I have come to hear from many people that they love Parotta and their next question would be where could they find the best Parotta in Chennai? Up until now I went about suggesting this and that which were fine but not out of the world. Well the search for the best Parotta, has finally come to an end-with the entry of Courtallam Border Rahmath Kadai!


My trips to Courtallam took place when I was really young. So the chances of me remembering a dine at the original place is equal to zero. I have got many raving reviews about this place in the recent times from a close friend. So expectations were running high and I hoped it would not disappoint, when they opened an outlet in Chennai.


Food:
As there was a lot of build up for this place in my mind, I just could not wait for a formal dine-in. I cross the restaurant almost every other day when I head to work. So had a small dash and splash pit stop and took a take away to work.

Our order was 12 Border Parotta, 4 Nattu Kozhi Pichupotathu and 1 Chicken Kothu Parotta. I did not order any gravy as I wanted to relish the Saalna. I think they have the got the Saalna just right. Adequate amount of spices and fantastic taste. Goes well with both Parotta and Kothu Parotta. The Saalna felt like it was based on a chicken broth with small pieces here and there.


Now coming to the Border Parotta which is the size of my palm, is quite small, I would say. A person with normal appetite can gobble up 4 of these with ease. If you are the type who wishes to drench the parotta in a gravy, then this parotta is definitely for you. Once it soaks up the gravy it becomes really really softer, and goes in with ease. The Nattu Kozhi Pichupotathu is a pepper fry preparations made in Nattu Kozhi and then smashed into pieces. Darn tasty! Loved the flavor.

The Chicken Kothu Parotta was stumptuous. Same Parotta torn into pieces and then with a dash of egg and chicken pieces Vola! Mix it with Saalna - Pure Bliss!

Ambiance:
NA

Service:
NA

Price:
This fantastic tasty parotta meal cost us Rs 970/-

I had a small chat with the owner of the Chennai branch, and to my surprise I came to know they are from my native town It was quite nice catching up with them.

Food - 8.5/10
Price - 8.5/10

PS: Photos were shot using Samsung S6

Disclaimer : I paid for it.

Courtallam Border Rahmath Kadai is located on G.N. Chetty Road, opposite to Murugan Idly Kadai

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*A review about a place holds good only for 6 months as there can be a change in quality and quantity of the food, the service and the staff, due to reasons best known only to them. So kindly consider these factors while visiting the places.

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Finally had an opportunity to relive the fantastic gastronomic food at Hotel Kannappa at Trichy on my recent drive to Karaikudi. Big thanks to the married couple Mrs & Mr. Sathapan for making this trip happen.

What happens when a bunch of carnivores walk into non-veg paradise and go on an all out attack? Here is the rest of the story.

Food:
Seven hungry souls enter for lunch. Let me just list out what all we had and then try to explain them down.
We had
5 Mutton Biryani ( 3 Basmati Rice & 2 Seraga samba )
2 Mutton Kola Urundai
2 Mutton Brain
2 Nethili
2 Chicken Chukka
1 Pigeon Masala
2 Sets of Parotta
2 Chicken Chettinad Masala
1 Chilli Parotta
1 Chilli Paneer.
5 Falooda
1 Tuti frooti

I know the list is little huge. But we licked each dish clean.


Firstly a comparison between the Basmati Rice and Seraga Samba rice. My pick will be Seraga Samba hands down. Basmati rice had a very mild flavour and just could not hold its head with the Seraga Samba. Both the biryani had wholesome pieces of mutton.

Mutton Kola Urundai Vanished at the same speed it was served. Yummy Yummy... Mutton Brain was sort of an introduction for a few people in our group. I must say they loved it. Too bad they missed it all this while. Nethili was crispy fry and fresh. It just kept going in. Chicken Chukka too was fantastic. But I was too occupied with Brain and Nethili. The only dish which was not upto my liking was the Pigeon Masala. Found the taste a little weird even when it had the similar masala to Chicken Chettinadu. Could be because I have never eaten pigeon before or I could not pull meat apart from the bone.

Chilli Parotta was kind of like a appetiser for us. We just finished that in no time. I did not get to taste the paneer so I will reserve judgement on it. All in all the Kannappa is a proper non-veggies paradise. A place to dine if you happen to pass through Trichy.

The Falooda and Tuti Frooti were almost identical except for the swap of vanilla ice cream for strawberry ice cream.

Ambiance:
The restaurant has an ambiance similar to your Anjappar and Ponnuswamy. No complaints here.

Service:
It was quick and efficient. Very attentive and they put up  with our over exuberance.

Price:
The bill amount for this fantastic spread of meal was Rs 3250/-

Food - 8/10
Ambiance - 8/10
Service - 8/10
Price - 8/10

Disclaimer : I paid for the meal.

Hotel Kannappa Chettinad is located inside Grand Gardenia at Mannapuram Junction, Trichy.

Link to my previous visit here : http://goo.gl/5vRPbz

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*A review about a place holds good only for 6 months as there can be a change in quality and quantity of the food, the service and the staff, due to reasons best known only to them. So kindly consider these factors while visiting the places.

Food:
My usual order, Chicken Club Sandwich and a Chicken Steak Burger. I decided to fine tune the order, I instructed them specifically not to add the sauce on the burger thus helping the meat retain its tasty pepper flavour and not make the bun soggy. Maybe next time I will ask them to caramelise the onions, rather than raw onions which should make the burger one awesome one.

The loss in quality might have been a temporary one. The burger was spot on. Having made them serve the sauce separately only helped enhance the taste of the burger and made the chicken dominate the burger. While the chicken club sandwich was usual fare. My advise would be to add caramelised onions rather than the plain onions which would definitely help build on the flavours.

Service:
Time elapsed from the time of order at 2:00am was 45mins. Pretty fast service I must say.

Price:
The burger and the sandwich cost me Rs 420/-

Food - 8/10
Service - 9/10
Price - 8/10

FoodyCall is a home delivery joint, which starts functioning from 7pm to 5am.

For home delivery call - 044 - 42384444 or you can look it up at www.foodycall.in

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*A review about a place holds good only for 6 months as there can be a change in quality and quantity of the food, the service and the staff, due to reasons best known only to them. So kindly consider these factors while visiting the places.

Gone are the days when people say, " We are going to Mahabs to visit the Shore Temple" now it has come down to " Mahabs man, Moonrakers buddy! Sea Food!  After a long gap, I was at Blue Elephant a sister concern of Moonrakers for a delicious soul filling, protein rich diet.





First to arrive was the Golden Fried Calamari, which was served with lemon sauce. My taste was, avoid the lemon sauce. Have it with tomato ketchup. The Calamari is  always fresh and  has never disappointed me. The crunchy outer texture to the squishy interior is a nice contrast. Chili Chicken was the next to arrive for my brother who is allergic to Calamari. I just sampled a piece, it was nice and spicy with a hint of tawa flavors.



Next came the Tawa Prawns, Wow!!!!!! The best prawns one could have. This dish is best with smaller size prawns as the masala infuses better into the dish and also you get more pieces. A combo of this with the Parotta is deadly. Finally the Star item the fresh Fish in Tawa Masala, The Fish had a crispy outer texture with a soft and fresh inner portion. Nothing beats this fish. If you are an ardent fish lover, this is the place to have fresh fish.

Ambiance:
Since my 1 year old niece had come along and loves to keep running around, we chose Blue Elephant over Moonrakers. Its a wise decision for families with kids. The restaurant is air-conditioned, which wins brownie points during hot summers.

Service:
The people who serve you are not trained professionally in the art of serving, but they definitely go out of the way to help you out.

Price:
The price for this meal was Rs2300/- which was for 4 people. If you do go as a large crowd do not hesitate to bargain on the price.

Food: 8/10
Ambiance : 7/10
Service: 8/10
Price: 8/10

Blue Elephant is located in Otha Vada Street, Bang opposite to Moonrakers in Mahabalipuram.

Ahhh!! Finally, a New Town Cafe right inside the city. The one place I have been waiting to see close by and not on ECR alone. I was here for a CFG Showcase. The new outlet has opened up at the food street of Alwarpet, TTK Road.The ambiance at the new outlet is totally different from the one at ECR. Rich new age decor with amazing sound system.





The first starter to arrive was the Mezze platter. This is a cold platter with soft pita bread and hummus. The hummus was well made, in-fact one of the best. It also had some finely diced fresh veggies drizzled with lemon.


The next dish to arrive was the Asparagus and Mushroom vol au vent. For those who dont know what a Vol au vent is - it is typically a puff pastry of French origin which is circular in shape. Our Vol au vent was stuffed with a mixture of asparagus and mushroom. It was a combination of crispy outer with soft mussy filling. There was also a Refried Beans in Taco Shells. This was something which I skipped.



The starters for non-veggies started with Chicken Satay. Since I have had the same at the other outlet, I felt it still maintained the flavors. Next was the Tenderloin Teriyaki Skewers. WOW! is the word which best describes it. The beef was a really soft and full of flavors. It was served with Bok Choy. The combination was perfect. I would recommend this dish for true beef lovers.



Finally the famous Cheese Stuffed Drumstick Mughali Style. This is the best dish I have had on their menu. A piece drumstick deboned and stuffed with a mixture of chicken and cheese, served along with a Mughali style gravy. A big thumbs up to this dish. An absolute must have. The last starter to arrive was Mutton Murtabak. This dish is an stuffed parotta with a fancy middle eastern name. I have attached a close up picture of the same to show the amount of filling. This was the first properly spicy dish to be served. Point to be noted, it was well worth it.




After a half a dozen starters in my belly we moved to the main course. I skipped tasting the veg mains as I was beginning to feel a full. The veg mains served were Dry Pan Mee, Crispy noodles with 5 spice veggies, veg. grilled sandwich and finally Roti Canai with Veg Curry. I am a big fan of the Roti Canai with non-veg curry so I mixed up a little of the roti with some non-veg dish. The roti was soft and made me wish, for a non-veg curry.



The non-veg mains started with the Curry Mee. I am not a big fan noodles dunked in spicy soup, so I would not be the best to comment on it. The next was the Sago Tawa Fish. This was served along with Tandoori Aloo. The fish was fresh, spicy and tasty, the way I like it.



Next up was the Nasi Lemak Chicken Rendang. This is one dish, which I have not had before and I was surprised as to why I had missed out on this. It is best had with all the ingredients mixed together. A little of steamed rice, with kadala (nuts), boiled egg, fried chicken and anchovies. A mouth of this mixture is an absolute nirvana. Finally the last of the main was the Shell less Crab meat with Kothuparata. The crab was almost shell-less. The dish was a little on the sweeter side and I just hoped it had a bit of spiciness to compliment the parata.







After munching on various dishes, I hardly had any space in my tum to have full portion of the desserts. So I went about sampling the various dishes served to us. We were served with Roti Bomb, Orange Chocolate Mud Pie, Apple Crumbled Tart, Mango Mascarpone Pannacotta and Espresso Creme brulee.  The only dessert which I liked was the Roti Bomb, the others were just passable. Roti Bomb which is a parotta cut down to small pieces and loaded with milkmade. Felt it was the cut above the rest. Overall the entire meal was just fabulous.

Ambiance:
The Ambiance here is totally different from the one at ECR. This one has more of a lounge kind of style with superb music. A big thumbs up to the audio system here.

Price:
A meal for two should end up costing around Rs 1200- 1500.

New Town Cafe is located in TTK Road opposite to Indian Terrain and Nike showrooms.

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Hotel Runs in Adyar, has stood the test of time. This restaurant along with The Coronet, for a long time ruled the roost in Adyar. But many restaurants have sprung up all around and I was eager to see how they had adapted to the competition.

Food:
When a gang of 8 people head to a restaurant all hungry, it means heavy list of order and that is what happened recently. Six of us were non.veggies and two souls were veg and we got to try out both food groups.

Us non-veggies ordered a Grilled Chicken Full and Dragon Chicken for starters and Butter Chicken with parotta. As an after thought, since we were really hungry, we ordered Fish Biryani. Grilled Chicken was the first to arrive. It was a little dry, but never the less the masala was just right. While we waited for the Dragon Chicken, the mains Fish biryani and Parotta - Butter Chicken arrived. The Fish Biryani was nothing great to write home about. It lacked flavor and the punch. It was more like Fish Rice. The Parotta was soft and went well with the over sweet Butter Chicken. While we were munching down the main course, the Dragon Chicken finally arrived in huge plates. One bite of it, showed us, what real spiciness could mean. We were all running on boil. It was soo spicy that we needed sugar to reclaim our tongues.

The spicy chicken was enough to put us off. By the time we were done, we were all huffing and panting.

Ambiance:
We dined in the A/C section of the restaurant. The space looked really eery, not a place for couples. It can better serve as a gambling den.

Service:
Service wise cant say much, apart from the terribly late Dragon Chicken aka stomach burner.

Price:
The meal for 8 put us back by Rs 1900/-.

Food - 4/10
Ambiance - 4/10
Service - 6.5/10
Price - 6/10

Hotel Runs is located on Sardar Patel Road opposite to Style One.

I am returning back to the CFG Showcase scene after a long time and what better way than heading to the restaurant which pioneered the Butter Chicken Masala and the well known Tandoori Chicken. Even though I had visited Moti Mahal earlier, this was one opportunity I was not going to miss.

Usually when I write about a showcase dinner, I go on ranting about all the dishes served. But this time I want to try something different. I ll make it short and sweet. The dishes which I liked the most. Nothing more or nothing less, just the ones you need to try.








There is nothing better than having the Butter Chicken Masala along with the assorted rotis. This was what was served to us. I just loved the flavor the chicken had. Off the lot of assorted roti, I must say the stand outs were the Garlic Naan, Butter Naan and the Chilli Roti. If you guys go as a group, I would suggest you guys try the above mentioned roti. I am pretty sure, one would not be disappointed.


The Mutton Biryani served here, is standard affair. It was very much similar to the Biryani which one would be used to in North India. I am pretty sure if you like the Tamil Nadu style you will not like this.


Last but not the least, one should never leave Moti Mahal without having their Kulfi and the best I have ever tasted Paan Ice Cream. I have had paan ice cream all over the town and I am pretty sure this is the best one, one can have. It has nice deep taste to it.

If you guys love North Indian Food and are a sucker for kebabs, this is a must have restaurant. I do wish they have a small buffet offered on some odd days.

Ambiance:
The place stands true to my previous verdict, very subtle and neat.

Price:
A decent meal for two should cost around Rs 1200/-

Moti Mahal Delux is located in Jaganathan Road, in the same building as Sam's Pizza.

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*A review about a place holds good only for 6 months as there can be a change in quality and quantity of the food, the service and the staff, due to reasons best known only to them. So kindly consider these factors while visiting the places