Chennai Restaurant Reviews

Sandy’s Chocolate Laboratory, Teynampet

It has been a while since I had an English breakfast!  Lately, no travels outside India, else that used to be a daily norm. Suddenly a friend and I decided to head to some nice place for a good English breakfast. Immediately a few names popped up in my mind – Gossip Bistro, Chamier’s Cafe, Lloyd’s Tea House, The Brew Room, Old Madras Baking Company, etc. Star hotels were not on the agenda. To my surprise, found out that Sandy’s was there in Teynampet, that was news to me, I only knew the Nungambakkam outlet. Immediately decided to head there!

Located near Mainland China, off Cenatoph Road, it was tucked in one of the by-lanes. Google maps did well to lead us there without any issues. It was one of the old bungalows, and looked like Sandy’s shared space with someone else. They had indoor and outdoor seating, we opted for the latter, for some fresh air instead of AC indoors.
Looked at the menu, quickly decided what we were going to have – A Farm Fresh Breakfast for my friend and a Full English Breakfast for me. Both of them had 3 Eggs to order, Hash Brown, Baked Beans, Choice of Bread, Butter, and a Hot Beverage. In addition to this, English Breakfast had a choice of Sausages or Bacon while Farm Fresh Breakfast had Sauteed Spinach and Mushroom. Given a choice between a Cheese Omelette, Masala Omelette, and Scrambled Eggs, friend chose a Masala Omelette,runny, and I chose Scrambled Eggs, medium. Both of us wanted Black Coffee for hot beverage, served after the breakfast. The waiter was polite, ordering was a breeze sans any confusion.
In about ten to fifteen minutes, we got our breakfast served.
First look, the quantity seemed to be less. I couldn’t help but notice the two tiny sausages on the plate. I’m no stranger to eating sausages, and these were small, by any standard. A small cup of baked beans, a hash brown, Scrambled eggs, a Brown Bread Toast made up the English Breakfast plate. My friend felt the same looking at the small quantity of sauteed spinach and mushrooms.  There was no way the quantity justified the price point.  440 bucks for English Breakfast and 330 for Farm Fresh breakfast definitely was expensive for this, we felt.
Coming to the taste, there was absolutely nothing to complain, though personally I felt I should have ordered Masala Omelette instead of the scrambled eggs, but everything we ate was tasty. It just wasn’t enough though!
Black Coffee was served after the breakfast, and it was wonderful! Nothing like a good coffee to start the day! However the Coffee Cup wasn’t designed quite well, it was a challenge to hold it with the handle, my finger just didn’t go into it.  Given its weight, you just couldn’t hold it comfortably with one hand. Anyways, that wasn’t so much an issue as the coffee tasted good.
Typically like many places abroad, just out of curiosity, inquired if the coffee with the breakfast was unlimited, to which the waiter replied in the negative. However he did acknowledge that it was a norm in most Star hotels. He went in and came back and asked if I’d like to have ‘some more coffee’. My friend and I thought he probably went out of the way to accommodate our request and I asked for ‘some more coffee’ 🙂 In fact, we thanked him too for the nice gesture 😀
Only when we got the bill, I noticed that was to be interpreted as ‘another coffee’ and not ‘some more coffee’ 🙂 We were charged 150 bucks for another coffee. Its not a complaint at all, but just found it quite funny how we totally misunderstood what the waiter meant! Probably he was wondering too, as to why someone would thank him profusely for serving coffee 😉
Overall, tasty food, miniscule portions, definitely not VFM from the pricing perspective. Paid close to 1K for this and that’s not very cheap. If you’re okay with that, its a nice place to visit.

Sandy's Chocolate Laboratory Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

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