Ahaar, The Residency - T.Nagar

Weirdo

i'm having mixed opinions on this place .. i really dono if i shud recommend it or not..if ur a foodie, as in just bothered bout the food, u can def hit this place, but for me i'm not goin bak here again. But yes the food is awesome and the service is a good attempt too.

My problem is with the ambiance. I expected a three star hotel like The Residency to have a class. There was no lobby, u had to walk-in to a scary sidey looking elevator to reach the first floor or u can climb up the stairs that smells of booze from the bar in there. You enter the restaurant which looks like a plain flat long banquet hall with no interiors made into a restaurant with wooden furnitures and the buffet placed in one corner, there was this carnatic music playing live there, which was more irritating than pleasant. So this 'booth'ish place sure wasnt welcoming nor was the crowd there that looked like middle-aged men who came to drink in the bar and walked in here by mistake. Somehow the atmosphere smelt rusty and antique, not in a good way. We wouldve walked out but for the cake we had ordered already for a friends bday.

The service is good, they gave a quarter kg cake on the house. The manager was very attentive. But somehow the waiters were acting weird, funny and were too eager to serve you well, which was kinda cute n fortunately not disgusting since we were in celebration mood. To sum it up, it wasnt professional, but the food was great.

The buffet has the usual north, south indian and chinese stuff. There was a live aapam counter with awesome coconut milk as side dish. YUMMY. The starters were GR8, the mysore bonda was incredible and the pasta with both white and red sauce were very good too. They had freshly fried potato and banana chips which were mouth watering. The chapathi was bad tho, rubbery. But the tandoori paratta compensated for it. The gravies were paneer, aloo, gobi made very well and some radish peanut innovative thingie which i din like much.

South indian was good too with tangy kozhambu and veggie, curd rice and curd vada both tasted sexy. There was a residency rice, which din deserve the signature name, actually the pineapple rice was diferent and better. Chinese was noodles and a ladies finger in soy sauce. The problem was that the food were arranged in random order, so u cant really get the rite comby to eat. Desserts were the best part, from anything like payasam to custard tasted yummy. The icecreams were very richly flavored too ...

Ambiance - 1/5

Food - 5/5

Service - 3.5/5

Price - 700 per couple

Will i give back again? - If i hear about a renovation, will definitely walk-in without fear!

Ahaar
The Residency
No. 49, G.N.Chetty Road,
T.Nagar,
Chennai - 600 017.
Phone: 044 28253434
http://www.theresidency.com/residency-chennai/chn-ahaar.asp

Dont miss the strawberry icecream...that u jus cant stop eating...