Tandoor - A Mistaken Identity?
May 21 2008 | Views 704 |
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Tags: tandoor restaurant review chennai lunch buffet ethnic restaurant
Tags: tandoor restaurant review chennai lunch buffet ethnic restaurant
When I was told about the lunch buffet at Tandoor, I was thrilled. “Yay! Another place to dig in”, I said to myself with a greedy smile on my face. It happens to be my manager’s birthday today and he decided to treat all the hunger-stricken souls of his team. Poor him!
I, along with my friend, started off to Tandoor restaurant where the lunch was arranged. The sun did not spare a strand of hair on our heads; we were getting roasted, quite literally! It was shining like nobody’s business!! After a round-about route we reached this place, situated on the fourth floor of the hotel Aruna Annexe building at Nungambakkam. Tandoor, as the name suggests, is supposed to be an ethnic restaurant! At the entrance stands a beautiful piece of mirror made of wrought iron (or wood?). I did not notice it much. Below is the “hungry-person-trying-to-manage-a-pic-while-rushing-for-the-food” pic. If any keen-eagle-eyed person can spot what the material is by the looks of it, I’d be grateful. At the reception desk is a glass bowl filled with water and red roses on it. Quite nice!
As we entered, the air conditioned atmosphere inside cooled off our half-baked heads. The ambience was quite comfortable too. Comfy cushion sofas and chairs – well maintained, if I could say that! We reached for the plates and headed off to the buffet table. Decent spread of dishes, not too much not too less. I hunted down the rice first. I prefer my noon meal with some rice, atleast one. So there it was the tempting prawn biryani. I couldn’t find the raita but! I helped myself with a decent serving of the biryani and dug into some dhania mutton, a piece of chicken drumstick (out of the place in a tandoor platter?), murg bindaloo and some nameless dish made of tapioca and brinjal. “Ah! Heaven”, I smiled. We spotted few of our colleagues and comfortably settled down at a table nearby and started to eat quite religiously. The prawn biryani was screaming out with spices, and so was murg bindaloo. I wouldn’t call it spicy though. You know what I mean, right? The taste of the spices was overshadowing the true flavour of the dishes. Dhania mutton was a so-so. Disappointment! But yes, I was happy with the chicken drumstick. It was quite a treat, juice and yummy, though it oozed out oil. Once in a while, it’s harmless you know! The tapioca-brinjal dish was a decent try, a little sweet but.
I decided to try the veg platter for the second round. “This better be good”, I convinced myself. Spot, and my plate was filled with ‘matter’ pulao, ‘matter’ makhane, mix vegetables, dal saat salam, jimikhand ke shami (sounds like a pet’s name to me!!) and two more pieces of chicken drumsticks. Yummy! Even though it was a bit bland, the veg spread was far better than its rival. Mix vegetables was just awesome – went perfectly well with the ‘matter’ pulao. Dal saat salam was some daal kind of a dish which was a bit overly tangy because of the tomatoes in it. Jimikhand and ‘matter’ makhane were pretty decent. I was full by now, obviously. Yet, I made a mental calculation and decided that my stomach could accommodate some place for the dessert which was a simple affair. Vanilla ice cream, cut fruits and dhokla! (I was having the same look on my face too, wondering what dhokla was doing there amidst ice cream and fresh fruits!)
Anyway, the ice cream was just perfectly smooth, not hard to dig in or too soggy. Fresh cut fruits included pineapple, melon, and papaya. It would have been better if they had some hot gulab jamuns or jalebis along with the ice cream. The dhokla looked more like hardened pieces of chocolate soufflé and tasted somewhere in between fried badushah and mysore pak. Disaster!
The end.
Overall I would give Tandoor a 5 upon 10.
Note: Just in case you were getting dirty thoughts about the ‘matter’ in ‘matter’ pulao and ‘matter’ makhane, relax! Our very own mutter (peas) lately got christened I believe!
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