After looking at the mouth-watering food pictures from Hotel Pandia’s in food groups, added it to my to-do list right away! Yes, I am referring to their branches in North Madras – apparently, there are two outlets in Royapuram and one in Washermanpet. Its only two or three times I have come to this part of the city. Not quite sure with the directions, after enquiring with a couple of auto drivers, spotted one in Cemetry Road in Royapuram, and decided to try! Since they were all the same brand, didn’t feel the need to go all the way to Washermanpet.
We were a bit late around 10AM for breakfast, it took a while to make up my mind and ride all the way from Velachery to Royapuram, also picking up my friend enroute in Triplicane 😀 The waiter immediately announced the available dishes and mentioned that few of them were already sold out, being a holiday. Quite understandable, we should have been a couple of hours early!
We ordered 2 Parottas each, 1 Chicken Chops, 1 Mutton Chops, Half Place Chicken Kuska, 1 Kalakki and 1 Egg Omelette.
It was served in reasonable time. Mutton and Chicken Chops looked pretty close in appearance. Parottas were good, soft and flaky. Shredded the parottas, and started to eat with the Chicken Chops. It was a bit too sweet to my liking, more like the sweetness from tomato. It was not anything like the umpteen places where we’re used to eating parottas with chicken gravy/saerva/salna/kozhambu, so not the most satisfying of experiences I would day. My friend had a very similar feeling about the Mutton Chops. The waiter did bring a small portion of Mutton Kurma, just for taste, and that was better than what we ordered. Unfortunately they were sold out on that one.
Wanted to taste a bit of biryani, sans the pieces. Asked specifically for Chicken Kuska and made sure the waiter understood what we wanted – The rice minus pieces from the CHICKEN Biryani. When we started to eat, I spotted so many small pieces of Mutton in the biryani. Very obviously it was Kuska from Mutton Biryani. I showed him one of the pieces and asked him if it was Mutton that he served. He took the piece and went to the kitchen and came back saying it was Chicken Kuska, but just a few Mutton pieces were mixed :O This obviously didn’t seem like the truth. Not that I can’t eat the Mutton Kuska, just prefer Chicken Kuska over Mutton, it’s my preference! Friend said Kalakki also had a sweet tinge, perhaps because of the same gravy poured in it, Omelette was good, no complaints.
Overall, the food wasn’t even close to being labelled bad, but definitely it was an expectation mismatch. I would term this experience as a mixed bag, just above average. Would I venture all the way again? Perhaps not! I’d probably visit their Vadapalani branch when I’m on that side, which is a lot closer.
We paid 650 bucks in all, and I personally felt okayish about the whole experience, nothing extraordinary.
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