During my recent visit to Muscat, I had been to famous Indian Brand Restaurant like Saravana Bhavan & Woodlands.
No doubt, they have managed to establish branches/franchises across the world, but forgot to keep up their core competency, USP “Authentic Food”.
I had been to Saravana Bhavan for lunch and ordered for the Thali meal. The food was pathetic. Hardly any vegetables they used, but managed to serve the meal with several cost effective items. The quality of Chappathi /poori, rice was not good. The rasam & vatha kozhambu was very bad. The food hygeine and sanitation were very poor. In my opinion, Saravana Bhavan at Vadapalani Chennai is the only out-let were you can get good authentic food. The promptor, he himself had taken the interest in maintaing the standards and tried to motivate his employees to perform better.
Rest all outlets within India or at Abroad are not serviving good food, They may have branches in UAE, USA, UK, Canada, Malaysia , Singapore etc.Offcourse their business is floursishing, it does’nt mean that its because of the good food that they serve. No the customers are left with no choice, but to avail their service as there is no option.The service staff were not friendly and all my trust and loyalty on Saravana Bhavan has lost for ever after this experience.
Another restaurant I visited was Woodlands. A nice cozy family restaurant. I have ordered for Enna Kathirikaai, Era Chettinad and Veechu parotha. To my surprise, the gravey for both the dishes were same, but change in colour. Kathirikai used for the dish was green and its not prepared as per authentic Chettinad style. Era (prawns) was boiled and just droped in gravey. Veechu parotha was not same as it should be. Tandoori parotha was cut in to four quarters. Vinegared onion was served - each onion weighing 50 -75 gms weight. While talking to restaurant Manager about the food quality and authenticity, he is not willing accept the fact that they are not providing authentic chettinad/south Indian food, but in disagreement to my views.