Since the last few years, it has become customary to visit sabhas, to sample the breakfast that the popular caterers serve! This year, it was pretty much a repeat of the last years experience, minus one place which wasn’t impressive.
Sri Sasthalaya Catering Service, Narada Gana Sabha
Sinful indulgence, 
Loved it! The amount of ghee that was there in breakfast today, I could have taken swimming lessons in it 
It’s music season and Sri Sasthalaya Catering Service have set up their shop at Narada Gana Sabha on TTK Road. I’ve visited them last year too, and liked their breakfast. Decided to check them out.
My order – Pongal-Vadai, Ghee Onion Dosa, Asoka Halwa and Filter Coffee!
Pongal was yummy, chutneys were fresh and tasty, sambhar was good. Vadai was tasty. Ghee onion Dosa was also very yummy, not as crispy as I would have liked it. Taste-wise it was very good. Asoka Halwa was melt-in-the-mouth, delicious. Filter Coffee after the Halwa was a mistake, couldn’t get the entire flavor in it.
The perils of going solo, you don’t have company to share anything, and end up eating more than usual!
There are the usual comments/opinions – they are overhyped, expensive, etc etc ! In my opinion, I would gladly be willing to pay for their food just to experience some subtle differences as compared to a restaurant. Perhaps doesn’t make a big difference for Pongal, vadai and Dosai, but Kumbakonam Kadappa, Thiruvaiyaru Asoka Halwa are few things that you don’t get day-to-day in normal restaurants.
Paid 230 bucks in all, a nice breakfast! In case you visit, make sure you try some specialities, rather than usual stuff!
N Padmanabhan Catering aka Mint Padmanabhan, The Music Academy!
The plan was a breakfast meet with a couple of other friends, and I got to decide the venue, as always
When there are so many waiting in the queue for tickets, and you walk into the venue like a boss, the security guy has already made up his mind that you’re headed to the canteen
By now, quite familiar with the way things work, headed to the token counter. This is a prepaid system – check the menu board, decide what you want to have, get tokens and get seated.
We ordered one of everything we saw on the board, except one last dish as we didn’t like the spelling 3 Filter Coffees in addition to this, total was a perfect 500 bucks!
The token system needs fine tuning to make life easier for customers, even if it means printing more number of tickets. They could have had one token for every item, but for some weird reason, they give you equivalent of the money you pay in fancy denomiations. For 3 vadas of 20 each, they may give you a single 60 token (there’s another dish priced as much). So with a bunch of them, it may get confusing with the waiter. We had 500 bucks worth of tickets in hand and a lot of confusion
Coming to the food, verdict in one line would be ‘Decent, not wow’!
Positives first, both the sweets were just awesome ! Loved it. Dosas (Spl Dosa and Podi Dosa) were crispy and good, no complaints. Chutneys were tasty. Pongal was pretty good.
Not-so-positives – Medhu Vadai was barely warm, mini idly was a bit too big to be called ‘mini’ resulting in sambhar not even making an impression on it, in spite of being soaked. Sambhar itself was okayish, lacked something. The Puli Gotsu was not the best I’ve had. Filter Coffee had an overpowering smell of milk which I don’t like.
The service was quite pathetic to say so. You could say the person was very casual and laid back, bordering on being irresponible. Didn’t get to see him when we needed chutneys, he took his own sweet time, brought the wrong sweet, and more.
So overall, it was not one of the experiences that would get me look forward to another visit to this place!
Meenambiga Catering at Mylapore Fine Arts Club
Finishing 2017 with yet another delicious sabha breakfast – Meenambiga Catering at Mylapore Fine Arts Club, right next to Isabel Hospital!
Myself and a friend had this in mind for sometime now, and decided today was the day! Already been there last year for breakfast and liked it, this year was no different.
Our Order – Idly, Pongal Vadai, Poori Masala, Ghee Roast, Kasi Halwa, Asoka Halwa, 2 Flter Coffee!
Everything tasted good. Ghee Roast was awesome, oozing ghee, they suggested they’ll make it ‘one-by-two’ so we could share. Was very thoughtful! Poori Masala was yummy, Friend liked the Idly, Asoka Halwa was pretty good, but liked Sasthalaya’s version better. Kasi Halwa was a stunner! Good that Halwa portions were small, so we managed to finish them without any difficulty. 2 Filter Coffees to end the breakfast, was good too!
Service was worth a special mention, it was extremely courteous!
Paid 460 bucks in all, and was absolutely worth it !
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