fried till crisp, was the pick of the lot, though the others were almost as good! Prawns took the cake as they I love them in general and was happy to not have to leave the shell on the tail behind. It was all done and you had to keep eating them! The Broccoli with cheese was quite excellent with the soft broccoli being coated nicely with cheese and the bruschetta that came along with it was fantastic. The other starter, the spicy chicken skewers were quite nice and didn't stand a chance compared to the other two, but that's okay. The mezze platter was pretty nice with fluffy pita bread to go with the dips. The drinks were excellent from a teetotaller's POV. Some had theatrics like smoke coming out to flavour a drink, but the mocktails weren't too bad. My drink had smoked pop corn on top and in general things were great this far!

And then they sort of went downhill. Being a bunch of six of us, we tried quite a few dishes and really none of them stood apart. By this time we moved down to the fine-dine type place with its rich looking decor and cutlery. Sadly, the food did not live up or maybe the starters were so good that the palate didn't like the mains. Whatever the reason, the pizzas were blah. The Australian lamb felt like it was being handled without care and was rather dry and leathery. The risotto was very very blah. Stuffed chicken breast was rather inedible. Dessert was slightly redeeming. While certainly not excellent by any means, it sort of cooled off the rather bad main course. 

 But going by the quality of the starters, I guess, this place since being rather new has a lot of scope to catch up and get on track with the mains. While the choice of menu is good, it needs some work to get it to match the ambiance and the starters! 

I'll be going back in a month or so to see how things have changed. Do the mains get to appetiser quality or vice versa? Only time will tell.

mBessy is in the ground floor of the newly revampING, Estelle hotel in Adyar, near the Aavin, the first building on the Bessy road. 

When you drunk, would you like to feel like a kid again? I'm not sure, but then how would I know? Then there are those who don't get drunk and want to feel like kids again. Not just anywhere, but especially when they eat out. Like kids running around in a restaurant. I mean....yeah. Having stuff to play with. So imagine a place where you have some adult toys....ok, that did not sound right. Imagine a place where you have some toys. In adult sizes. Much better description.

Hoppipola is one such place. As soon as you enter, the giant JENGA catches your eye. If you are not sure what that is, sorry. There are other toys for you to play with. Like a mini golf that is extremely difficult even when you're sober. Actually, the place looks like a little play area and definitely not like a bar or a resto-bar or anything that has bouncers outside. Its almost like proving you're an adult to the guys outside and then becoming kids again! No stags allowed, so just like when we were kids, you need to have company. Not just any company, well you get the picture!

The only problem for me? The food wasn't great. My 'drinker' friend says that their drinks are pretty good, though, so I guess, drinks and games (not the pool but board and JENGA games) are their focus. The golden fried prawns were poorly peeled and we had a tough time negotiating it in the mouth. The crumb fried chicken breast was way overcooked. The little pieces of lamb on a small roti were alright. The pizza was blah. The banofee pie was a little too sweet and the chocolate dessert was the only one that was really nice and thats the only one name I forgot. The food wasn't bad, just the ambiance and the service and the games and everything set the expectations higher.

But surprisingly, we didn't come out too unhappy. Despite only one being drunk (okay partially drunk. OK, just two drinks drunk), and the other three being sober, we tried our hand at JENGA till it came falling all over us. This is a HUGE JENGA and the photo doesn't tell the real story! We tried some golf and the drinker tried a tee off shot!!!! No damage done though. The service is friendly and even when the huge JENGA came down or when the golf ball went all over, no one batted an eyelid. Maybe they are used to it. Prices are reasonable and a meal for two without drinks will come to about Rs. 1500. This place is a fun pub and when I went they had just set up, so I hope their food gets better.

Hoppipola is the new pub in the basement of the Spring Hotel, on Valluvar Kottam High Road.