One of those days when expectations go for a toss and you end up with an average experience. From the time I saw Copper Kitchen open up in place of White Pepper on the 100 Feet Bypass Road, Velachery, I have been waiting to visit it. In fact, I cross this place every single day, hence the temptation is all the more. We had guests at home and immediately decided to go here for dinner.
I’ve only done a takeaway from White Pepper a few times, so never really explored the restaurant. It was a bit cramped, and not very spacious. However, the tables were re-arranged to accommodate the 8 of us. The place was brightly lit and interiors were good. After a detailed look at the menu, decided to order.
Andhra Kodi Vepudu, Fish Polichathu (we chose Medium, the choices were S/M/L), Pal Katti Vepudu, and Chicken Lollypop for starters! One advantage of entering a multi-cuisine restaurant, you can order a bit of everything. Starters were served in reasonable time. Chicken Lollypop was the first to arrive, saucy and it tasted good. Andhra Kodi vepudu was next, and it was my choice. This one was extremely hot (as in hot because of chillies), couldn’t make out much of flavors other than the heat. Another disappointment was that the chicken was with bone, which really didn’t seem so. The pieces seemed deceptively boneless as they were quite small in size and literally I had to nibble the meat off the bone with every single piece. I am not new to Andhra dishes, but this one doesn’t get my vote. Pal Katti Vepudu was basically Paneer Pepper Fry. It was decent, but not wow. Fish Polichathu was good I heard, no complaints with that.
Now coming to the main course, we ordered a portion of steamed rice, Egg Fried Rice, Veg noodles, 3 pieces of Malabar Paratha and Salem Chicken Kozhambu with it, Kizhi Paratha as I wanted to try something different. Egg Fried Rice and Veg Noodles tasted good, and nothing much to say about steamed rice 🙂 Malabar Paratha was a total let down. I have had parathas in so many places, this looked sad. Clearly a reheated paratha which was made quite sometime back, undercooked in some places, and I had to point it out to the waiter. He took them in, and after a while, brought them back and one paratha had black marks of char all over. Surprised that they decided to serve it to a customer, I had to show it to him again, and he apologized and took it back. After a good 10-15 minutes, he came back with freshly made paratha, no complaints this time. To get a Malabar Paratha correct on the third time in Copper Kitchen is sad. Salem Chicken Kozhambu was good with Paratha. Meanwhile the Kizhi Paratha never showed up even after 20 minutes. Finally they brought that. It was basically Salna Parotta wrapped in a plantain leaf with chicken 65 in between the parathas. I liked this one. Main course was more an adventure than a pleasant experience.
Decided to finish with ice cream and lime soda. We were told ice cream was served with two scoops, we asked it to be served one by two so we could share. Lime soda was good, no complaints, but ice cream came in a consistency that looked to be frozen, but in reality it was melted and if you look at my two pics, it took less than 30 seconds to get to the melted state. Too tired to argue or change anything, we ended by paying a bill close o 2.5K.
Overall, a very ordinary experience! Unless something changes, or I hear something good, I wouldn’t be too keen to venture to this place immediately.
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