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| - So, where do I start? Well, last week, I went with a friend to Chennai Express to check it out. I give one star for the outside the shop and inside, as it appeared to be a very bright, colorful, and vibrant. Beautiful paintings of South Indian dancers, and pictures delicious Chennai style food on banana leaves decored the walls. However, as I approached the worker at the front, I had an unwelcomed look from him and some of the others there. Excited of having the chance to eat some of delicious South Indian food, I asked the cashier if they had Chicken 65 (a specialty finger food of Chennai, and other parts of Tamil Nadu). He just stared at me and said "What!?, What is that? This is a vegetarian restaurant."
It then dawned on me that the owners were probably not from Chennai, but elsewhere. To top it off, there was a television playing Bollywood Hindi songs, where you would expect a Chennai or South Indian restaurant to play Tamil or Kollywood music instead, or even Telugu, or Malayalee songs. Anyways, I decide to take a menu home to check out, and wow! What an amazing selection of foods, more like an international fusion of confusion, or should I say a'mix-n-match' feel good cuisine. I saw items on the menu that never existed before in our cuisine, like 'North Indian Thali,' 'Mushroom Manchurian,' and 'Paneer Dosa!' No different than having having 'Mexican Hamburgers,' or 'Spam Sushi...'
Well, I decided to give them a try a week later today and brought my mother there. As usual, like most Indian restaurants, their lunch closed at 3:30 pm and were not to open till 5:30 pm for dinner, of which, I think they take a nap or something in between. Anyways, I give them another star for still serving us, when they were supposedly closed. As an adventurer of foods, I decided to try the Andhra Spicy Dosa. I asked one of the lady workers there what is the difference between Andhra and Chennai Dosa, and she told me that it is in the spicyness. Spicyness? I was under the impression it would be cooked with a slight different flavor. Looks like she already gave me a hint of what their food was going to be like.
Thinking we were going to get some authentically tasty South Indian food, we get what looked like left overs from a North Indian buffet along with the Dosai. There was even a Paneer dish with the Thali vegetarian plate we ordered, which is absent in South Indian cuisine. Each of the dishes, and including the Masala Dosai had raw red chili powder mixed into it. As a matter of fact, we could not taste any flavor other than the hotness of the powder. When we asked the waiter for some water, he went up and got us some cheap plastic water tumbler with a couple of styraphone cups and placed it on the table. I felt we were at a picnic or something with our self serve for water, not it is like a big deal, but usually, a lot of other places usually do. Either, we were not welcomed there, or they have poor customer service.
On customer service, there was an Americano family that entered, thinking we worked there for some odd reason (I need not explain...), they asked us if we were opened! Lol, I told them, we do not work here, and that we were customers, and if they want, they can go to the back and talk the workers. Being closed, I supposed, all of the workers were in the back with the front door opened with no 'CLOSED,' sign. Anyways, the family looked around, and walked out. Talk about customer service...
Anyways, as we finished our lovely meal, the owner of the restaurant asked my mother where we were from. Really??? I thought we were all supposedly Indians. My mother then told him she was from Malaysia, and I told him that my former father was from Chennai. The owner then tole me, that their cook is from Chennai. Well, that is good to know... lol... He then spoke to me in Hindi, and then asked me in English if the food was good. Hindi??? Uh, hello, Hindi is not spoken in Chennai, or other parts of South India, it is Tamil, even though Hindi is supposedly the official language of India, but is predominantly spoken in North India. It is obvious that when you advertise a restaurant called 'Chennai Express,' you are going to get Tamil customers, or should I say 'Chennai' people...
Turns out that the owners were were from Punjab, North India who also own the Delhi Palace next door, both restaurants are connected, go figure... My personal advice, if you want really authentic South Indian food, have it home cooked at a South Indian friends home. That is about as good as it is going to get. Otherwise, I would recommend you to try Delhi Palace instead for some real authentic North Indian food, which obviously is served with some TLC at least.
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