CHAO - Chic, Happening, Ambience, Opulence

The title is how I would like to define Chao...

The CFG showcase at the CHAO was an delectable affair with food and furnishing...

Ambience: Be it the glow sign on the ground (first in Chennai I guess), the interior design; it took me back to the trip to Bali and Thailand - how I wished to import all those handicrafts from there and it was nice to see it back here "all in one place" - Ducks, Budhas, Bamboos, Drums, Wall hangings, Wall Paper were making me nostalgic. Well done Shalini Muthukumar & Partners

 The cellar setup was stellar and I liked it more than the ground floor

 Wall hanging on both floors

 one of those many budhas and the ducks below

 Mad angles by MadCS member who has a close resemblance to Mr.Bean - what say CFGians?

From top left to bottom - Corn Tartlets, Devils potato, Thai grilled fish Chao style, wasabi prawns, Thai green curry, jasmine rice, sambal rice, dim sums. This is all I took pictures of ;) rest of the time busy hogging

 Dessert - Tub Tim Grob

                                                                                    Dessert - pumpkin custard with coconut milk

Food review: Veg

• Green Mango Salad - The raw papaya was replaced with green mango and what a refreshing change  it was. Tangy and yumm probably was missing the dash of dried fish/prawns which is how i ate in Thailand
  
• Corn Tartlets - Tartlets filled with crispy corn kernels - nice and crispy and too much corn for me
• Devil's potato - Crispy fried and sauteed potato wedges - this was the only dish which was left over
• Veg Dim Sums - like the chicken ones better than the veg ones
• Jasmine Rice - Well, was dreaming of meera jasmine when Mr. ali explained how it got its name. The fragrance of the rice is so  profound that it is compared to jasmines not meera though
  
• Singaporean Bee Hoon - Fine Rice noodles with bean sprouts - was close to what i usually like
• Sambal fried rice - Would have preferred the spice to be one notch higher
  
•  Cashew Garlic Garden greens - Stir fried vegetables mildly cooked with Garlic sauce and cashews - didnt get this to my side of the table
• Mushroom Pepper Salt - Crispy & juicy mushrooms tossed in pepper, chili flakes and garlic and served on a bed of fried noodles - the only vegetarian dish that was to my taste and flavor

Food: Non-veg

• Devil's chicken - Again the corn batter on this made it hard to bite but was good
  
• Chao Thai Grilled Fish - Boneless fish fillets marinated, grilled and served on skewers - awesome taste. Definitely my first choice of starters
• Wasabi Prawns - Crispy fried Prawns tossed in smooth Wasabi mayo - The wasabi was too mild for my taste (may be they customized it to chennai palettes)
• Satay Prawns - Juicy prawns marinated, grilled and served on skewers
• Thai Green fish Curry - Well cooked basa fish in the curry, was a deadly mix with the jasmine rice. Best choice for the main course
  
• Basil Chicken - Fine Minced tender chicken served in hot basil sauce

Food: Desserts

• Tub Tim Grob - Water chestnuts in coconut milk served with crushed ice - water chestnuts in rose essence look like rubies or pomegranate pearls in cocunut milk - my tounge went gaga over this for a long time
• Pumpkin custard with Coconut ice-cream - Makes you wanna go - give me more

  Happy CFGians after having their first round of food

 Fazil and Karthik ricky with the very animated Roshan Kuruvilla

  Karthik Ganapathi doing the Verabhadran pose with the dimsum lid and fork

 

 I like the stewards from Odisha for the way they pronounce "fish" as "phiss" (get a sadistic pleasure of asking them to repeat it a few times lol) - photo courtesy RK

 

Excited me - this pic takes the cherry and no prices for guessing who took this picture 

(clue: mad angles) 

Verdict: Love the ambiance, Good Vietnamese, Thai and Singapore food. If you could customize a few dishes to the customer's taste (asking them while ordering), it would make it a wow-experience for sure. Also, it is a fine-dining restaurant - so the prices are on the higher side

Location: This is to the fag end of North Boag road  opp. to Singapore consulate

Mr. Jagdish & Co - here is a golti song from the movie "Businessman" that can be your brand song/anthem - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3b5xLfXRH0 . Tere liye pichekki poya - Going Mad for U CHAO..

Pizza Republic - Yeh hai "Asli Pizza re Public"

To all the maschi and donnas of CFG...

• Have you ever been urged strongly to write your first blog because you felt so good about what you ate?
• Have you made so many good friends over food?
• Have you ever decided to start up a franchise after tasting your first bite at the restaurant?

Well if all this happens to you at once it is definitely a winner of sorts and it's none other than the one and only "Pizza Republic"
A CFG meetup was organized one Saturday evening and this was a sequel to another Saturday where a bunch of them had gone and set the record straight for the longest stretch of the Cheese on pizza and wrote rave reviews about the place. I arrived at around 5 pm and Mr.Pizza man (Ramki) greeted me warmly inside the kitchen and so did the staff and I knew it was Ramki's training in action. He handed me over a kitchen cap (wondering why we both needed one - baldies) wore it hesitantly and walked in. He was busy making the focaccia bread for the Ceasar sald which Nag had asked for on his last visit.

Ramki cutting veggies for the evening party carefully watched by his staff.

Dough-mixer which nicely blends the yeast into the dough and makes it a nice gooey ball for pizza base

The veggies counter from where you can pick and choose what you want as toppings on your pizza

Chef Srinivasan who works 12 hours and who loves doing that consistently every day at PR

Fossil (Fazil Badruddin - another food blogger) and (Natarajan Nagarajan) the watchdog of CFG who rips of restaurants if he doesn't like anything).

The Caesar Salad which Nag prepared with instructions from the Master Chef

This one turned out not so good for the liking of people as the coddled egg smell was so strong and was a put-off but the taste was good and was swiped clean

All-mix veg and non-veg salad which I prepared on my own with different sauces and turned yummy

That's me posing with the Pizza box with the how/what to order list stuck to it.

 

You are given a pencil to tick the options you want to choose and hand it over to the guys at the counter. 

The Chef works on each pizza in the order of boxes, his hands work the magic of toppings and then pushes it into the oven.

Here is the output of some simple, fresh and easy picking work done by you and the chef

Verdict..sheer awesomeness. This photo courtesy of this pizza goes to (Fazil - I guess) was so busy eating that I forgot to click any pics. Also, this place has become a Saturday evening hangout place for many of us.

The pizza is not just fresh but also pocket friendly and a 9" would cost not more than 200/- inspite of adding many toppings. Add another 100 and you can convert it to a 12" yumminess



Location: Ask for Ascendas IT park. Its the first left after Tidel/Tiruvanmiyur MRT station signal junction and within 100 mtrs on to your left you will find the Copper Chimney building and to the corner is Pizza Republic.

If a democrat won in the US, it is a republican who won the hearts in Chennai. Ramki hats-off to you for pulling this off

What are you waiting for.. go ahead and enjoy the yummy fresh and economical pizza of Chennai. Yeah hai asli pizza re public