Sree Annapurna of Calcutta - Egmore [Chennai]

Decent Bengali food in Chennai at decent prices; that what “Annapurna” is all about! We had heard a lot about this place from the time we landed in Chennai. Finally on a public holiday this year we went there to have a Bengali meal in Chennai!! It is a small place, hardly accommodating about 15-16 tables in all.  I found out that this is a family run business and they have not changed much for a long time.

The place does not have a fixed menu; day’s menu is written on a whiteboard!! It reminded me of old pice hotels of Kolkata. The menu is pretty basic; everyday there is a fixed veg thali with about 2-3 types of fish including prawns [You can get Hilsa if you are lucky], 1 chicken curry, 1 mutton curry and ‘Hanser dimer kasha”. You have  choice of biriyani or Pulav additionally.

We ordered for basic thali which consists of rice, dal, 1 veg sabji, shukto and something resembling mashed potatoes. It was pretty basic and in truth not very inspiring beginning. We ordered the “Rui macher jhal” (Fish curry), “Kosha Mangsho” (Spicy Chicken curry) and “Chingri macher bati chachhori’ (Prawn). Among all these, the fish was ok, not very good and the piece was very small. Prawn was very disappointing, not tasty at all. The best one was Chicken kasha. It was really nice and we ordered pulav to go with it. I was hungry for more and also ordered ‘hanser dim kasha’ (Spicy egg curry). This was the best part of our entire meal. Pulav was very good and also the “hanser dim kasha” was spicy and very tasty.

Well, there are lots of improvement scopes but still if you are in Chennai and craving for Bengali food, try this place. The prices are very very reasonable. The veg thali was 45/- , Chicken was around 70/- , Hanser dim kasha was 25/-. For 2 of us the total meal including 2 veg thali, chicken curry, fish curry, prawn curry, egg curry and 1pulav in total cost us around 300/-. We would suggest you to try the pulav with kasha mangsho and Hanser dim kasha; you can’t go wrong with it. The place does not have any seat booking policy, so be ready to wait standing beside a table if you are going on weekends. Seriously be ready to wait half hour to one hour during lunch on a Sunday, I know it from first hand experience!! Do not expect great ambience but just go for the Bengali food.

OUR RATINGS:

Ambience: 1/5

Food: 3.5/5 [Considering it’s in Chennai]

Service: 4/5

Price: 4.5/5

Overall: 3.5/5

OUR TAKE:

A pace to visit when feeling homesick and craving Bengali food in Chennai. There are not many places where you can get decent Bengali food in Chennai at this reasonable price. Also you will meet lots of Bengalis.

Drizzle - Neelankarai (East Coast Road) [Chennai]

Can a restaurant suffer in quality, service, food, hospitality and all possible areas apart from the ambience which is hardly a saving grace? Yes, it can! And you have to visit Drizzle to experience it! Or rather, don’t force such torture upon yourself and be better informed after reading about our experience.

We stumbled across this place rather accidentally and decided to give it a try. We went in and what was rather amusing is that the waitress was just as clueless as us about where to get us seated. The whole place was empty! She asked us to choose any place which we fancied and we took a table that was nearest to the AC. Next came the menu cards, which came in after about 10 minutes of waiting. We took much of it in good humour as it was just yet 6:30 and business hours didn’t start before 7:00pm. We asked if we should come back later but were told to remain seated and that our orders would be taken. What was startling that a huge place like that (20 tables approx) had only 2 waitresses. One took orders while the other manned the door. We ordered for Chicken Crostini and Crumb Fried Fish Fingers and some Fresh Lime Soda to wash it all down. The soda came in about 5 minutes. After another 30 minutes came the Fish Fingers. What was odd that neither were our plates put forward and neither was the food arranged. Rather, the waitress very casually tossed the empty plate to the next table which landed with a clatter and then she put the plate of Fish in front of me. Throughout the whole process, she decided to ignore the presence of my husband!! Another excruciating 20 minutes later came the Chicken Crostini. This time something really weird happened. In fact it was so atrocious, we had to laugh about it!! This time too, the lady decided that I was the only one to deserved to be served and henceforth ignored that there was a man sitting right next to me. Not only that, she also promptly picked up my half sipped soda glass and walked away confidently without as much as asking me a word!!  We were speechless!

However, we decided to play it fair and thought that our bad experience was owing to the fact that we had dropped in before business hours. And hence, the next day, we went there around 8:30pm. Guess what? The service was worse! It had to be – when you have 4 tables to man and only 1 waitress as the other one was busy manning the door! We ordered the same starters and to our extreme displeasure and disbelief, they tasted different!! And by different, I don't mean in the good way! How could the consistency of the same food vary so appreciably within the span of 24 hours? However, we ordered the main course but I guess it was not to be! After a good wait of 45 minutes, we were told our food would take a “little more time” to arrive. And that was enough. We footed the bill and stormed out.

OUR RATINGS:

Ambience: 4/5

Food: 3.5/5 for Day 1 and 2/5 for Day 2.

Service: 1/5

Price: 2.5/5

Overall: 2/5

OUR TAKE:

If you are really at loggerheads with someone and want to take revenge, take him to Drizzle. I am sure you shall not regret it!!