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Some more photos.. shot around 7:45 this morning..

This is not a review.. but something else that I felt worth writing.

In the past I had only the dinners at Adyar Sangeetha Restaurant. I have ordered a couple of their special dosa varieties like.. corn dosai, paneer dosai etc. They were good. Though overpriced, they tasted fine.

But this time it was for morning tiffen. After glancing the menu, I realised that it is useless to look at that menu for morning tiffens. Only the regular pongal vadai, idly, basic dosai varieties were available. The idlies were one of the worst I have come across in chennai. The onion uthappam was over-spiced with ginger. I dont know whether this happend only to me. The hospitality was not good. There was this military commander (the captain) who stared me for asking extra sambar and delivered after 5 mins.

Anyone had similar bad experience at Adyar Sangeetha Restaurant?

- Saint

This is a late review i should say..

Whenever I hear the word MEXICO, dusty deserts, a cowboy with a revolver, spiked boot and a horse with appear in my mind. In some cases, a couple of cowboys and only one pretty gal (the heroine) will appear. Well.. thats what I saw in some of the old cowboy movies.. like The Good Bad Ugly, 5 men army, Django, 100 Rifles etc..

After getting out of the car, I thought Don Pepe is one such restaurant where I can see some real Mexical feel. Walked up the stairs and moved in. For a second I thought I entered into Hot Breads. But.. But.. there were a few photo frames in the wall displaying a few cowboys. I was like -> I said to myself.. no no.. no more expectations. If I should rate it like our AdventNet CAR, I will award the interiors as “Below Expectation”. Coz, contrarily.. it is very modern ! A modern Restaurant that serves mexican dishes.

They have two menus .. a regular and a special. Specials are always money burners. Don Pepe is not an exception.

We started with Soups. Usually the soups are good testing grounds where you can evaluate the quality of the restaurant. If they use readymade powders.. or too much corn flours, then the rating goes down. For non-veggies.. never taste a chicken soup in which the chicken pieces are not properly boiled. There should be no smell of the half-boiled chickens. For veggies, soups are mostly zero-risky. But look at the cabbage leaves.

At Don Pepe we ordered a veg soup.. called BOSTON CHOWDER. I wondered what an american (boston) doing in mexican menu. Anyway we were curious and ordered that soup. The soup had the default base receipe: little corn flour, vegetables and more onion. In other words.. Hot Onion Raitha ! Boston Chowder costs Rs.90 per bowl.

We ended up asking the captain to suggest a good non veg starter. Chicken Priyazo was selected. Chicken priyazo is long chicken pieces deep fried with spicy batter.. similar to our Chennai Fish Masala. The dish is accompanied with potato fries and cabbage. The taste was fine.. similar to desi chilli masala. Not disappointing like Boston Chowder. The quantity is good for two average persons. Chicken Priyazo costs Rs.180

Next we decided to try 3 main courses. One veg and two non-veg. The captain suggested us Special Chicken Lamb Pep.. (some mexican name starting with Pep, but not pepperoni). The taste was good.. and the preparation looked like some italian makeovers. It is priced at Rs.220. Does mexicans use cheese in their food ?? I donno, but the two non-veg courses had cheese toppings. The other non-veg is FRITTO POLLO another cheese, chicken course with pasta. This was spicy and tasted a little bit like south indian chicken gravy. Good taste and it burns Rs.150.

The veg main course is names as X MAS VEG PLATTER. An all-in-one serving. It had baby corn fry, pasta, some rice (like tomato rice) and a few other courses. It also came with some mexican bread.. almost white in color! Taste was generally good. Burns another Rs.250

When you visit this restaurant, make sure you order “No.of Persons minus 1″ main courses. The quantity is high, so for 3 persons, 2 main courses are enough.

Meanwhile, the captain insisted that we should go for KIWI Margeritta, the best of Don Pepe’s mocktails. It was served in a wide shallow glass filled with 40% foam. It takes just 10 or 12 small sips to empty the glass.. but the taste … hmm.. not bad. Did some justice for its Rs.70 price tag.

The “adangappaaa saameee” factor : The soft drinks were priced Rs.25 for 300 ml. This is something I cannot go with.

[b:c1e366ae45]Rating[/b:c1e366ae45]:

Interiors : 2.5 of 5 (modern, but fails to create a mexican ambience)

Tables/Furnitures : 2.5 of 5 (compact, not spacious)

Hospitality : 3.7 of 5

Food Advice by captains : 3.2 of 5

Price : 2 of 5

Food Quality : 3.7 of 5

Food Quantity : 3.5 of 5

[b:c1e366ae45]Conclusion[/b:c1e366ae45]

Expensive. Visit once in a quarter (i mean 3 months).. quality and quantity is good.. but premium priced.

[b:7e084a0d6c]Park .. Tech Park[/b:7e084a0d6c]

Parked my bike and looked up.. cool! Definitely the building looks more bigger in close. As a Techpark, the building has 7+ stories of space for IT companies, Food courts, Gym and a mega car park. And, Planet Yumm at Ascendas welcomes you at the ground floor.

When you think of Planet Yumm, it portrays the choice of menus you get at one place. Except the pathetic Besant Nagar outlet, almost all other Planet Yumms are equally good. This one, the ascendas outlet is much better. It accomodates 650+ seats.. some ten 10 food counters (with 5 counters started operating).. laaarge hall for general and exclusive dining.

[b:7e084a0d6c]Counters : Onnu, Rendu, Moonu..[/b:7e084a0d6c]

The Quenchers serves Juices and Mocktails along with Chaat items. The Qwikys for coffee, The Noodle House for full course meals, KFC for non-veggies, Palimar for quick veg foods, Pathankot with Frankies, Pizza Hut for quality pizzas, 24×7 coffee shop for kaapi and chai and still there is some vacant spaces .. to be occupied by others. Wish Anjappar opens a counter there. (if that happens, expect ascendas to become a food park)

What more ? take a small walk and you can find the Barista housed independently behind Ascendas reception. There is a indoor gym equipped with all bells and whistles with exclusive trainers.

Looked like a good place to hangout in the evenings. With a good choice of menus, Planet Yumm at Ascendas may soon become an hottest spot for evenings. There are some reserved spaces for commercial shops too. I bet our good old Europa may open there! hehe..

Most of the counters will start operating by this Month end. Do visit! this is an excellent place for a good evening snack.. or dinner.

- Saint

gioRgio is a multi-cuisine restaurant located in besant nagar. Those who travel frequently on the besant nagar - church road may have noticed gioRgio. No exclusive car parking available. So you need to park in front of the restaurant, on the road.

[b:9c4a745829]Interiors[/b:9c4a745829]

Air cooled, low lighted, wooden tables with porcelain laid top. You can feel a “premium” atmosphere with the projected-music video, Bose audio and even LG plasma. Seating is limited. Say, some 25 or 30 peoples max. (3 / 5 points)

[b:9c4a745829]Menu[/b:9c4a745829]

No seperate books for every cuisine. Means, they have listed all multi continental food items in one book. For example, under starters, you will find one from china, one from mexico, one from europe and one tandoori. Overall, the list is long enough to make you drool. (3.5 / 5 points)

Jamaican Jerk Chicken: A Jamaican main course with chicken pieces, onion rings, fried veg beans, fried potatoes and dry basmati rice with some flavour added to it. Its a sizzler too. The chicken tasted ok, but the beans, potatoes and rice.. are a definite no no ! Stay away from this.

Lasagne Veg : Default lasagne with veg inside. Nothing great to comment. Pass mark.

Lasagne Lamb: One of the decent dish you can order. Remember, its a lasagne, so lotsa cheese. Diet concious should think twice before ordering.

Chicken Quesidillas : Prepare a roti. Stuff cheese and boiled chicken inside. Cut into 6 pieces like a pizza. Place some sliced tomatos on top. You get chicken quesidillas. You may like it.. you may NOT like it. you may like it .. you may not like it.. oh, thats too difficult to decide whether you liked it or not.

Oriental Crispy Fried Vegetables: Go with your partner. Order a OCFV, and start chatting with him/her. It may last for some 15 minutes. Great companion for those who are on a date . Definitely a time cruncher and “kara kara moru moru” feast for your griding jaws. Prepared from Potatoes, Baby corns and Cauliflower.

[b:9c4a745829]Quality & Quantity[/b:9c4a745829]

Quality is just right. Nothing spectacular. Quantity wise, every main course is sufficient for one average person. Not much, not less (3 / 5 points)

[b:9c4a745829]Hospitality[/b:9c4a745829]

One of the poor services i have seen. We asked for a pen.. and never received any. Service was little un-attentive. We then asked for the menu card.. and it took a long time to see a menu card on our table. Considering the fact that only some 10 people were in the restaurant, i would say, they were un-attentive and rendered a poor service. To make it worse.. they play the same music video disc again and again. (1/5 points)

[b:9c4a745829]Price[/b:9c4a745829]

Priced at premium. The minimum price i saw on the menu card is Rs.70. Almost all others fall in the range of Rs.120 and Rs.190.

[b:9c4a745829]Conclusion[/b:9c4a745829]

Multicuisines are always expensive. gioRgio is not an exception and it doesnt give a worth-for-money experience. May be the italian pizzas are better there. But we didnt try them yesterday. So I cannot conclude anything solid without trying their pizzas. But for now, I will say gioRgio is somewhat okay for visiting once or twice in a year. (2.5 / 5 points)