Why would somebody holiday in the same city? I mean, does that even make sense? I am not talking about holidaying about an hour's drive from the city, but about holidaying in a hotel, like 20 minutes from home! Anyway, we had to celebrate an occasion and we had decided to do something nice, but then I had to leave to MIT, Boston the very next day, so we decided to not entirely chuck our plans and holiday in the city. Essentially, a hotel stay.

If you are mad like us and decide to do something crazy like that, then options are not many. Or there are too many, depending on how you look at it. For us, there was only place to do something as crazy as that. The ITC Grand Chola. I mean, if you take one look at it, you will want to stay there. I didn't win a voucher, I didn't win a twitter contest, I didn't get invited. We just went to stay! And how often do you come across a hotel that is built to resemble a palace!?! Complete with a grand staircase!!

I walked to the check in, and immediately, we were VIPs. We were upgraded straight away. We were whisked away to an exclusive check in space for the upgraded rooms. We were given divans to wait on. And then shown our room. All of it, not by anyone, but an exclusive executive who showed us around as she took us to our room, which would be a suite in most hotels. If this wasn't a suite, wonder how the suite would have been here.

The essential part of a hotel stay is room service and that's the first thing we did when we got in. Room service. Usually we'd like to do sandwiches, but the sliders were interesting, so we ordered that. Lip smacking would be an understatement. Three superb mini burgers. A nice dip. Some potatoes. Heavenly.

Spa. Swim. Gym. Take your pick to while away time till dinner. My first choice was to hit Pan Asian, but I've been there so many times and chef Vikram wasn't there that day, so we thought of trying another place that I've been dying to try, Peshawari. But we were recommended to try out their sizzler festival at Cafe Mercara, so we took the recommendation. Only after we were seated did I realise that the menu was the same as the room service menu. So Peshawari is still on my to-do list now and I missed a great opportunity. Chef came in and explained the menu and I left it to him to choose our dinner after telling him our preferences.

We were served an excellent seared tuna, done rare with some molecular gastronomy type suff all around it. Excellent. And an outstanding French Onion Soup that was so full of flavour that we emptied it with the bread and cheese and we were almost full. The shepherd's pie wasn't outstanding and the caramel custard was nice, but we were stuffed with the salad and soup (and the sliders about 3 hours earlier) and we weren't paying attention to the average dishes.

Pampering didn't stop there. Since I had mentioned that we were celebrating a special occasion extra specially as I will be away for a month getting grilled at MIT, the special occasion got picked up and we were pampered like crazy. A fantastic box of macarons that we finished despite being full and a fantastic chocolate mousse cake that we had to doggy pack home the next day.

The only real disappointment was the breakfast. While it was not bad by any means, the standard of everything was so high that the breakfast paled in comparison. We were given a late check out and the pampering continued till we drove off.

That's why, if you're crazy enough to holiday in your Chennai hometown, there is only place for it!

After having done a round of food tasting for an upcoming restaurant, I headed out to Aloft, a long drive away to what I call ‘that part of the city’, near the Sholinganalur junction on OMR. I normally do not write about my mystery-shopping missions as I am usually looking at things with a very ‘critique’ point of view, but this time onwards I thought why not!!!

So as I landed at Aloft and the valet drivers looked at me strangely. Maybe they were surprised that someone was coming to stay with them or maybe something else was going on in their minds, but it was weird. I checked to see if something was wrong with me and I could not find anything. We opened the backdoor of our car and carried our bags ourselves and already I was starting to think that this is going to be a bad bad experience, but the minute I walked into the door, things changed dramatically! The front office manager greeted us, immediately called for someone to take the luggage and then checked our reservation! We were given a short intro about Aloft and I could not help but like the lobby! It was funky and definitely aimed at the young corporate crowd! The sofas were chic, the bar was right on the lobby and a good one at that, and there was a pool table and some board games to play! So far, so good!

We were escorted to the room which was the best part of the stay. At Rs 4400 a night (goes down to Rs 3000 during off season), this was a steal. Nice big bedroom, a study with a very thoughtful GUESTLINK with which you can connect almost anything to the large flat screen TV,  another table with a refrigerator below it and short eats on top along with the usual kettle. The toilet was nicely separated with an almost walk in wardrobe. If there was a tub in the bathroom, I would have holidayed here once in a few months! Very thoughtfully done.

The hotel is meant to be system oriented and so there are very staff I noticed. If you want something quick to grab and go on your way out, they have a small counter on the ground floor with sandwiches and short eats, all packed and ready for take away!

Having come from a very heavy round of lunch at the other place, we did not eat at all, but just lazed around, played a few rounds of pool, then watched a couple play pool, played OTHELLO for a bit and then took a nice refreshing dip in the swimming pool. The pool is set in the first floor in a nice setting and is open till 10 pm, so we stayed in the pool till 10! We had two options for dinner – the buffet at their dot.yumm restaurant or a-la-carte at Estia, the Mediterranean restaurant.  The blog being what it is, I will put up a separate post of the restaurant, which by the way, was really good!

After a heavy lunch and dinner the previous day, we settled for a light breakfast at the breakfast buffet! They had  the usual cereals, milk, egg, a live dosa and egg counter, idly and a whole lot of Indian foods,  and a decent variety of conti stuff! My co guests were an equal mix of  Indians and Expats and clearly the buffet has been designed to keep both groups happy! The spa here is certainly not the best spa in the world, but is perfect for what they aim to be, to help young business people unwind! So while the range of services is not great, the body massage with the body pack priced at Rs 1999 was well worth the money. The therapist Thomas knew exactly what to do and was very effective with the massage and is something that you might enjoy if you are here with some time to kill! After the spa experience, we had a short snack and left and it almost felt like a holiday weekend! Though this is a business hotel, if you want to spend a relaxing weekend without burning a hole in your pocket, this might not be a bad choice! Obviously if you on OMR what I am saying makes no sense, but someone like me who stays about 50 km away, it did not seem like a bad idea!

Its a four star hotel and I would rate the experience 4/5, so I kinda agree with the rating!

Aloft is located on OMR road, just ahead of the Sholinganalur Junction. Look out for the dinner post in a day or two! You can get more details here 

http://www.starwoodhotels.com/alofthotels/property/overview/index.html?propertyID=3276

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I was very skeptical when I booked this place for a weekend getaway - normally you can make ordinary things look good with great photography, but Villa Christophe was an example of how immature the camera actually is!!!

The villa was beautifully and tastefully decorated, the rooms were brilliant and our room was a masterpiece. There was a washroom on the lower level, while the bed was the level above. Nothing on the first level except the bed and a TV.

There are just three rooms in this house and you can book the whole house if you want, provided it is free. The others rooms were equally tastefully decorated, but the bed on top was an attraction for me. There is one cook and one helper in the villa and there is no real check in of sorts. The cook made us a simple but brilliant breakfast, laid it out on the table and woke us up! If you buy some fish or prawns they will cook it up for you, but we ate out for lunch and dinner! With lots of wonderful places around the corner, there is not dearth of good food close by!

The villa is only about 400m from the beach, and close to all the major restaurants and parks! Priced at Rs 3000 per night, it is a 4 star villa at 3 star prices!!! I did not find it on any hotel booking website and so booking with the villa is the best way to book I guess. Here is the link. 

http://www.villachristophe.com/

If you are wondering what is happening with Chennai Foodie, don't! My experiences about eating out are not going anywhere, but if you remember the blog is titled - Eating Out, Cooking, Traveling, Fun. Since I do a lot of research before I travel, I was asked by followers (if you are among them, then this last paragraph does not apply to you) to write about them. I started writing about eating out of Chennai and the stays will now follow!!! 

And hey, if you enjoyed reading this, please share it!