Crystal Jade, Checkers - Saidapet

Worst-ever restaurant in the city!

Checkers! i used to wonder how this place is not so famous sittin in such a place in the city. So decided to explore this place when i had to treat some friends, but was disappointed so much. The hotel looks great and the buffet at Stimulation (the cafe at lobby level) had a very scanty menu priced at 400 bucks and smelt like a bar rite from outside.The quality of food was apparent and wasn't worth payin so much for sure. I wish i had been to GRT or Residency towers instead for almost the same price or just a lil more.

We had a savior we assumed, the chinese restaurant (completely empty) in the 2nd floor looked good and smelt much better. I ask the waiter 'Do u have a buffet' and he says ' No mam, only Chinese!' .... No comments... Jus went ahead and opened the menu which was again very less and the veg items were even lesser. Service is ok, not bad. The soup (Tom Yum) was like horrible and tasted more like south-indian rasam, the starters spring rolls (bland), veg balls 'q' (only good one) and onion rings (had to gulp it down with a whole glass of water to void mishap) were nuff samples for us to kno how much to order in the main course.

The main course were schewan fried rice (wasnt spicy, i guess no salt too), pan-fried noodles (good and only thing to fill the tummy), thai green curry (awful), and five-spiced veg balls gravy (i lost my sense of taste by then, so don rem) and yea the dim sum (duh!). Whatever! desserts cant b that bad anywhere. Who says so? The strawberry milkshake was bland. The banana fritters were the worst i ve ever had, we ordered a plate for 5 of us and still had half the plate unfinished when we left. Thank god the fried icecream was unavailable. And for this quality of food, the place is irritatingly expensive, the decor's good... now m not here to pay for ur interior designing.. i am here to eat!

After paying hella lot here, i went to a local south indian fast food and had good food - tummy-filing and heart-filling - for less than 100 bucks :)

Ambiance - 4/5 for the looks but 1/5 for the smell

Food - A BIG O / on anything!

Service - 3/5

Price - 800 bucks for a couple which u can as well dump into a dustbin!

Will i ever go back? - NO! and U BETTER STAY AWAY FROM CHECKERS!

Crystal Jade
The Checkers Hotel,
No. 30, Mount Road,
Little Mount,
Saidapet, Chennai - 600035
Phone 43994399

Did you really want the address after all this?

Bombay Blue - Nungambakkam

You asked for it.. wannabe cream centre!

Upon invite to the Bombay Blue restaurant as they did on an effort to disprove my review on chennai.burrp.com, i went there for lunch with 2 of my friends. The food is on the house now that didnt make them think i ll come bak to review a 5 star here i hope. Before i forget to mention, the service has gone down already, the more the crowd the less they care about the customers, to the extent that they forget the invitees waiting for 30 mins (although reservation was made) and ask us politely if we need reservation! uh what? and yea the waiters stopped jumping at you (the rosy days were too short i guess) but now they start forgetting your drinks and compel you to order something else, wen u want something else! Some waiters dont even know the name of the dish they are serving, the guy brought us cheese amigos n said here are ur fish sticks! (we were 3 veggies at the table with a 'whaaaat?' on our face). Okay, lets taste the food now and try to forgive the service ...

Soup

Italian tomato - big white bowl - little soup in the bottom
we needed some croutons
'bread for the soup plz' - 'yes ma'm'
'excuse me we asked for some bread cubes' - 'sure ma'm'
'hello? our soup is getting cold' - we get nothing but a smile with a are-u-talking-to-me look!

Appetizers

Onion rings - no salt in tha batter compensated with chat masala on top! is that bombay isthyle????????
Nachos (a speciality here) - not available!
Mezze platter - soft pita bread, bad hummus, some tomato gravy indian style, good ranch
Cheese amigos - probably the only edible item in the menu we had to fill outselves with. (mozerrella-stick-looking jalepeno poppers)

Main course

Chenna Batura - No chenna 'shall we serve with paneer?' NO! plz! what do we look like, guinea pigs?
Veggie sizzler - not bad, but hmm personally i have lost my taste for and not gonna order sizzlers anymore anywhere (u mite wanna think its cos of this experience).
Chilli cheese baguette - soft bread but was it baguette?
Cottage cheese chimichanga - i don wnana decribe this particular dish, i might get brutal, wish i cud give less than one star to BB! It was so burnt and tasted of a yr old oil from some local tea shop bajji, oh well i jus said m not gonna talk about it! so shhh!
The penne pasta with red sauce - we were despertely looking fwd to this dish to bring life back to our dead tongues, but it was equally lifeless, flavorless and cold.

Drinks (That came very late since they forgot it the first time)

Lemon ice tea - pushed to a corner after the first sip
Lassi - passable
Cold coffee with icecream - who can make a mistake on this one? hmm.. ok lets say passable too ..
Orange sunshine - wowww!!! the savior of the day,, incredible drink not to miss .. did earn BB the one star!

Desserts

Apple crepe (or watever) - Not available
Peach melba - Not available
Brownie sizzler - typical cream centre material...good nuff
Hot Fudge Nut Sundae - more of vanilla but yea yummy
Malai Kulfi - was good but tooooooo sweet to handle..

If only i was asked to pay for this culinary torture! wouldnt put myself through this even if they pay me next time .. i hope there is not!

Ambiance - 5/5

Service - 2/5

Food - 1/5

Price - shud be around 500 for a couple

Will i ever go back? - Not even in my dreams!

Bombay Blue
College Road,
Nungambakkam, Chennai - 600034
Phone: 044-43596633

Lets forget it as a one-time nightmare!