A sudden craving for Biryani and we decided on Saturday that we were going to order Biryani for Sunday lunch, the question was from where?!?!? Tried to recollect a few places and also requested suggestions from fellow-members in WCE! Finally zeroed in on Hajeera’s Kitchen. btw It has been on my list for quite sometime, so decided to tick it off today!
Firstly, placing the order on phone was easy and straight forward! I called them up around 12:00PM and ordered 2 Chicken Biryanis, 1 Egg Biryani, 1 Boneless Chicken 65(12pcs), and 1 Boneless Chicken Sukka. Since they said 2pcs of Gulab Jamun would be sent along with each Biryani, I did not order a sweet separately. We were waiting for an hour for food and then got a phone call around 01:00PM saying since it was raining heavily, the order would be sent as soon as the showers stop. It was perfectly understandable and I thought it was very professional on their part to inform the customer. It was a heavy downpour in Velachery too. We waited till 2:00PM and the rains had stopped by then! I sent a text message to check if the person started, didn’t get a reply for sometime. So called them around 2:30PM, and was told that the delivery person was on his way. Finally, the Biryani arrived at 2:45PM. Kids were damn hungry, and I could barely wait any longer. Clicking pictures after this seemed like eternity, still managed a couple of clicks and started to eat!
Now coming to the food – It was NOT even close to being warm, forget hot! That was a real dampener. To me, logically, it seemed like a clear case of food being prepared, packed and waiting to be delivered for way too long (I’m assuming this part as I do not know for sure, otherwise at least one of the boxes should have been warm, if not hot) ! On top of it, the weather!! Eating Biryani at room temperature was the last thing I expected, while I was imagining to eat hot Biryani on a rainy day :/ Quickly coming to the other items – The taste wasn’t bad, but probably because it wasn’t warm, chicken sukka felt too chewy, Chicken 65 was slightly more salty than I would have liked, but was manageable with the Biryani. The onion that was packed along with it was absolutely crunchy and fresh, so I presume that was not packed for long, else would have been soggy, still chicken pieces weren’t even warm. The accompaniments Raita and the Brinjal Gravy were good and while I was looking for the Gulab Jamuns, I spotted a box with Rava Kesari. Realized that they sent Kesari instead of Gulab Jamuns, anyways that was good and the kids liked the pineapple flavor in it. Coming to the portions – Huge !!! I really didn’t expect that quantity or I would have ordered less. We were 2 adults and 2 kids aged 10 and 5. Together, we managed to eat less than 2 Biryani boxes and still have one more left untouched. That’s going to be our dinner too, after warming it in the microwave oven of course!
The pricing was a bit high, but then I wouldn’t like to complain on the pricing, but more on what was delivered for that price. I paid about 1330 bucks for the entire order. Probably a piping hot lunch from the same place would have given me a totally different experience, but eating not-even-close-to-warm food after paying this much didn’t feel very satisfying!
I know a lot of people have good experiences with Hajeera’s kitchen and I am totally willing to give the benefit of doubt to them and blame the rain and weather for this average experience.
Personally, I wasn’t very satisfied.
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