Wow! Two restaurants that I am not very fond of, surprised me this week! I had written about Focaccia and now its The Crown! Writing about the The Crown, is very difficult, but quite easy! Yes, the contradiction comes from the restaurant itself! With easily the best outdoor seating in Chennai, set amidst a roof top water pool, brilliant lighting in the outdoor area, the restaurant has all the ambiance to be a wonderful restaurant, except the rather forgettable indoor. And, sadly, so is the food! So, sometimes, its like a one line say! "Great ambiance, average food." For a food lover, though it is not so easy! If you are particular about the food and believe that the ambiance is to enhance the food, then more often than not, you will be disappointed! My previous trysts with The Crown, both invited and welcomed, has always ended that way!

For the first time, all of us came out feeling that the food was excellent. It was so simple that it was excellent! They have flown down a Punjabi chef from Delhi and a chat with him revealed that he had to fly back and bring all the spices with him because he didn't find what he wanted in Chennai! A punjabi will definitely be a better judge of the food, but as guests eating Punjabi food, we all quite liked it.

The meal started off with sweet lassi and 4 starters. Lasooni paneer and a mushroom palak kebab were served first and though not a big fan of paneer, I quite liked the paneer, while the mushroom kebab was excellent. The badami chicken kebab was excellent too and was followed by another excellent sheekh kebab which finished off the round of starters. All of us were starting to get exhausted with the starters and nothing was left on the plate!

Before the main course was served, the chef presented us a platter of pickles, which he was proud to say that he brought from home. Without realising that the main course was yet to come, we started eating the pickles. This was followed by four gravies served with a platter of Indian breads. I liked two of the gravies and didn't like two of them. The chicken masala and the Lamb gravy were both excellent and I forgot the name of the other two! I also sneaked in a paratha with the outstanding pickles! I wish there was one aloo paratha and curd just for the pickles!!! We finished off the meal with a simple kheer!

Chef Sweety Singh, who has worked with a number of 5 star hotels, including ITC in Delhi, is now a consultant chef flying around the country promoting home style Punjabi cuisine! Without being intrusive, he showed us his version of Punjabi home style food and took pride in saying that his cooking is 'unadulterated to suit the market.' So finally, we quite enjoyed the meal at The Crown!

A meal for two should cost you about Rs. 1500 without drinks and this food festival is on till the 9th of this month! The Crown is the roof top restaurant at Residency Towers, T. Nagar.

I have been hearing wonderful things about this restaurant and though I am not a big fan of the other restaurants at Raintree Hotels in general, I wanted to visit this place for a long time. So we decided to treat ourselves here for having 'abstained' from eating a fancy dinner during Ramzan and took the plunge.  

The setting is beautiful - the perfect lighting for the terrace setting, a mixture of blue and orange, well spaced out tables and a friendly waiter, all made it very classy! We were seated at a table of our choice as the restaurant was empty when we walked in at 7 and by 730, they were almost full! The menu is extensively limited - yeah I know I am contradicting myself, but that is what I felt. They have a large selection of kebabs and curries but only two options for rice and bread. Since we were only two of us, we felt that a portion of starter will be quite boring and we asked if the chef could make a platter and they were more than willing. So the platter arrived with 4 different kebabs - 3 pieces of their specialty chicken kebab, 2 pieces of the lamb sheek, 2 pieces of grilled tiger prawns and two pieces tangdi kebab. Brilliant platter and every single dish was excellent. But there was not much choice after that and so after the meat overload, we decided to take the corn pulao and dhal makhni and both were excellent. We skipped dessert as we were quite full.

Prices of most starters are around Rs. 600, except two dishes - the New Zealand Lamb was about Rs. 1200 and the Jumbo prawns were Rs. 950, while our mix platter was Rs. 1100. The pulao was Rs 350 and the dhal makhni was Rs. 300. Most non veg curries were priced around Rs. 550.With a great ambiance, very courteous service and a bill of Rs 1900 (after the 15% discount for Amex), this is a nice roof top within the city with good food! 

4/5 for me.

Up North is the roof top restaurant at Raintree, Mount Road!

I will stick to the Dhaba part. A year or so back, a friend of mine took me there for lunch and we came out feeling disgusted. The curd was spoilt, the chicken was tasteless and everything went wrong, but every person who has been there had only good things to say about the place. So on a very nasty work Thursday, three of us decided to go to Delhi Highway and glutton our way out of stress, but imagine our surprise when the waiter said "Yes sir, pure vegetarian". We walked out and the same friend, suggested we try Icarus again.

So we were there and the old man waved to my friend. Apparently they have history which is best not written here! We told him that we had a bad time and we are coming back after a year. "Everything will be good sir, I promise" he said. At one point, my blog writing was "Wow, Punjabi food run by a Punjabi family and so it was authentic and blah", but today I cannot think of any Dhaba run by a non Punjabi. So being run by Punjabi is no guarantee that the dhaba will be good.

The food, this time around, was very good. The lassi, which two of us ordered was thick, sweet and tasty, my friend's order of buttermilk order was very nice too, nice and spicy. We had only one starter - the achari chicken, which had much lesser achari than I would have liked, but, as a dish it was good! Then came the best dish of the day - the aloo paratha. There was something about it that was nice, a nice smooth potato stuffing and well done overall. The pudina paratha was also pretty good and flavourful, but the egg paratha was pretty average. No worries as we all went overboard on the aloo paratha with curd and pickle! We finished off with a almond kheer which was very watery, but tasty and a kesar badam kulfi which was very good! Apparently both are home made!

The damages for all of this was Rs 650.

And I would rate this experience a 3.5/5. And if you want to learn to shake a leg, Punjabi style, then they have that too!

Don't Miss - The Aloo Paratha!!!

Icarus Dhaba is on the second floor of the building that houses a supermarket at the junction between Pantheon Road and Montieth Road in Egmore, bang opp the Egmore Museum.

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I have proclaimed my love for Marriott more often than once on this blog. From the first time I was invited by them, to all the times I am invited by them to all the times I go there on my own, somehow among all the buffets and brunches in the city, the Marriott is the one place that I seem to find the most comforting. I have found the reason for this - the spread is just big enough, not the ones that are huge with everything being mediocre, but this is a big spread, just big enough to ensure that MOST items are good and a few outstanding ones. So everytime I am here, there will three of four outstanding dishes and a few good desserts that make the whole thing worth it.

So my colleague and me were here for dinner and we were welcomed at the Paprika by a number of colourful flags, a stringed cot, a milestone named Pindh and 'Balle Balle' music. This was a special Punjabi festival going on and most dishes in the menu were Punjabi. "We also have some continental food for our long staying room guests and we can make something if they don't like this, but typically till the 10th of March the food will primarily be Punjabi" is what we were told. "Of course, the menu keeps changing everyday"

Due to the 'daily changing menu' I did not get to eat the Butter Chicken or the Aloo Paratha, but what we did get to eat more than made up for that. There was this Amritsari Grilled Fish that was amazing and for a non fish lover, I totally enjoyed it. My colleague was raving about it all along, but there was this very simple, but very tasty Aloo as a starter that was amazing. The Tandoori chicken was nice and juicy, but I thought it was slightly low on flavour. We had some nice lassi, not the corn flour added and artificially thickened ones, but a the simple and nice lassi. We also got ourselves some spiced buttermilk that was awesome.

We were starting to feel full so we moved to the main course. They were very nice and offered to serve a bit of everything on the buffet menu on our table as a thali and what a thali it was!!! There was this Lahori Channa Minced Lamb - AMAZING. It was juicy, tasty, mouth meltingly flavourful all at same time. There was an Anda Sabzi that was nice, but the next best dish was the Rajma! Yes, the humble rajma was made to perfection - great flavour! There was white gravy, the name of which I forgot, but it was just as good as the rajma. We had all of this with a multigrain romali roti - yeah, multigrain, so it was not this super thin super big, but a thicker and less bigger type! It went well with all those gravies.

We were also served some biriyani - a rather simple one, but well spiced and tasted good. Since I am now the biryani expert, I asked for the chef and asked him "When did you add the tomatoes? At the first or after all the spices" I asked with full of (over) confidence. "There are no tomatoes in this biriyani sir" was his reply and a big BULB went off on my head!

We finished off with gulab jamun, rasagola and a ghee milk sweet. The dessert spread was smaller than usual, but we were too stuffed  to try out cakes or other things. There was a fruit jelabi that I so wanted to try, but spotted it last and was just too stuffed!!!

Marriott is always a 4/5 for me and is yet to disappoint me even once! I don't even know if this is authentic Punjabi, but the food was tasty, so I wouldn't care about the authenticity!

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Vegetarian restaurants rarely catch my attention. So when Tadka Talk was in its final stages of 'getting ready for public' and I was invited to check out their food, I wasn't very excited. We were given a platter of starters, four choice of gravies, two Indian breads and a dessert cocktail.

The food stunned us. Maybe because we were not expecting too much or maybe I did not think vegetarian could taste this well, but Chef Arora had it bang on! The starter platter that was served was simply lip smacking. I don't remember the names of the dishes as it was served like a cocktail, but every dish in the platter was superb. The main course arrived and was the only weak link, if you could call it that, in the whole meal. The Indian breads were perfect in flavour and thickness, while the gravies were just about alright - I liked the Dhal Makhni and the paneer, but the other two were ok. The lady's finger side dish was very simple - too simple for me to have it at a fine dine restaurant!

The dessert, also served as a 'three dishes plated together' format, was outstanding - the combination of carrot halwa, gulab jamun and kulfi was perfect! I hope they continue to maintain this quality of food and if they do, considering the kind of crowds in that part of town, this place is bound to do well.

If you are looking for a vegetarian fine dine restaurant and willing to drive to Velachery (or living in Velachery), then, you have another option henceforth.

My dine experience was a 3.5/5.

Tadka Talk is on the Velachery - OMR link road, opp TCS. Call 044 43213838 for reservations or driving directions.

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After having eaten Haleem and Khubani meetha all of the last first two weeks of Ramzan, I decided to take a detour. When my friend asked me to try out a new punjabi restaurant in town that he wanted reviewed, I was more than happy to do it. I was beginning to enjoy the deviation from the Haleem and I so wish Chennai had more options where the Haleem was great, not just good!

We entered this small, unassuming place near Gandhi nagar. In a dimly lit old time decor place, was this aptly named resto called Singh's! After seating ourselves, the owners, a punjabi couple, were there to help us with the menu and narrowed down to the starters of achari kebab, a stuffed mushroom and veg sheekh kebab. The achari kebab turned out to be the best dish of the day, it had a slight pickle flavor to it, grilled to perfection and tasted just brilliant. The stuffed mushrooms were pretty nice, while the veg sheekh, well,I don't know why I even asked for a veg sheekh, a sheekh has to be non veg for me. This was just paneer and corn kebab.

For the main course we had, patiala chicken on the recommendation of the owner and a dhal makhani to go with garlic naan and aloo paratha. The garlic naan was superb and so was the patiala chicken, the dhal makhani was a let down for me, while the tava aloo paratha could have been slightly spied up an was slightly bland. We were offered a small portion of their biriyani to taste, and, yes, though my biriyani standards are different, I actually thought that it was decent biriyani. And the carrot halwa we had was just perfect, without tasting like sugar syrup in the halwa.

Nothing much of an ambiance to speak of, service is decent and a meal for two should cost about Rs. 1200.

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


What I would order here - Chicken achari kebab, garlic naan, patiala chicken and carrot halwa!

Singh's is located in Adyar, on the main road, opp the Odyssey building.

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