It’s
nice to come across a restaurant called Mouthful! When you hear the name, something tells you
that a visit is mandatory! The Tandoori
Rann mentioned in the press ads was what motivated us to go there and when we
finally made it to this place in Raghavia Road in TNagar, we found that it
lived up to our expectations; we did get a yummy mouthful.
The
menu was quite eclectic; besides the expected Tandoori, Hyderabadi and South
Indian fare, there was Chinese as well as a Malaysian, and a Thai, Afghani and
Maldivian dish or two on offer. The right side displayed some very reasonable
numbers, though there was one that went into four figures.
And
that was the Tandoori Bakra - a whole lamb stuffed
with plain pulao & eggs. It was priced at Rs. 3750 and you have to give them
24 hours notice and pay a 50% advance before they go out and buy the goat. It
probably feeds a mini army!
We opted for the Tadoori raan(at Rs 700), which was a whole leg
of lamb roasted almost to perfection. Though the menu said it was for two
people, it took four of us to eat it with Nan, Kerala Paratha and Dhal Makhni.
While the Raan was the second most expensive dish on the menu,
the others were all far behind in terms of cost. Honey garlic chicken
and Thai roast chicken caught the eye in the list
of starters(Rs 60 to 110), which, strangely
included chicken sizzler!
My nephew was all praise for one of the Biriyani Combos –
chicken biriyani, tandoori chicken and glass of pepsi For Rs 85. The biriyani
alone would have come in at Rs 65.
A full tandoori Chicken would be yours for Rs 180, while the
seafood is priced between Rs 130 and 150. The “Mouthful special lunch” consists
of about 15 items and is priced at Rs
80, while a stripped down version called
the “Corporate lunch”, costs jut Rs 40.
In the Malaysian section, besides Malaysian chicken curry, we
saw murtabak, roti pisang and egg loppa. They serve fish curries of Chettinad,
Kerala and Goan origin(Rs 99), as well as chicken and mutton Kotthu Parotta. The restaurant claims they are the only ones
in Chennai to serve the whole lamb, Maasi
fry( a fish dish of Maldivian origin) and the Afghani chicken, which is
“infused” with 30 different spices are
The portions are reasonably large. The décor and ambience are
nothing to write home about.
Parts of the menu and the paper tablemat provide some
interesting reading. Here are a few samples:
They cautiously tell us that “all products we sell are halal *to the best of our knowledge.” *(italics
mine).
“We add no water *in most
of our* Indian gravies.(italics mine again).
‘We do not carry over our cooked food to the next day”
They also add
some cookery tips, a few puzzles, sudoku, some jokes and instructions on how to
knot your tie!
The creativity
continues dessert menu; our group was busy reading the health tips with some
strange titles that they forgot all about ordering dessert!
We will certainly go again.