I have always felt that the food scene in Bangalore is better than Chennai. Loads happening, new concepts tried out and people are ready to aceept the new concepts. Chennai is far conservative but is slowly beginning to open its doors to new culinary ideas. On one of my visits to Bangalore I got to dine at the Alila Tiffin Bar for a lovely live BBQ dinner.






I just could not decide which spread I liked the most. My favorite of the lot was the Lamb Ribs and Beef Grilled from the Western section. From the Arabic board, the pita bread was just divine. Add it with a little of the grilled chicken and Hummus it was a an absolute decadance. The Indian delicacies had the usual subjects such as the Chicken Tikka, Hariyali Kebab....

Courtyard Marriott has introduced a new short eat - short time menu at Paprika for the beer lovers called Eggs-Xcellent Menu priced at Rs 350+taxes. You get to choose any dish from a selection of 10 eggy delights and a big mug of beer to go with.

This short eat menu maybe available upto 31st of March so go on and treat yourself to some tasty eggs.

We got to sample a small platter from the menu of 10.
My pick of the lot were the
- Egg Pakoda
- Egg Salt and Pepper
- Bread Chutney Omlette.

The concept of eggs and beer definitely seem to have captured the desire of the South Indian loving to have eggs with their "DRINKS" and taken it to whole another level. So do check this out.

Courtyard Marriott is located on Anna Salai.

For the mains there were 4 non-veg dishes and around 7 veg dishes with various gravies. I was too stuffed from the round of starters to even sample the gravies with Indian bread. There was a live pasta counter, where you could chose the vegetables, the noodles and either chicken or fish, which would be then made with pesto or the creamy white sauce or tomato. I chose the tomato sauce, which was quite nice. The others who accompanied me had the pesto and creamy sauce. They gave rave reviews about  those also.

Hollywood has come to Chennai! Sorry for the confusion. The food loved by the Hollywood stars are here in Chennai as a part of the menu at California Pizza Kitchen. The hollywood menu is really small with only a selection of dishes. This special menu is on upto March 16th. This is my first visit to California Pizza Kitchen here in Chennai. My previous visit was to an outlet in Bangalore. Personally I feel that the Bangalore outlet is more upmarket than the Chennai outlet.









The next course was the Pastas. The first to be served was the  Spaghetti Carreterra which is actually a Veg Pasta cooked in Chicken Broth making it a non-veg dish and a dash of crushed pepper finally a handful of Fresh Mozzerlla. The pasta was stunning inspite of lacking pieces of meat. Next was the Mediterranean Roasted Mushroom Spaghettini which was a proper veg dish. But this was the only disapointing dish of the day. It lacked depth of flavor and seemed like a simple overload of Olive Oil. I may not be the best to judge this dish, as some could like it.



After the pasta course was the speciality round. First to be served was the California Peri Peri Chicken. This was a boneless grilled chicken with a good helping of CPKs own version of Peri-Peri sauce. Peri-Peri is known to be a Portuguese item, but this own twist was great Infact I licked the plate clean of the sauce. An absolute must have! Finally for the veggies, they were served a Spinach and Paneer Malfati with Milan sauce, which is actually spinach and paneer dumplings served along with corn. It was soft and every bit divine.

Finally to finish off the meal was a star studded Chocolate Mousse which was simply fantabulous.

It's becoming increasingly hard to keep track of the restaurants and cafe's opening up in Chennai. One of the most recent entrant into this space is the The Bistro Story. The formation of this place is a story by itself. Created by 3 college friends funded by their raw passion for food and beverages. This puts a interesting spin to the place.





The Red Curry Flavored Chicken Burger and Grilled Smoked Chicken Panini were served together. I did not get to sample my friends burger. But I just watched the juice flow right out of it when he took his first bite. I must say, that was the first time I had a Foodgasm!! The Smoked Chicken Panini was a world apart. I have had so, so so many smoked chicken sandwiches, infact I pick smoked chicken sandwich over the others. This sandwich was by far the best I have had at a cafe. It is on par with the 1000 bucks sandwiches served at big joints. One minor grouse, I really do hope they shift to homemade potato fingers. Both these dishes were served with a chutney of sorts and finger chips. The burger had a bonus of onion rings. I am most definitely going back for the burger. Can't wait for another foodgasm!!