Before starting my review read this:
This place has a British ambience. Situated off TTK road in Chennai. Multi cuisine food will surely be loved by all. Best of all there is the Zanzi’bar’
Nope, thats not what I thought of Casablanca. We were short listing a place for the project dinner. And the above was the review that one team-mate gave us. Excited to try newer places, we decided to give it a shot.
Start wasnt great. Tucked in amidst a muddle of one ways, we sure had to do many a turns before reaching the restaurant. Unless you were looking for it, you will surely not know that there is a restaurant there. Sadly we were. Once u get into the place, The wood worked doorway is pretty impressive. There werent many people inside. Actually just one family other than our huge group of 14 enthued people.
Ironically the whole place did have a British ambience in one sense that the people were expecting us to be too much svelte than we actually were. ( I dont know when each of those many spoons and forks are to be used :))
Service:
The food is a la carte, so we do take our own sweet time to order. And obviously we cant whisper all the time. The maitre’d does raise eyebrows when our volumes raise, to put us on check. No grievance as probably is his USP has to be ’serenity’. Food takes longer to come. But the waiters are courteous and prompt otherwise. They even managed to let us take a sneek peek into the non-commercial insides of the zanzi’bar’ which is the attached bar.
Food:
They do serve Italian, Continental and Indian ( chinese too I guess) Most of the Food taste was average. We tried samples from all the three varieties mentioned, Only the continental was better than average. What we were surprised is that Indian food was barely eatable.
One positive point is that most of the starters irrespective of the kind were good. They were novel and were enjoyable. But the main course was a disaster, when compared to the starters. The sizzlers were the only relishable dish that we had. But sadly it took more than 45 minutes to materialize.
Ambience: Nothing much to write home about. The so called British ambience had perhaps gone for a roman holiday. Dim lighting with soft music are likeable but nothing much on that front. Actually for a group like us, we did not like the toooo polished behavior that they displayed. After all we were there for fun, and not signing some treaty.
To summarize: If you dont know about Casablanca, Never mind. Many people in the same street didnt know about the existence of such a restaurant. Go there if you want total serenity and seclusion. Food wise it bombs. And not suitable for families as the basic intention is to enjoy. Residency would be a better option.