Sangeetha- Adayar Review
A large board outside the restaurant reassures health-conscious diners that the food served is cooked in healthy oil, the North Indian and Chinese menu items being cooked in olive oil. We entered the ever-bustling restaurant and had to wait a few minutes to get a table in the non-airconditioned section on the ground level. A short stairway leads to the air-conditioned section upstairs.
The vast & varied menu was mind-boggling, with prices ranging from Rs. 13/- (Idli) to over Rs.130/- (Special milkshakes & faloodas). I decided to try out the famed dosas, but ordered the plain type (Rs.24/-) as I had a bad sore throat. As usual, my niece ordered the chana-batoora (Rs. 30/-), something she just cannot resist! The food was served in bright cheerful orange plates, the substantially-sized dosa edges going beyond the plate's edge. Neatly served accompaniments on the plate were 2 chutneys & a small steel bowl of sambhar. The dosa was extremely crisp and un-oily – absolutely perfect! The sambhar had just the right amounts of onions and tomatoes and the coconut chutney was also good. The chana-batoora was also good – the huge round puri totally overwhelming the plate (see photo!), accompanied by onion rings, a single cube of potato and a small flat plate of chana in gravy. Both the puri and the chana were a bit oily, though, and the gravy spicy. Dining out in Chennai is just not complete without coffee! So I ordered that too, and enjoyed the piping hot coffee as it warmly soothed my throat.
Final verdict: repeat visits are definitely on my itinererary!
The repeat visit was for lunch,so heres my review on Sangeethas lunch :
When you yearn for comfort food at lunch time, you absolutely must dine at Sangeetha, Adyar. During the lunch hour there, you will see 80% of the diners totally engrossed in one item: the thali. You can pay with a Sodexho coupon.
The Sangeetha thali includes a fairly large bowl of rice in fact, the rice is a bit excessive for one person so it is good that the restaurant does not serve it directly in the main steel thali, so you can return the extra rice. The thali contains two veggies, a katori of dal, pickle, salad and pappad. Besides the rice, all the items were hot and delicious. Each item was well-cooked and none were over-oily. In short, a good meal for less than Rs.50/- . If you don't wish to have an entire thali, you must have the puri-bhaji (see photo). It comprises of three large puris, a dollop of potato vegetable, and a small kotori of hot sambhar. The puris were nicely puffed and well done, with the oil having been properly drained. The chutney, as usual, was tasty. The potato vegetable (the same which is put inside the masala dosa), though, could have been a bit more. Also, the vegetable was not served hot. Overall, the thali I had here scored over the one I had at the Golden Star restaurant in Mumbai (see review at this site) which had far more items but simply did not give me that satisfaction of an enjoyable meal that I experienced here.
I learnt one important tip when dining here: if you visit Sangeetha in the morning before 10a.m., you can get idlis at a lesser price than later during the day.
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